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“I’m always unhappy.”

“Is it because you miss Darius?”

I flinched at the sound of his name. The pain constantly gnawing at my heart only grew, Bolt’s inquiry stoking the flames. I couldn’t answer.

Bolt frowned. “Youdomiss him. Your separation is hurting you.”

“He’s not the only reason.” It was the closest I’d ever admitted—both to myself and to anyone else—the ever-present aching loss I pretended I didn’t feel.

“What else is making you unhappy?”

It’d be best not to share every reason with the spider lest they get back to Mother, but I couldn’t resist his imploring expression compelling me to sharesomething. “I hate the Nightmare Realm. It’s nothing but darkness and shadow.”

“You hate it here?” Bolt sounded utterly distraught.

My forehead furrowed at the surprising concern filling his soft, silky voice. Bolt had always been Darius’s companion, one who I knew very little about save for the occasional comments he’d made during our Weavings. Why would he care about my happiness or lack thereof?

“Why does it matter to you?” I asked.

“Because I want you to be happy,” Bolt said. “Ithoughtyou’d be. It’s the only reason I—” His expression twisted, cutting off his words.

“Reason you what?”

Bolt’s fangs gnawed at his lip as all eight of his eyes darted around the room, looking everywhere but at me.

“Tell me, Bolt. Please.”

He anxiously wrung his legs together before he took a steadying breath and he peeked nervously up at me. “My reason for—”

“There you are, you slippery spider.”

Mother appeared in the doorway. Bolt squeaked and immediately scurried away from me. Mother narrowed her eyes at him as he frantically scuttled towards her, as if he thought a hasty retreat would make the situation seem less suspicious.

Her eyes narrowed. “Why are you talking to Eden?”

“I—just wanted to see how she’s doing.”

Mother rolled her eyes. “She’s fine. Now leave.”

Bolt obeyed without a single glance back. I frowned after him, our unfinished conversation prickling my curiosity. Mother frowned after Bolt before turning her tight smile towards me.

“Excellent news, dear: now that you’ve replenished your magic, you can finally begin assisting me.”

My heart pounded in trepidation. “With what?”

“Increasing our magic even further.” A dark glint filled Mother’s eyes as she settled at the foot of my bed. “What primarily creates a winning dream?”

“A Mortal’s emotions,” I said.

“Exactly. Whichever dream generates the strongest emotions is the one that they remember the longest, resulting in its creator earning that dream’s power. Unfortunately, emotions only come from a Mortal as they dream, but can you imagine if we could find a way to harness those emotions and use them in the dream construction itself?”

Her expression brightened at the notion. My stomach knotted at the direction I anticipated this conversation going.

“But that’s impossible.” I regretted voicing my doubt at Mother’s fierce look of disapproval that followed. I withered beneath her glare.

“Such limited thinking, Eden. I must admit I’ve tried countless ways to grow emotions in my garden with repeated failure. Since I can’t seem to cultivate emotions, I need to find another way to get a hold of them. Then a brilliant idea occurred to me: where do Mortals generate their emotions?”

“Dreams,” I said in a monotone.