The Nightmare Dilemma

20 A New Client

I texted Paul six times that night when Selene and I finally got back to Arkwell. I said the same thing in each one:

We need to talk.

He ignored them all.

I turned in around midnight, plugging in my cell and setting it beside my pillow. Even with the juice pumping to it, the stupid thing would probably shut itself off before morning. But in case it didn’t, I wanted to hear any incoming text messages. I had a feeling Paul wouldn’t ignore me forever.

I was right as sometime later, my phone chimed. I blinked the sleep out of my eyes and stared at the screen.

We will. Soon. I promise.

Irritated by the short, useless message, I tossed the cell onto the floor. It beeped at me in protest then fell silent—turned off at last, no doubt. I rolled over and fell back into a fitful sleep.

I dreamed of the plinth again. The urgency to learn that word was stronger than ever. Even inside the madness of the dream, I seemed to understand that I must finish uncovering it soon. Everything depended on it.

I scraped and clawed and dug until all the skin on my hands was torn away, leaving the bones exposed.

By the end of it, I’d uncovered the next two letters—L L.

B E L L

I woke the next morning with the image of those four letters burned inside my brain. BELL. What did it mean? Was it something obvious, like a literal bell?

Only, there were still four more hidden letters. BELL was just the first part of a larger word. Of course, it was possible the word didn’t mean anything at all. I had no idea if the subject of a block held any significance. It could be something random and stupid, the mental equivalent of an earworm.

I sighed and got out of bed. It was time to take Mr. Deverell up on his offer. I still harbored reservations about someone else learning the word, but if the person behind Britney’s attack wanted the dream-seers out of the picture, then there must be something big coming. And given that small glimpse we’d seen in the Senate Hall dream, it would be all kinds of bad. I needed to get my dream-mojo working correctly again.

In the meantime, there was Paul to focus on. Remembering my discarded phone, I picked it up from where it had fallen beside my bed. Surprise, surprise—it was turned off. I hit the POWER button and then stuffed it into my pocket, knowing it would take a good five minutes to turn back on.

“I’m heading down now,” I said to Selene, who was still getting dressed. She nodded, her face expressionless and her eyes red and rimmed with dark spots. I tried to think of something to say to make her feel better, but I knew only time and finding the bad guy would be able to do that.

More determined than ever, I marched out the door and down to the cafeteria. My phone chimed from inside my pocket halfway there. It was from Paul and had arrived around three this morning. I tried to read the text but couldn’t. Half of the letters had been replaced with symbols.

Ugh, of all the times for the animation phenomenon on it to worsen.

Afraid I would crash into something if I attempted to decipher it while walking the hallway, I returned the cell to my pocket and hurried to the cafeteria. Eli beamed at me from across the room the moment I arrived, his eyes lighting up. He waved me over, quite unnecessarily—as if I would go anywhere else.

“How are you?” Eli said as I reached the table. He lifted the strap of my backpack and slid it from my shoulder, setting it down on the table for me.

I blinked up at him. “Um, I’m fine. What about you?”

“Just glad you’re all right.” He squeezed my shoulder.

As I sat down, I realized he must’ve heard about what had happened at Vejovis. I wondered who told him. Selene and I had gotten back far too late to tell him in person and it wasn’t something I’d wanted to send in an e-mail.

“What all do you know?” I asked as he took the spot right next to me, near enough that I could feel the heat of his body. I thrilled at his closeness even as unsettling memories of our last kiss and its disastrous non-results afterward came over me. I did my best to ignore them and retrieved a pencil and notebook from my bag.

“Most of it,” Eli said. “Lady Elaine filled me in last night right after they came and took Lance to Vejovis to try and figure out what’s wrong with him.”

I froze midway through pulling my cell out of my pocket. “They took him to the hospital?”

“Sure, where else?”

“I dunno. Maybe somewhere safe.”

Eli grinned, a dimple appearing on one cheek. “Could it be you’re starting to care whether Lance Rathbone lives or dies? Miracles and wonders abound.”

“Shut up.” I returned my attention to the message on the screen. Deciphering it was going to be a lot harder than I thought.

After a moment Eli asked, “What are you doing?”

I scrunched up my nose. “Trying to decode a text message.”

He snorted. “I told you that thing needs to be replaced.”

“Yeah, well, my birthday’s not until September.”

“I know,” Eli said. “September first.”

I glanced at him, surprised. I couldn’t remember us ever talking about when my birthday was, but the fact that he knew made my insides tingle. “Right.” I forced my gaze back to the cell.

“Who’s it from?” Eli leaned over me to look down at the screen, his chin brushing my shoulder. His breath tickled the side of my face, sending shivers down my neck. I resisted the urge to close my eyes and savor the feel. It was too risky—not knowing how Eli would react, not being certain if he felt the same. I stiffened at the reminder.

“Something wrong?” Eli said, his hand coming up to rest against my lower back.

I gaped at him, incredulous that he could be so clueless.

“What?” he said, frowning.

“Just … just don’t, okay?”

“Don’t what?” He cocked his head.

I clenched my teeth. Stupid handsome, confusing boy. “It’s just … hard to take you being all … touchy and stuff. Not after…” I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “After that kiss,” I blurted out.

Eli’s hand fell away from my back, and I opened my eyes to see him run his fingers through his hair hard enough to draw back the skin on his forehead. “Dusty, if you only…”

“What?” I said, shivering again. Even hearing him say my name made my body react in ways I couldn’t control.

“It’s just—”

He broke off as Selene arrived.

“What’s up?” she said, sitting down across from us.

I tried to smile, hoping she wouldn’t sense the tension—fat chance, of course, considering this was Selene. She looked between Eli and me, puzzling it out.

“I’m trying to figure out this text,” I said, before she had a chance to ask any probing questions. As much as I wanted to know what Eli was going to say, it needed to be a private conversation. I held up the phone. “It’s from Paul.”

“Awesome,” Eli said, putting a little distance between us.

Pretending not to notice, I examined the message and started making notes, decoding each word through simple trial and error.

Finally, I determined that it read: Meet me by my locker after first period. Alone.

“So what does it say?” Eli asked as I set the pencil down.

“Nothing. He just wants me to meet up with him after English.”

Eli cleared his throat, the sound suspiciously close to a growl.

I braced for him to tell me not to go, but he didn’t. Before I could wonder why, he changed the subject to what had happened to Britney. He wanted a blow-by-blow account, full of the details most people would’ve thought meaningless, but from which Eli was sometimes able to glean clues.

Selene and I told him what we could. When we finished, Eli spent a good five minutes in brooding silence while Selene and I focused on breakfast. The look on Eli’s face as he contemplated the details we’d given him could only be described as inward. He was present physically but checked out mentally, lost down whatever path his thoughts had taken him.

Finally, that inward look broke, and he picked up his goblet and took a drink.

“Well,” I said, “what did you figure out?”

Eli set down the goblet hard enough that milk sloshed over the side. “Not much, but at least we know where to start looking.”

“How so?” I knew better than to be skeptical. Eli had a knack for this detective stuff. He was the only person my age I knew who had a good idea of what he wanted to be when he grew up. I kind of envied him that. For me, I just wanted to survive the next two years of high school.

Eli tapped the table. “Britney. We’ve got to figure out what she was doing that got her caught up in all of this.”

“Yes, that makes sense,” Selene said.

Eli pointed a finger. It was crooked, bending inward at the last knuckle. “But that means the two of you need to ask Melanie about the Terra Tribe. I’ll give it a shot with Irene Stark. Between the two of them, we might figure out what the group is up to.”

Selene nodded. “I’ll see if Mellie can stop by the dorm tonight or tomorrow.”

The bell rang a few minutes later, and the three of us made our way to English class. I barely paid attention to Miss Norton’s impassioned lecture on Alexander Pope’s inappropriate characterization of sylphs in The Rape of the Lock. My thoughts kept returning to Paul as I wondered what he would have to say.

When class ended, though, I finally understood why Eli hadn’t protested.

“What are you doing?” I said as he made a right at the bottom floor of Finnegan Hall instead of the left that would take him to our second-period spell-casting class.

Eli’s brow furrowed. “Going with you.”

I sighed. “You can’t. We both know he won’t talk with you there.” As Eli started to protest I placed my palm against his chest, fingertips barely touching him. He sucked in a breath. The raw sound of it sent a quiver through my belly and down my legs, and I pulled my hand away. “I need you to run interference with Mr. Carbuncle. Make up some excuse if I’m late.”

As I started to leave Eli caught my wrist and turned me back toward him. “Paul’s dangerous, and you shouldn’t be alone with him.”

I pulled my hand free of his grasp, trying to strengthen my resolve. “It’s a hallway. Full of lockers and students. I won’t be alone.”

A muscle ticked in Eli’s jaw. “I promise I’ll behave.”

“Not trying to kill him isn’t exactly going to get him to talk.” I flashed him a bright smile. “I’ll be fine, Eli. And we both know how important this is.”

That muscle ticked twice as fast, but then his expression relaxed and he exhaled. “Okay. But if you’re more than five minutes past the bell, I’m coming after you.”

For one awful second, I was tempted to tell him that even if he did come to rescue me he wasn’t likely to succeed. Paul’s magic was strong and came to him naturally—something I’d learned in just the few short minutes after Marrow had broken The Will. But Eli was struggling with even the most basic spells. He didn’t have the same problem I did, with his magic being explosive and unruly. His was just weak, like a shower with low water pressure. It would be a no-contest.

But I didn’t say it, ashamed for even thinking it. I wanted the opposite for him—wanted him to be strong and capable. Why did magic have to be so complicated?

“All right,” I said. “But I wouldn’t even be in danger of being late if we weren’t wasting time arguing.”

He shooed at me. “Go on, my little red-haired Nancy Drew. Hurry up. Be careful.”

I grinned at him, and then turned and raced away, almost sprinting. I didn’t know how long Paul would wait for me.

Long enough, it seemed. He spotted me the moment I turned the corner into the hallway housing his locker. His eyes fixed on mine, his expression odd. He looked pleased to see me, but he was clearly trying to hide it. I slowed down, wanting to evaluate the situation.

Paul pulled his gaze off me, returning his attention to his locker. He started rummaging inside it. I approached him cautiously, my “Eli-instinct,” as I’d come to think of it, making me hyperaware of my surroundings. The hallway was crowded with other students, talking and switching out books. Nobody seemed to be paying any attention to me or the handsome boy with the shaved blond head.

Down at the end of the hallway, I spotted the red and black uniform of a Will Guard. I’d seen the big, gruff-looking dude before, but I had no idea of his name. I was just glad he wasn’t Captain Gargrave.

I stopped beside Paul’s locker and leaned against the one adjacent to it. “You wanted to see me?” I said, speaking low.

Paul nodded, not looking up. “Yes, but we can’t talk here.”

I frowned. “Why not?”

Paul turned his gaze to me for a second, and I saw how tense he was, like a bowstring pulled taut. “It’s not safe.”

I huffed and folded my arms, more afraid than I cared to admit but also annoyed by his clandestine behavior. I just wanted to know what was going on. Screw this runaround crap. “Don’t be so paranoid. It’s the middle of the day. We’re surrounded by people our age.”

“I’m serious.” Paul’s voice sounded close to a plea. “We have to be careful. Can you meet me after school in Coleville?”

My body temperature seemed to plummet ten degrees and gooseflesh erupted down my arms. I was starting to rethink convincing Eli to stay behind.

“You don’t have to come alone,” Paul said, the urgency in his voice giving way to something melancholy. “Bring Selene … or Eli, if you want. Whoever will make you feel safe being near me.”

I swallowed, guilt swelling in my chest for no good reason I could think of. Just the opposite. I had reason not to trust him. But why did I suddenly feel bad about it?

A smile twisted Paul’s lips. “Actually, bring them both. I’ve got a case for the Dream Team.”

“What?”

“Shhhhh.” Paul brushed a finger over his lip. “No details here. But everything later. I promise.”

I exhaled, both exhilarated and terrified at the same time. “Okay. We’ll come. But where?”

“My family crypt. Do you know it?”

I nodded. Of course I did. It was one of the largest structures in Coleville, and Rosemary Vanholt had been murdered less than twenty feet from its entrance. The connection there had never occurred to me before, but now that it did all the guilt I felt for not trusting Paul vanished in a second.

He must’ve sensed the change in my attitude, for he stiffened. “All right. Meet me there at seven tonight.” He swung his locker closed, gave me a final tentative smile, and then stalked away.

I watched him go, my feelings a big, jumbled mess inside me. I didn’t know it was possible for one person to feel so many contrary emotions at once. I decided it was a good thing he wanted the whole Dream Team to come tonight. Eli was right—being alone with Paul was dangerous.

For my sanity.