The Nightmare Dilemma

10 Mind Games

Paul Kirkwood returned to Arkwell the very next day. I spotted him walking down the cafeteria hallway before breakfast. At first I didn’t recognize the tall boy with the short-cropped blond hair and lean, serious face. Then it struck me, and I pictured a ponytail and flyaway hairs on the boy’s head. Of course they would’ve shaved his head in jail. In some matters, magickind liked to emulate the ways of the ordinary world.

I stumbled to a halt, limbs numb. Paul’s eyes locked on mine, and my heart seemed to plunge into my stomach. For a second, I hoped he didn’t recognize me. We were still so far away; I must look different, too. But recognition lit his expression. He didn’t smile or wave. He froze in place as if seeing me was as much a shock to him as it was to me.

I ripped my gaze away from him, spun on my heel, and darted into the girl’s restroom. My heart had clambered up my throat now, my pulse a flurry of beating wings beneath my breastbone. I wasn’t ready for this. I didn’t think I would ever be ready.

I turned to the nearest sink, twisted on the cold water, and splashed my face. At least I didn’t have to worry about smearing my makeup. I wasn’t wearing any. It had been well past midnight by the time I returned to my dorm, and I’d barely slept afterward. When I woke this morning, I was too tired for mascara.

I looked down at my outfit, a hastily donned long-sleeved T-shirt of a colorless gray and a pair of loose-fitting jeans over sneakers. I couldn’t face Paul looking like this. Why hadn’t anyone warned me he would be here? A girl needed the right clothes, let alone makeup, to face her murderous apprentice ex-boyfriend with any kind of confidence.

For a second, I thought I might be sick, but then the door opened behind me, and Selene’s voice said, “Dusty?”

I faced her, feeling considerably calmer in her presence.

She frowned at the sight of me, her lower lip sticking out in something close to a pout. “You’re not seriously going to let him affect you like that, are you?”

I swallowed guiltily and then felt a flicker of anger. Both at her for pointing out my weakness and at me for letting it happen. She was right. The more I allowed him to bother me, the more he won. I refused to let him.

Tugging down the end of my shirt, I stood up straight, raising my head high. “No, I’m not.”

Selene bared her perfect teeth in a smile. “Well, good. Because Eli and Paul are about to get in a fight. Which might not be too helpful in your get-him-to-trust-you quest.”

“What?”

I stormed past her, the sound of raised voices beyond the door registering in my ears. I had to push my way through a wall of bodies as I exited the restroom. It seemed every student in my year and probably several others had gathered in the hallway to witness the fight.

Only Eli and Paul weren’t fighting. Not yet. As I broke through the crowd, I saw them circling each other like a pair of teenaged lions. Eli had stripped down to a T-shirt, and the muscles in his forearms bulged in and out as he clenched and unclenched his fists.

Across from him, Paul held his ground, his hands fisted, too, but his expression less intense than Eli’s. He looked resigned to the fight, rather than hungry for it.

Eli was hungry though, his face livid, eyes narrowed to pinpricks. But I knew he wouldn’t strike first. It went against his code.

But from the look of it, he would be waiting a long time. That was unless magic became a factor. Worried, I searched Paul up and down for a wand or staff. He wore a thick silver band on his left hand, and I guessed that was it, hidden by a glamour. I couldn’t believe the Magi Senate would deny him his computers but allow him access to magic.

I looked around, wondering where the Will Guard was, but I couldn’t see beyond the crowd.

“I don’t want any trouble with you.” The sound of Paul’s voice went through me like a lightning strike, setting my nerve endings afire. I knew it so well. The memory of the way he’d sounded that last time, when he used his siren powers to try and force me to serve Marrow, haunted me.

I shut my eyes and counted to three, forcing those memories away. Then I opened them again, trying to figure out what to do next.

“I don’t care what you want.” Eli stepped forward and Paul retreated. He kept his head down, almost in submission, but I caught the hard glint in his eyes. He was doing everything he could to keep his temper in check.

“You’re a liar and a backstabber and a killer,” Eli went on. “You killed Rosemary Vanholt. You tried to kill Dusty and Selene and me.”

Paul’s head shot up, the wary weakness of a moment before gone. “I didn’t kill Rosemary.”

Eli spat. “You helped.”

The crowd murmured around us, people hungry for such juicy tidbits.

“And I would never hurt Dusty.” Paul’s gaze flickered to my face for a second, and I flinched. When his expression darkened, I knew that he’d seen it.

Great, way to rock the femme fatale, Dusty.

“Don’t you dare look at her.” Eli spoke each word slowly, deliberately. I could tell he was on the verge of exploding, and I knew it was all because of how much Paul had hurt me.

But I couldn’t let him take this any further. What Paul had done didn’t matter anymore. Only what he would do next.

I stepped forward, forcing my way in between them. I placed a hand flat against Eli’s chest and pushed. “Leave him be.”

Eli didn’t budge. For a moment, I didn’t think he’d heard me at all. I pushed again, this time, digging my fingers in a little. Eli’s gaze shifted from Paul to me. A sound like a hiss escaped his throat.

“Stay out of it, Dusty.” He grabbed my hand and pushed it away, his touch gentle even in his anger.

I steeled my resolve. “No.” This time I shoved him with both hands, forcing him to take a step backward to maintain his balance. “Leave him alone.”

Eli’s mouth fell open. “Why are you defending him?”

“I…” My voice trailed off as I wracked my brains for an explanation. The dozens of people watching us were listening so loudly I could almost hear their ears straining. I tried to plead with him with my eyes, to convey to him that it was a secret I would share with him later, but he wasn’t looking at me. He kept his gaze trained on Paul, his body braced for an attack.

“You don’t want to do this,” I said, grasping for any words that would do. “You’ve been in enough trouble lately. And he hasn’t done anything.” Yet, I thought but didn’t say.

Eli’s hands dropped to his side, his expression incredulous. “I can’t believe you can say that after all he did.”

I took a deep breath, hating the betrayal in Eli’s voice that I was standing against him on this, of all things. But I’d given Lady Elaine my word. “Everybody deserves a second chance. Even him.” I managed to sound sincere, even to my ears. It helped that I wasn’t looking at Paul directly.

Eli didn’t respond for several long, strained seconds. From somewhere behind me, I heard the arrival of the Will Guard, loud voices shouting for people to break it up.

“I guess we’ll see about that,” Eli said at last. Then he turned and strode away, his back so rigid, his muscles might’ve been made of iron.

I watched him go, my throat tight with a dozen nameless emotions. I should’ve warned him last night when I had the chance.

Sorry, he had said.

I guess we both were now.

I turned toward Paul, trying to think of something to say, but nothing came to me. There was still too much between us. I walked past him without a word. I’d done enough for one day.

I knew I needed to explain things to Eli, but by the time I’d gone through the breakfast line, he’d already decided to sit at Lance’s table. It wasn’t the first time he’d chosen to sit there instead of with Selene and me—he did it fairly often, maintaining his friendships as it were—but this morning I knew his motivation wasn’t so diplomatic. I couldn’t bring myself to go over there, not with Katarina sitting across from him. I decided it best to give him some time to cool off first.

I sat down with Selene, determined to ignore Eli completely for now. This proved especially hard as Selene failed to provide much distraction. She was too sleepy for a deep conversation as she kept yawning around bites of her fruit and yogurt parfait. When I’d come in last night she was still awake and only just changing into her pajamas. I didn’t bother asking what she’d been doing. I had a pretty good feeling she wouldn’t tell me. Selene could be private to a fault. Nothing could make her spill her secrets until she was ready.

With little else to do, I pulled out my eTab and switched it on. The animation-resistant personal tablet responded quickly, the home screen appearing a second later. It was the one piece of electronic equipment I owned that wasn’t temperamental, and therefore I loved it. I stroked my fingers across the rune mark engravings around the edge of the screen with undisguised affection.

I checked my e-mail first. The only new one was from Lady Elaine. I opened it with a surge of trepidation that proved anticlimactic. The e-mail informed me that Paul would be starting classes tomorrow (read: today) and that I should be prepared. Yeah, way to get the message through on time there, Ms. I Can Predict the Future. It also included his new class schedule so that I could stalk him more conveniently.

Even better.

Closing down my e-mail, I opened an e-net window and typed in a search for the Terra Tribe. Might as well do something useful. I didn’t expect to find much—the Magi Senate censored all questionable material on the enchantment-net—but in seconds I spotted a link to a page on Spellbook, the magickind equivalent of Facebook. I clicked on it. The info page for the Terra Tribe popped up on the screen with this basic information:

Group: Student Organization

Interest: Changing the world

Membership: Private

Frowning, I clicked on the JOIN button. A pop-up message asked me if I wanted to send a request to join the Terra Tribe, and I clicked yes. Then another message displayed saying the request had been sent. That was it.

Disappointed by my lack of progress, I looked up Oliver Cork’s Spellbook page. The Terra Tribe was listed as one of his interests, and when I perused his friends page, I came across Britney’s profile in the S section. I clicked on it and read through the information. She and I were already friends, so everything was visible to me, including all the messages on her wall telling her to get better soon. I scrolled through, alarmed by the hostile tone in some of them. Several people threatened bodily harm to whoever had attacked her while others blamed various darkkinds and even some witchkinds.

I stopped reading when the screen had to refresh and closed the window, a leaden weight settling across my shoulders. If Marrow’s supporters were behind the building unrest among the kinds, they were doing a great job. Arkwell was becoming a decidedly scary place to be. I supposed a lot of ordinary students felt the same when it came to school shootings and having to walk through metal detectors to get to class. The difference at Arkwell was that our weapons couldn’t be screened anymore, not with The Will gone. And so far the Will Guard hadn’t proved much more effective than your average rent-a-cop.

I put the eTab away and focused on breakfast, trying not to worry about the things beyond my control. It wasn’t like I could go back in time and undo what had happened with Marrow.

When the bell rang for homeroom, I peered over at Lance’s table, wondering if Eli was still too pissed to walk with me. Not only did I want to explain about Paul, but I wanted to know if he’d learned anything more about what happened to Lance. I believed that Eli hadn’t cursed him, but somebody had. Who? And why?

Under different circumstances, I would’ve considered Lance a suspect. Eli had said that Lance wasn’t in the dorm room when he’d gone to bed the night Britney was attacked. And it was possible Lance had seen the note and gone down there. Hell, he even had a possible motive of revenge for the bloom-and-grow spell fiasco in alchemy. But none of that explained how he’d been cursed, and I was certain he wasn’t faking it. Lance had too much ego to go around looking like that much of a train wreck on purpose. Not to mention the evidence in Selene’s detection spell, and the fact that he hadn’t been in Britney’s dream. I shook my head. None of it made sense.

Eli’s answer came through loud and clear as he darted for the door without so much as a sideways look at me.

Crap. I should’ve plucked up my courage and apologized, Katarina or no. Now I would have to wait until lunchtime, trusting in the cafeteria noise to make sure we weren’t overheard. Sighing, I said goodbye to Selene then headed for homeroom.

As I suspected, Eli avoided me through first and second. I contemplated writing him a note explaining things in third period, but the lecture that day proved too distracting—we’d finally gotten around to the sinking of Atlantis and how it had triggered the first War of the Kinds.

When the bell sounded for the end of third period, Mr. Corvus called Eli’s name, asking him to stay behind. I glanced at the teacher, suspicious for no good reason beyond curiosity. I lowered my gaze and started slowly packing up my things. I contemplated dropping the contents of my folder on the floor for an excuse to linger even longer.

Before I could, I heard Corvus clear his throat in my direction. “Your detention isn’t until this afternoon, Miss Everhart.”

I jumped at the sound of my name, and I whipped my head toward him. He gave me a knowing look. I was tempted to say something smart, but my courage wavered at the idea of even more detention, and I hurried up and left the room.

Eli missed lunch, not showing up again until halfway through our psionics class afterward. Psionics is the study of mind magic, and this quarter we were studying telepathy. Our new teacher Mr. Deverell, who’d taken the position a few months ago when my mom left for England, asked us to break off into partners to work through some of the basic exercises. With an uneven number in class today, I ended up practicing with the teacher.

Not that I minded. Mr. Deverell was young, and even though I swore I would never say such a thing about a teacher, super-hot. In his early twenties at most, he had shoulder-length dirty-blond hair and pale hazel eyes that looked like two pieces of polished river rock. He hailed from somewhere down south, but his accent was slight, just enough of a drawl to be attractive. The first moment he spoke, every girl in the class went gaga. Except for me, of course. I managed to internalize all my gaga. Well, mostly. If you didn’t count the drooling.

“What’s on this one?” Mr. Deverell asked, holding up a flashcard across from me with the picture hidden from sight.

I focused my gaze on it, while I took deep, even breaths, trying to achieve the proper concentration necessary to see the image reflected in Mr. Deverell’s mind. Yeah, I’d have better luck trying to see through mud. The harder I pushed the murkier it became. Then finally, something did appear in my mind, but I knew without a doubt it wasn’t the image on the card. It was the plinth with its hidden word. I clenched my teeth, forcing the image away.

“You can do this, Dusty,” Deverell said in response to my struggle. In his accent, my name sounded surprisingly sexy. He made it easy to understand why so many romance novels were about cowboys.

Concentrate. Concentrate. Oh, screw it. “Apple,” I said, settling on the first random image to occur to me. I’d heard someone a few desks down say the same thing a moment ago and figured it was worth a shot.

An amused smile broke across Deverell’s face as he shook his head. “Sorry. You were close though.” He flipped the card over, revealing a purple ball.

“Yeah, sure. Similar shape anyway.”

“Yes indeed.” He motioned to the cards lying on the table between us. “Whenever you’re ready.”

I pulled off the topmost card and examined the image of an orange triangle. I slowed my breathing once more and tried to project the picture outward so Mr. Deverell could see it, but the image of the plinth forced its way to the front of my mind again. For a second, it was so powerful that I almost forgot where I was, the desire to discover the hidden word as strong as ever.

“Dusty?” Mr. Deverell said, his voice breaking through my distraction. “Are you all right?”

With an effort I looked up at him. I tried to smile. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

Deverell stared at me, unblinking. “That image, the stone pedestal, what is it?”

I felt the color leave my cheeks. I hadn’t meant for him to see. What’s wrong with me? “It’s nothing,” I said, trying to make my voice as light as possible. I shrugged. “Just something I dreamed about last night.”

Mr. Deverell leaned back in his chair and scratched his chin. “It didn’t seem like nothing. It seemed like a—” He broke off and turned his gaze to the doorway. “I think Mr. Booker is about to arrive, and if I’m not mistaken, he will be able to take my place.”

Confused, and wishing he’d finished his comment, I turned my gaze to the front of the room just as Eli appeared. He was carrying a wand. His wand. He held it in one hand, the tip pointed to the ground as if it were a knife he feared stabbing someone with accidentally. The class fell silent, all eyes following Eli as he crossed the room toward Mr. Deverell and handed him a note. Deverell read it quickly, looking delighted.

“Congratulations,” he said, folding the note. “Let’s see it then.”

Eli held up the wand, a dazed expression on his face as if he couldn’t believe it was his. It wasn’t much to look at, hardly more than a short stick of dirt-brown wood polished smooth, but I understood his awe completely.

“Very nice,” said Deverell.

I smiled my agreement, but I couldn’t help but notice that not everyone in the class looked happy. Travis Kelly in particular wore an expression that was borderline hostile. I started to glare at him, but Mr. Deverell’s voice distracted me.

“Back to work, everyone,” he said, addressing the class. He returned his attention to Eli and gave him a quick summary of the task at hand.

Eli nodded and sat down across from me. Deverell clapped him on the back and then walked away to observe the rest of the class.

“It’s awesome,” I said, indicating the wand, which Eli had set on the table in front of him. He picked it up, set it down, and picked it up again.

“Thanks. You first.” He motioned to the cards with his wand. It seemed clumsy in his large hands.

Wincing at his curt tone, I picked up the next card and went through the focusing process again. This time when the image of the plinth rose up I was able to squash it down. Eli stared at the back of the card for several minutes, his fingers clutched tight around the wand.

He surprised me when he answered. “It’s a rectangle.”

“What color?”

“Um … yellow, I think.”

I turned the card over, showing him he was right. A half smile lifted one side of his lips. I returned it with a full one, hoping he was getting over our argument this morning. The situation with Paul would be hard enough without Eli so against it. We might’ve stepped into troubled water with the kissing last night, but we were friends first. I wanted his support.

I pushed the cards nearer him and waited as he selected the one on top. Then I focused again, trying to pull the image from his mind. To my surprise a picture formed behind my eyes of something with several pointed edges. I concentrated harder, willing the blurriness away.

“It’s a pentagram. Blue.”

“Yep.” Eli flipped the card over.

It got easier as we went along. He answered the next two correctly and in half the time. He missed the third, but it was mostly my fault. He’d interrupted my concentration when he leaned across the table and whispered, “Lady Elaine told me about you and Paul and the trouble in the senate.”

I frowned. “Why did she tell you?”

“She found out what happened this morning and was worried I would mess things up.”

Yes, that sounded like Lady Elaine. So he knew the truth, but he was still upset about it.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier.”

“It’s okay.”

Not knowing what to say next, I returned my attention to the picture of the wooden rowboat. The image was more complicated than the ones before, harder to project, especially with the plinth still lingering in the back of my mind.

Eli rolled the wand through his fingers, his focus on me and not the card. “You don’t have to do it, you know. You could say no.”

My grip on the card slipped, and it fell to the table, picture side up. “But I can’t. They need my help.”

Eli reached forward and laid his hand on mine as I went to pick up the card. “They can do it without you. We should focus on the dreams. That’ll uncover the truth far faster.” He paused. “And safer.”

The idea was tempting. It really was. Except, we both knew that reading dreams was no easy task. The answers didn’t just reveal themselves. Not unless it was too late to make a difference.

Reluctantly, I pulled away from his touch. “The dreams won’t be enough. If they were, Lady Elaine would never have asked me in the first place.”

Eli pinned me with his blue eyes. “But Paul’s put you in danger before. You should stay away from him.”

I sighed. “I can’t.” Eli started to argue further, but I cut him off. “I won’t.”

His mouth fell open then closed again with an audible clack. The bell rang a moment later, and Eli got up and walked away without another word.