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The moment he entered the Nature Artistry Studio, he barely had a chance to look around with wide eyes before I ran into his arms and buried myself against him with a strangled sob. For a moment he clutched me close, his hold tight and protective, before he urgently led me from the Dream Artistry Studio and away from the chaos.

“Are you alright, Eden?” He pulled away to study me and his eyes widened. “You’re bleeding.” He wiped a trickle of blood staining my cheek. “What happened?”

I tried to explain, but the panic from the nightmares’ release and the relief of being within his arms proved too much, and the words lodged in my throat; the only sound that escaped were my sharp, frantic breaths.

“Deep breaths, Eden,” he said soothingly as he rubbed my back. I struggled to breathe, but each one was shallow, and still the words wouldn’t come. Darius waited a patient moment before speaking. “I heard that several nightmares have erupted throughout the Dream Realm and on Earth. Weavers are saying that the Nightmare who can see and capture dreams is determined to destroy it. Everyone is in an uproar.”

“It wasn’t me,” I finally managed. I clutched him desperately, as if the action could keep him with me whether or not he believed the swirling rumors. “Please, Darius, you have to believe me.”

“Of course I believe you.” In his eyes I could see it wasn’t even a question. “You can tell me what happened later. How can I help you?”

Warm gratitude for his unfailing loyalty swelled my heart, dispelling much of the cold fear that had seeped over me. “Several of the nightmares I captured have vanished, the ones I stole from—”

“—me.”

My face burned. How I wished that weren’t true. But this was the situation in which I found myself, and I needed to face it. “Since this chaos originated from a dream, I was hoping that I could recapture it, but I’ve tried and my powers alone are too weak. I was hoping, because of our connection...”

I couldn’t finish, almost shy to speak of Pairs now and the knowledge I’d learned from Blaze and Trinity that their powers were stronger when combined together. But Darius seemed to understand. “You need my powers.”

I bit my lip and nodded. I felt horrible asking such a thing of him, especially when I’d taken so much of his magic already. But he didn’t even hesitate.

“It’s yours, Eden; all of me is. But...I’m not sure it’ll work, not when our union still remains unofficial—”

“We have to try. Please.”

He nodded resolutely and tightened his grip around my waist as he helped me limp back into the Studio to face the whirling tornado. We paused only to glance towards Stardust, Iris, Angel, and Caspian standing within a crowd of Dreamers, Angel with a frown as she took in Darius’s arm wrapped around me.

“We’re going to try and capture it together,” I said.

They nodded. Angel hesitated a moment before speaking. “Be careful, Eden.”

I stared at her, my throat suddenly tight at the concern she displayed after everything that had happened between us. But there was no time to dwell on that now.

“How do you capture dreams?” Darius asked as we inched closer to the whirling nightmare.

My powers curled against my palm as I studied the tornado. “I encircle them with my magic.”

I bit my lip. Even together, Darius and I wouldn’t have enough magic to surround such a large nightmare; by Darius’s expression, he realized this, too. But he didn’t leave my side. Instead he summoned his own powers, a swirl of glittery green light within his palm, and joined my own as I pushed them towards the nightmare.

I expected it to have no effect, but to my surprise, my magic combined with Darius’s was much more powerful; it spread over a larger surface when it touched the nightmare, nearly encasing it completely. I used the connection to search amongst the nightmare until I found the familiar hook similar to what I used to gently tug captured dreams closer. I gave it a pull...at first nothing happened, but then the magic faltered, slipping from our grasp.

I slumped against Darius, but I wasn’t ready to give up, not yet. “Again?” he asked, and breathlessly I nodded.

We tried several more times before my dust nearly depleted and I became too weak to summon my powers, forcing us to finally give up, an easier outcome to accept when the tornado was finally slowing down, as if it too had grown exhausted.

Darius watched the nightmare with a pensive frown. “We might have to wait for it to run its course. Unfortunately, from what I remember, this particular dream was one of my longer ones.”

I sighed. “If only you weren’t quite so talented.” Despite the lingering tension, we managed to exchange a wry smile.

There was little more we could do here, but I was too anxious to sit still, so we flew down to Earth to face the darkness, one so thick it was like a black fog had swallowed up this section of Earth. Before we arrived, we went to the Dream Cultivating Fields in search of flowers of light that could possibly be woven into a dream to counteract the darkness, but the fields still hadn’t recovered from the nightmare lava, leaving very few details to choose from, none of which would of any use to us.

I was haunted by the lingering consequences of my destruction of the fields until Darius gently reminded me that even if the fields hadn’t been destroyed, it would have been difficult to use the dream flowers—we’d have had to create a dream, find a mortal to give it to, capture and then release it...a painstaking process that would have likely taken longer than the duration of the nightmare.

The darkness was even more impossible to capture than the tornado had been; its thick blackness seemed to stretch endlessly, engulfing everything it touched. Our magic had even less of an effect on it than it had on the nightmare tornado, for the moment we summoned our powers they were overcome, flickering out like a dying flame.

I finally released my tenuous hold on my magic, exhausted. “We’ll have to wait this one out, too. Thankfully it can’t last forever.” But I spoke the words with little hope, frustrated that once again my efforts hadn’t been enough to atone for my mistakes.

The thought haunted me the entire flight back to the Nightmare Realm. I could sense Darius’s concern as he eyed me worriedly, but he didn’t voice it until we arrived at our usual clearing, where Stardust granted us privacy. There he wrapped me in his arms and held me close.