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Caspian stroked Angel’s cheek in an attempt to soothe his angry Pair. “She really wants to talk to you, and I really need to win a week of Weavings, so we made a deal.”

“A deal? With aNightmare? Have you lost your mind?”

I hopped off Stardust, who promptly morphed into a flower and planted herself in the lawn in an attempt to escape the already brewing conflict; some helpshewas going to be. “I need to talk to you. Please, Angel.”

She slowly looked me up and down, wrinkling her nose in disgust at my new style, a shadow of my former one. “Why would I want to talk withyou? Didn’t I make myself clear when I returned all your messages? I want nothing more to do with you.”

Her biting words cut my already raw, bleeding heart open further. I swallowed the tears clogging my throat. I had to be strong; she couldn’t know how much she was wounding me.

“That’s what I want to discuss with you: I swear I never meant to steal from you. I didn’t even know I was stealing magic, let alone from one of my best friends. Haven’t you noticed that ever since I found out I was doing so, I haven’t stolen from you since?”

Angel laughed darkly, a sinister sound that sent a shiver through me. “You truly expect me to believe you didn’t realize you were capturing my magic?”

“There was no way I could know.” Desperation caused my voice to hitch. “I never took your magic from you directly; I acquired it when I bottled up a dream you’d woven.”

She scoffed. “You bottle up dreams? Do you really expect me to believe something so impossible? Dreams cannot be seen.”

“ButIhave the ability see them. I’ve been able to view them my entire life; they float around until they’re forgotten, and yours have always been my favorites.”

“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” she said. “Do you really expect me to believe you?”

I wrung my hands together. “Don’t you remember how I always knew so much about the dreams you gave Alice? How else would I have acquired such knowledge? Why would I lie?”

“To trick me into getting close to you so that you can once again betray me, which must have been your plan from the very beginning. To think I actuallybefriendedyou.”

“Please, Angel.” My voice rose along with my despair. “Justlisten—”

Angel’s eyes narrowed. “Why should I? For stealing my magic isn’t your only offense: you have unnatural powers, an infamous Nightmare mother, and Caspian has told me about your powerful nightmares that have dominated your Weavings. You’re a Nightmare as dark as they come.”

My panic escalated. “But I don’twantto be a Nightmare!“ I’d never spoken the words out loud, but the moment I did, I knew that they were true. The tears I’d been fighting to hold back escaped. “I hate the Nightmare Realm; it’s sucking the life from my soul. I want to belong here with you and Iris, to be somethingmorethan I am now. Please, you must help me.”

Angel’s expression twisted. “I could never be friends with someone as dark as you. Why would I help you wriggle out of a mess of your own making? You dug your own grave, and now you must lie in it.”

My lip quivered. “I didn’t dig it, it was dug for me. Please help me get out.”

Angel crossed her arms across her chest, her rejection, so I spun on the still silent Iris, who’d been watching the unfolding scene with glassy eyes.

“Please believe me, Iris. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen. I don’t want to be this person.”

Iris nibbled her lip. “I know, Eden, but sometimes we find ourselves in a situation that we can’t escape from. I’m so sorry, I really am.”

Their answers were like a knife, cutting the wounds scarring my heart open afresh. I’d opened myself up to them. I’d been vulnerable, begged for their help, but they’d scorned me. The pain festered, attacking over and over without release. I needed to escape this torture, but I didn’t know how.

Darius had told me that feeling dark emotions didn’t make me a dark person, but he was wrong, for my dark feelings made me want to do nothing but dark, horrible things, and I couldn’t seem to feel anything but this need. These feelings only confirmed I was a Nightmare, and no matter how desperate I was not to be, I was trapped. Because no matter how much I wanted to come back, if my own friends wouldn’t believe me, there was no hope of anybody in the Dream Realm accepting me. Fear clawed at my heart, fear I was tired of feeling but whose chains I just couldn’t escape, no matter how much I longed to. Within them darkness smothered me until I was certain I’d drown in it.

The only way I could think of to escape this torment would be to unleash it. An idea filled my mind, and once it’d taken root I could think of nothing else. My hurt stoked it, allowing its flames to grow until I saw nothing but hot, burning red.

These agonizing feelings—the pain, rejection, and hatred—were all Angel and Iris’s fault, and not just theirs but the Dream Realm that’d rejected me. And I knew the perfect way to make them pay.

I stormed from the park towards the Cultivating Fields, blinded by my despair and rage, simmering unquenched within me but desperate for release. I’d give it one...and I’d make it an explosion.

Angel and the others followed me. “Where are you going?” Angel asked, her voice taut with panic. “What are you plotting?”

I smirked in anticipation. She’d see shortly. They all would.

I fumbled with my weaving bag as I entered the fields, searching amongst the jars of nightmares I’d captured from Darius—which I’d had the habit of carrying with me in a feeble effort to keep him close—until I found the perfect one. I spun on Stardust, who watched me warily.

“Raise me above the fields.”