Page 27 of A Fine Scottish Spell (The Magical Matchmakers of Seven Cairns #2)

Emily took that to mean they needed to be quiet until they figured out where they were.

She started to rise, but the cat caught her by the wrist, pulled her back down, then leaned against her until Emily sank deeper into the shadows and bumped into the wall.

Apparently, the Fae panther wanted her to stay hidden.

That concerned her even more. She glanced down at her creamy white sweater, which didn’t exactly blend into the shadows.

In fact, it almost glowed like a beacon.

As much as she hated to lose its warmth, she ripped it off over her head, wadded it up, and tossed it into an even darker corner across the room.

With her black tank and leggings, she now blended in with the darkness a lot better than before.

Sliding her hands along the wall behind her, she stood. Grimalkin scolded her with a soft growl.

“We can’t hide here forever,” she whispered. “I have to find a way out of here.”

The loyal beast head-butted her leg in what appeared to be grudging agreement.

Keeping to the shadows, Emily sidled along the wall, searching for a door, a window, anything—she would even settle for something as simple as a hole big enough for Grimalkin to squeeze through and see if it led to anywhere promising, even if the panther had to shift to her kitten-sized self.

After passing her discarded sweater twice , Emily realized there was no way out of the strange room.

Or at least, none she had been able to detect.

How the devil had she gotten in here, then?

When she looked up, there was only blackness.

She couldn’t decide if it went on forever or if someone had taken it upon themselves to paint the ceiling.

Inalfi’s conversations about the Dreaming came back to her.

“Is this someone’s weird dream we’ve stumbled into? ”

Grimalkin backed up against the wall, pushed off at a hard lope, and launched herself skyward.

Emily held her breath, her feelings mixed. She didn’t like being left behind in the stone box, but if Grimalkin could find a way out, she was all for it. But the cat landed back on the floor, gracefully alighting on all fours.

“At least you tried.”

The panther grumbled with a low growl, pacing around the room, glaring at the walls.

Emily joined the cat and slowly turned in a circle.

If this was someone’s dream—or more like someone’s nightmare—then it wasn’t real.

Right? It might feel genuine enough to the one dreaming it, but that didn’t mean it had to be real to her.

At least, she hoped that was one of the rules of the Dreaming.

She was sadly uneducated on that particular subject.

Maybe, all they had to do was decide to walk out?

“It can’t be that easy,” she told the panther as she retrieved her sweater and pulled it back on.

The place was getting colder by the minute.

Inalfi had mentioned the need to be able to move fast, and duck and roll, but the Fae maid had also admitted to never being here.

Maybe you only had to do those things if you believed something might harm you.

Gryffe had been leery about the place, too, and Ferris hated this strange dimension.

The only one unfazed by whatever the Dreaming might be was Nicnevin.

Gryffe was half mortal. Ferris wasn’t exactly mortal since he could shapeshift into a wolf, but he claimed to have a few mortals in his ancestry.

Perhaps the secret that Nicnevin had failed to share was that mortals and those like them struggled with believing and listening to their intuition rather than whatever was right in front of them.

If a person saw something, they tended to believe it was real.

It would be hard to see and actually touch something, yet convince yourself it wasn’t there at all.

It would be even harder to convince yourself it was only an illusion created by someone else’s dream.

“So, none of this is really here—right?” she asked Grimalkin.

The cat looked up at her, slowly blinked, then started purring. Loudly.

“I’m taking that as a you hope I’m right.

” Now. What to do about it. She had to admit that convincing herself to just walk through those stone block walls would be no easy feat.

Especially, when she had just reinforced their existence in her mind by sidling around them while searching for a door.

It would be mentally easier to walk through them with her eyes shut, but how would she know when to stop?

She eyed the panther. “I wish you had a collar or leash or something. I could close my eyes, and you could be my seeing eye cat, since you seem to agree that none of this is real.” She was counting on the Fae panther being able to suspend her beliefs and rely on instinct a lot easier than she could.

But she was afraid that if she simply walked along with her hand on the beast’s back, it might slip off.

Then she’d open her eyes and be back right where she started. “I could hold on to your tail.”

Grimalkin growled and curled it out of Emily’s reach.

“It was only an idea.”

The panther caught hold of her sleeve and tugged, then eyed Emily, waiting.

“That could work.” Emily shrugged the sleeve out past her fingertips so Grimalkin could get a better grip.

She closed her eyes and clamped her free hand over them to keep from reaching out to touch the wall that wasn’t really there.

“I hope I’m right about this.” She almost told the cat to go slowly, so if she was wrong, she wouldn’t hit the wall too hard.

But if she went into this with that mindset, she would definitely fail and hit the wall that wasn’t really there.

Maybe. The idea was almost too hard to swallow.

She had to believe, had to convince herself that Grimalkin was going to lead her to anywhere but here.

“Give me a minute to get my head straight.” Ishbel’s advice about concentrating on her calming vision to help her focus came to mind.

“We’re going to the beach, Grimalkin. Smell the brine?

Hear the gulls? Feel the warm breeze?” Emily relived every sound and sensation from the last time she had lounged on that sandy beach, lazing away the day.

She was there. “Lead on, my friend. Let’s walk across the sand and find some seashells. ”

Forcing herself to walk with confidence and not shuffle forward in fear that she might hit something, Emily envisioned the white sandy beach, lifting her nose to breathe in the tropical flowers in bloom.

The sweet fragrance of frangipani, ginger Thomas, and liana fragante filled the air, making her smile and breathe deeper.

Then the tug on her sleeve ceased, and the beastie leaned against her.

Emily peeked through her fingers. “It worked!” Well…

it sort of worked. They were no longer boxed inside a stone room with a single stinky torch.

Now, they were on a narrow dirt path with scrubby green grass growing along its edges.

For some inexplicable reason, it felt as if it was a path winding up the side of a mountain.

It was hard to tell, since the area was blanketed in fog.

But it smelled wet and earthy. Familiar.

A slow smile lightened her heart. This area smelled like Scotland after a rain.

Maybe this was a misty mountain top she had been on before.

It didn’t matter. At least this dream was more open and less like a dungeon.

“I wonder who this dream belongs to?” She started up the path, not knowing why she went that way; it just felt right.

Grimalkin padded along beside her, obviously more relaxed but alert.

“I have been here before, Grimalkin. I feel it.”

The panther huffed, then resumed her usual chugging grunt that matched her smooth, liquid gait.

Laughter not too far ahead made Emily stop and listen harder.

One was deep and rumbling, and the other was—Jessa!

Emily would know that snorting giggle anywhere.

She broke into a run. This was her chance to connect with home.

Rounding a pile of boulders shaggy with moss, she halted so fast that Grimalkin ran into the backs of her legs and nearly knocked them out from under her.

Jessa and her husband Grant were having an obviously romantic and very naked swim in a secluded Highland pool fed by a gorgeous waterfall.

Emily bit her lip and retreated, backing around the enormous pile of mossy stones, hating to interrupt them.

Of course, Jessa’s dreams would be something like this.

With triplets under a year old, she and Grant probably didn’t have many opportunities like this anymore.

Emily crouched and wrapped an arm around Grimalkin’s shoulders. “Now what do I do?” she whispered. “She is having such a nice dream.”

The panther flicked her ears and glared at her as if she had lost her mind.

And maybe she had lost her mind. This might be her one chance to connect with Jessa and get word to everyone else that she was fine and still trying to find a way back.

That thought brought her up short again.

Still trying to find a way back? Did she really mean that?

“Only for a visit,” she hurried to say out loud, running from the guilt of even having the thought.

With a heavy sigh, she bowed her head and rubbed her eyes, willing herself not to cry.

She missed her world , her family, her friends—everything.

That didn’t mean she loved Gryffe any less.

It just meant she needed both. “Why can’t I have both, Grimalkin?

Why do I have to sever all ties to everything I have ever known? ”

The cat looked away and stretched out on the ground as if concluding they would be there a while.

Still unsure but unwilling to stay there squatting on a tightrope of indecision, Emily leapt to her feet and bounded around the boulders. “Jessa!”

But they were gone, and ever so slowly, a pale gray mist was rolling in, eating up the peaceful scene of the Highland getaway.

Emily blinked as the fog swirled around her, returning her to a place of nothingness.

She had blown it. Missed her chance to speak with Jessa through her dream.

One of the babies had probably cried out for a cuddle or a nighttime feeding.

It could be hours before Jessa went back to sleep, and maybe even longer for her to dream.

Emily had always heard that not everyone dreamed every time they slept.

It could depend on the level of exhaustion, and as a mother of triplets, Jessa had to be exhausted, even though she had all kinds of help.

“What a waste—and all because I couldn’t make up my mind.” Emily slowly turned in a circle, looking all around. She rubbed her arms, wrinkling her nose at the chilly dampness of the air. “It’s like I’m trapped in a storm cloud now. Everything’s all gray and fuzzy.”

Grimalkin rose up out of the mist, stretching and yawning. She snorted and sneezed, making the fog swirl and ripple like water.

Filled with hopelessness and teetering on the verge of tears, Emily swallowed hard and started walking.

What else could she do? Maybe she’d stumble into someone else’s dream, someone she knew.

Or even better, maybe she would find Gryffe.

Or he would find her. And they could leave this unholy plane and return to his keep.

“Home,” she forced herself to say. She never referred to Gryffe’s stronghold as home or jointly theirs, mainly because it wasn’t.

Or, at least, it didn’t feel like it to her.

It was a safe place, a loving place, and Gryffe was there, but if she was honest with herself, when she thought of home , MacStrath Castle wasn’t it.

“Mama always said wherever your heart is, that’s your home.

I love Gryffe with all my heart. What is wrong with me? ”

Grimalkin made one of her kittenish trilling noises that didn’t quite fit with her current extra large size.

They wandered through the fog for what felt like hours, but who knew? Maybe they had only been wandering for minutes. Emily decided that time wasn’t the same here. This was some eternal, foggy anteroom of hell. Nothing else was real here but her and Grimalkin. And Gryffe.

She plopped down onto the ground, propped her elbows on her knees, and dropped her head into her hands. Where was Gryffe? The man who had sworn he would never let her go? She rubbed her eyes and sniffed back the threat of tears. Maybe he had been taken away because she didn’t deserve him.

“Bullshit.” She sniffed again, refusing to beat herself up. “I do deserve him. I am just having commitment issues because the cost is so high.”

Grimalkin meowed like a housecat.

“Do not do that,” Emily said. “You have no idea how confusing it is to see you in all your greatness eke out a meow that belongs to a two pound kitten.”

The massive cat nudged her head under Emily’s arm, purring as she pushed. Then she bit a fold of Emily’s sweater and tugged.

“What?” Emily pushed the panther away. “Let’s just sit here a while. Okay? I’m tired and feeling sorry for myself. Let me have a little bit of a pout, and then we’ll get back to looking for Gryffe and a way out of this place.”

Grimalkin grumbled with a low, throaty growl, bit into the sweater again, and pulled harder.

“Stop! You’re going to ruin my sweater, and I can’t get another one like this.

” And then the tears bubbled over, fueled by the gutwrenching homesickness that always simmered just below the surface.

“Dammit!” She wiped her eyes but cried even harder.

“I am not a spoiled brat, you know, I’m just close to my parents.

And even when I didn’t see them for a while, we talked almost every day, and if not every day, at least once a week.

They have always been there for me. Always.

And my overbearing brothers. And Jessa. And after I moved to Scotland, Ishbel and Lilias from Seven Cairns.

” She sobbed harder, covering her face with her hands.

“And now I’ll never see any of them ever again.

I miss them so much. I wish I could go back and hug them all tight—tight enough to never let them go. I’m not used to being so alone.”

“Ye’re nay alone, lass. Ye have me.”

She jerked her head up from her hands, her heart leaping, but then it plummeted at the pain in Gryffe’s eyes. The pain she had put there. He had heard her babbling. Every. Last. Word.

He angled his chin higher, but sorrow slumped his shoulders and lent a rawness to his voice. “I wish I were enough for yer happiness, Emily. I am sorry.”

When she opened her mouth to explain, he shook his head and held his hand for her to take. “Come. Nicnevin and Ferris search for ye as well. We must let them know ye are found, and that we can exit the Dreaming if it will release us.”