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Trinity laughed airily. “Oh Eden, just because we’re Nightmares doesn’t mean we don’t care about Dreamers. In fact, we’d be doing your partner a favor. Most Nightmares want to win on merit, not because the competition is skewed in their favor.” She lightly touched my arm, her look sympathetic. “We heard your partner requested to switch from his Mortal in order to crush you. Egotistical snob.”

Apprehension prickled my skin. “You’re acquainted with Darius?”

“Everyone knows of the Head Nightmare’s son who runs around doing her dirty work,” Trinity said. “He could use some humbling.”

My heart thumped wildly. This was wrong. I stepped away, severing our contact. “I appreciate the gesture, but I have to decline.”

For a brief moment Trinity’s eyes flashed and Blaze’s jaw tightened, but both looks cleared in an instant, so quickly I wasn’t sure they’d been there at all.

Trinity shrugged. “Suit yourself. If you ever change your mind and realize how much you need our help, the offer still stands.”

The Nightmares walked away, Blaze slipping his hand into Trinity’s before they disappeared around the corner.

Chapter 18

“You metwho?”

We sat crammed in Angel’s corner of the Nature Artist studio, which was in a swirl of preparation for the approaching spring. In one corner, Nature Artists prepared tunes for the birds to sing, while in another they bustled about gathering swaths of additional daylight.

In Angel’s section she’d propped a canvas splashed with various sunset designs against her teetering easel, while nearby she worked on a half-finished cloud sculpture she was carving for the Mortals, which at the moment failed to resemble a shape any normal Mortal would be able to decipher in a sky full of cumulus clouds. Angel chipped away at it with a strange aggression, which only increased as she listened to my account of my encounter with Blaze and Trinity, as if each bit of cloud she chiseled away was an attack on her weaving partner.

I sat cross-legged on a box stuffed to the brim with sketches of cloud sculpture designs and carving tools, surrounded by weaving books stacked in miniature leaning towers and shrouds of messily tailored cloth, my failed attempts to duplicate the stitches the books tried in vain to teach.

“Two Nightmares were in the Dream Library,” I explained for the second time. “They claimed they were there for a book to aid their nightmares.”

Iris shook her head from where she sat squished between jars of gold and ruby paint. “But Nightmares rarely come into our realm, and we don’t go into theirs.”

“Is it forbidden?”

“No,” she said slowly. “Other than in and around the Academy, there’s just no reason for it.”

Angel gnawed her lip. “Are you certain one of them was Blaze?” Her hands tightened over her tools as I nodded. “Thatnightmare. Creating a dream-like nightmare to beat my masterpieces. I’ll show him. I’ll plan a dream so intense that even if he used all the nightmare flowers in the Universe…”

She pounded her chisel so furiously she knocked away a huge chunk of cloud, but she didn’t seem to notice or care as she whacked her statue with a string of steady curses under her breath.

Before today I'd always considered Angel a bit overdramatic whenever she griped about her weaving partner, but now it was different. Darius had never made me feel quite like Blaze had—as if he himself was a walking bad dream.

Iris frowned. “I’m surprised he was in the Dream Realm to study. I thought you won most of your Weavings because Blaze spent more time with his Pair than he did preparing.”

Angel finally abandoned her cloud statue—which now sadly resembled nothing more than a lumpy, indiscernible shape—and turned to scowl at the sunset she was painting on her easel. She tugged out the paintbrush stored in her magenta bun.

“Iusedto always win, but lately Blaze seems to be winning an uncanny amount. He must be cheating, and your finding him in the Dream Library proves it.”

I immediately thought of Darius’s undefeated streak. Perhaps my constant losing hadn’t been entirely my fault. “How could Weavers cheat?” Guilt seeped over me the moment I asked. There was still much about Darius I didn’t know, but one thing was certain: he was no cheater.

Angel glanced around to be sure no one was listening before leaning forward. “There are certain rumors going around about an illegal market,” she said in a hushed whisper. “It’s a place where forbidden plants not cultivated in the fields are exchanged for dream dust.”

“That’s merely gossip,” Iris said. “Growing a flower that forces a win is impossible. What sensory detail could possibly be that strong?”

“There are rumors that it’s not a sensory detail at all but anemotion, which is why such a flower would be forbidden, and Blaze is sinister enough to find a way to get hold of it.”

Iris raised a skeptical brow. “Then wouldn’t he have used it to win Weavings before now?”

“Who’s to say he hasn’t?” Angel demanded. “The Investigations Team’s latest theory on how the mysterious thefts are occurring is that certain plants from the illegal market could be stealing the magic from the Weaver’s partner. If Blaze has such a powerful plant at his disposal, it wouldn’t matter whether or not he won the Weaving, so long as he receives the dream’s magic in the end.”

Chills prickled my skin at the mention of the dream dust thefts. “Has more of your dream dust been stolen?”

Angel splattered her paint as she spun on me. “Yes. This is the third time this week, always shortly after my Weaving, and yet the Council still won’t suspend Blaze.”