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“What an oversensitive, overemotional, overdramatic...” Blaze muttered. “What emotion is she feeling? Can you search her heart for it, dear?”

“If I can stomach her ridiculous weeping.” Trinity’s invasive searching slithered through me, poking and prodding my unprotected heart. “Despair. Over her stupid cloud? Pathetic.”

I curled up into a ball on the earthen floor, as if the act could protect me from their cruel disdain. Footsteps approached where I lay crumpled. I opened my eyes a sliver to find Mother’s shadow looming over me.

“Stop it, Eden; you’re too old to behave in such a way.”

I tried to still my sobs, but it was impossible to quell the tsunami of emotion washing over me, extra fierce after trying to force down my feelings for so long. Now I couldn’t contain the swell. It was too much, too powerful. This was why it was better not to feel; emotions were sheer torture.

At Mother’s sigh, I peeked up at her expression to find her looking annoyed. “What is the matter? Whatever the reason for your ridiculous crying is, it had better be good.”

I couldn’t speak. All the feelings I’d fought so hard to suppress—heartache, fear, hurt—had been unleashed from their heavily guarded prison, and I no longer had the strength to contain them. It wasn’t just Stardust’s sudden disappearance—it was losing the last one who’d believed in me. Her harsh words that I was a Nightmare after all made my imprisonment in this world all the more permanent. I’d now lost everything and would never be able to get it back.

“You foolish girl. Stop crying.Now.”

Mother’s piercing tone was as cold as ice, enough to temporarily numb the emotions raging through me. I contained myself just enough to peer timidly up at her.

“Stardust—” I managed through another strangled sob. Mother seized my shoulder in a sharp grip; the biting pain prevented my tears from escaping.

“Don’t you dare cry again. I refuse to put up with tantrums, especially from a grown girl like you. Now what about your stupid cloud?”

I flinched but still somehow managed to force the horrible truth past my tear-clogged throat. “Stardust...she—she—she left me.”

Saying the words out loud made them all the more real, and I would have started crying again if Mother’s hardened expression hadn’t trapped my sobs in my throat, stunning me into silence. Her disapproval transformed into glee. “How delightful.”

I gaped at her in disbelief. It only took a second or two before Mother’s delight melted away, but rather than softening into comfort, her expression twisted into annoyance. She sighed heavily, as if I was a great burden.

“Comets, Eden, are youstillcrying? Nightmares don’t cry, so stop it this instant.Stop it.”

It didn’t matter I wasn’tsupposedto cry; now that I’d started, it was impossible to contain my torrent of emotion, especially when Mother’s harsh tone and unsympathetic scolding only enhanced the storm swirling inside me. I hated myself for my weakness, hated the disgusted look twisting Mother’s expression. I witnessed her effort to soften her features and force on her motherly mask. She offered me a tight, sympathetic smile.

“Poor dear, you’re quite distressed, even if I don’t understand why.” She shook her head and crouched on her heels beside me to awkwardly pat my shoulder, which still throbbed from where she’d gripped it earlier. “I know you’re sad about this, uh,distressingevent now, dear, but soon you’ll come to realize how fortunate this is.”

“But she’s my friend,” I stuttered.

“Not a true friend,” she said. “Don’t you see, Eden? She’s been holding you back from your true potential, which makes her not a friend at all. And you’ve forced her to remain in a world she finds uncomfortable, making you not a true friend to her either. This separation will be for the best for both of you. Now that she’s left, there’s no more silly Dream Realm creatures weighing you down, and we can get you a new cloud, one more suited to your true self. My treat. We’ll go tomorrow after you sleep off these unnatural, irrational emotions. Alright, Eden?”

She stroked my hair in that familiar way of hers. While normally this gesture would have soothed me, now it did nothing, especially as it felt as if Mother was merely going through the motions, as if her gesture wasn’t to comfort but merely to stop my ridiculous crying. This thought only cracked my already wounded heart further.

Yet even so, I ached for her comfort, to feel something warm, soft, and good,anythingother than this constant ache. I was tired of the emptiness, of the pain. It was wearying, suffocating.

But no matter how much I yearned for it, comfort and joy never came; no light ever did. Not in the Nightmare Realm, not even when I turned to my own Mother.

This realization made me feel more alone and hopeless than ever.

Chapter 9

“How about this one?”

I stared at the cloud in question until I detected a flaw—its grey coloring perfectly matched that of a storm cloud, as gloomy as everything else in the Nightmare Realm. “Not enough color. Stardust was vibrant.”

It had taken an entire week for me to realize that Stardust had truly abandoned me and likely wouldn’t return. The pain from this realization had been so consuming I’d been distracted in my weavings, causing Caspian to finally win several, but I’d been too distraught to even care.

Despite my heated arguments against the idea, Mother had eventually won our battle about replacing my old friend, which was why I now found myself shopping for a new cloud. Mother led me through the shop with her usual forced smile as she used her tight grip on my shoulder to steer me towards another cage.

“How about this one?”

I frowned at the murky-brown cloud. Why was everything in the Nightmare Realm so dreary, even its creatures? So unlike the Dream Realm. Remembering the bright, cheery atmosphere of the world I’d been forced to leave behind pierced my heart with a sharp pang. I struggled to bury it deep as I examined the tag attached to the cloud’s cage, a place the Dream Realm would have never forced ownerless clouds, where instead they roamed freely.