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“Okay, okay, I get it. You’re not big on personal space.” Taly tripped on a loose stone. Her words spilled out in a frantic rush. “We can talk this out, right? No need to, uh... eat me. We can have a conversation, a discourse—very civilized.”

Her feet stuck, as if rooted to the ground. “Shit.” She kicked, but her boots wouldn’t move. Reaching down, she tore at the laces. “Look, I—I don’t know what you want from me. Well, that’s not true. It’s been 251 years since you had a meal. But I’m stringy. Tough. Barely worth the effort.”

The creature’s beauty was a thing of legends—too perfect, too sharp.

Taly slipped out of her boots and managed to gain a few steps, only for her bare feet to stick next.

A wave of paralysis crept up her legs. She jerked, twisted, but it was pointless.

It was time to wake up now. Taly pinched her arm, bit her tongue, but there was no pain here.

She drove a fist toward her chest—but instead of paper, she hit bone.

She summoned her dagger, flipping it the moment it came into her hand, ready to cut out her heart if that’s what it took to exit this nightmare.

But the blade went spinning out of her hands the next moment. It flew into the darkness, swallowed by the dream as if it had never existed.

“No,” Taly whispered, her hand still outstretched, trembling. She tried to summon it back, but—nothing. The spacewhere the weapon had been felt empty, hollow, like the dream had stolen more than just steel. It had taken her salvation.

The creature was in front of her now. Her mind scrambled for comparisons—an angel carved from marble, a queen sculpted from dread terror, a goddess stepped out of the pages of Azura’s old warnings. Nothing fit. She had no name for this creature. No idea how to fight it.

Its shadow swallowed her whole. Just like she would soon be swallowed.

Taly braced herself, eyes squeezed shut, and waited for death to claim her.

Chapter 48

The bond was like a door between their minds. One that could be opened, closed, or left ajar.

If it was open, Skye could’ve walked right to her. But, right now, it was closed. Firmly. Just like it had been all week.

Luckily, he didn’t need the bond to track her.

Skye moved through the halls, his senses narrowing on the faint thread of Taly’s scent. It was stronger now, more immediate, cutting through the other smells of the house—wood smoke, furniture wax, faint traces of rain.

He stopped outside Sarina’s door, where it was strongest.

He didn’t bother knocking. And Sarina didn’t look surprised to see him.

A fireplace dominated one wall, its hearth carved from dark stone veined with red and gold, as though the flames had seeped into the rock itself. The light danced across the room, casting shadows on walls lined with dark mahogany shelves holding an eclectic mix of worn tomes and polished trinkets that glinted in the firelight.

A pair of deep, high-backed armchairs flanked the fireplace, their crimson upholstery worn at the edges but still plush and inviting. Sarina sat in her usual place to the right, the mimic, in his smaller form, snuggled into her lap.

Both looked up to greet him. “Well, that didn’t take as long as I was hoping,” Sarina said, idly petting the mimic’s head.

The door to her bedroom—one of the few in the house where he hadn’t installed a dreamspindle, hadn’t thought there was any need—was shut. That’s where Taly’s scent led.

Without breaking stride, he made for it.

“Skye,” Sarina said, calm but firm. “Don’t even think about it.”

“Don’t fuck with me right now, Sarina,” he said, his hand already reaching for the door handle.

The moment his fingers grazed the metal, flames erupted from the doorframe, bright and sharp, forcing him to yank his hand back with a curse. The fire flickered, unnatural and contained, licking at the edges of the door but leaving it unscorched.

Sarina’s fingers moved absently through the mimic’s sleek fur. His tail flicked lazily, those strange blue eyes smug and satisfied. “You might be grown now, but don’t youdaretake that tone with me, young man.”

“You don’t understand,” he insisted. “Taly’s in danger!”