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Mother glared at her, and for a brief moment, fear rippled over me at the coldness in her eyes, but her hardened expression cleared so quickly I wondered if I’d only imagined it.

“This is the only path left to you,” Mother said. “The Dream Realm has left you no other choice.”

It had…and yet I still hesitated, torn from the path I wanted to walk and the only one available to me. Stardust nudged against me, her eyes pleading. “You’re not like her. You don’t have to do this. There has to be another choice.”

Another pinprick of doubt pierced my mind at her words, like a sliver of sun breaking through a stormy sky. Gentle reminders whispered in my thoughts—my fierce yearning to prove I belonged in the Dream World, the only place that truly felt like home; the sweet joy at seeing Maci sleep peacefully after I’d succeeded in weaving a pleasant dream; and the fear that crept over me when I’d hovered near the border of the Nightmare Realm. Was the Dreamer path still open for me after all?

I immediately suppressed these doubts, locking them in the same place in my heart I’d reserved for Darius. Mother was right: continuing to try to belong in the Dream World was like forcing a square peg into a round hole. I’d never fit in, no matter how hard I tried. Despite all my efforts, the unjust Council had rejected me and my magic, and now only one world remained open to me, a world which promised to accept me just as I was. There was no other way.

“You can’t do this.” A fierce desperation filled Stardust’s voice at my continued silence. “We’ll come up with a plan to clear your name with the Council. Please, Eden.”

But I’d already traveled that road and knew it only led to dead ends. “No, Stardust. I can’t keep fighting who I truly am.”

Stardust gaped at me, as if I’d mutated into a different person. “But the Council took all your dream dust. How can you live in the Nightmare Realm without any magic?”

An idea slithered into my mind as I clutched my locket, a conniving and wonderful idea that would act as the first step in my revenge against the world that had rejected me.

“I’ll simply get more. Whenever I capture a dream, the magic used to create it becomes mine. I have an infinite supply of power.”

“But that’s stealing,” Stardust murmured. “And you’re not a thief.”

I no longer cared. My path in the Nightmare Realm unfolded before me, stepping stone by stepping stone, leaving no doubt that this was the journey I needed to take. I’d only begun discovering the potential of my amazing abilities, a magic nobody else possessed. I would soon be unstoppable.

An infinite number of dreams waiting to be explored and captured lay ahead.

*~End of Book One~*