Page 8 of Bonds of Magic (Vesperwood Academy: Incubus #3)

I fought the urge to look away. “It’s not like I had a real incubus teaching me.”

I could hear how pathetic that excuse sounded as I said it.

Then I frowned. Why had the dean wanted Noah to teach me? He’d seemed so sure that Noah could, which didn’t make sense. Noah was our combat professor. He wasn’t even a witch, much less paranormal. Unless…

“Wait, are you—”

“You still don’t,” Noah said, before I could finish asking. “But we’ve got to get you farther along than that.”

“I’ve made some progress,” I protested. “I was supposed to have a lesson last night, but I—well, I didn’t. Obviously. But I didn’t keel over today. That’s the first time I’ve gone three days without dreaming.”

“And you look like you’ve been sick with the flu for weeks.” Noah snorted. “What anchor do you use?”

“What’s an anchor?”

“Sebastian didn’t tell you about—” Noah broke off, shaking his head.

“Nevermind. He was doing his best.” He sighed.

“An anchor is…it’s an anchor. I don’t know how else to put it.

It’s what you rely on to keep yourself tethered to yourself, when you’re in someone else’s dream. Something from the waking world.”

“Like…a lamp?” I nodded at one in the corner.

He shook his head. “No, like an idea. Some part of you that you know to be true. To be really you . Usually it’s a single word. You think about it as you fall asleep, and it helps you remember what you’re doing in someone else’s dream.”

He said it like it was the simplest thing in the world.

I looked at him blankly. “A word?”

He shook his head again. He could see I wasn’t getting it. I wanted to, but what he was saying didn’t make sense.

“A word that represents the core of you. A value you hold. Or something you love.”

He held his hands out, palms up, like he didn’t know how else to explain it. And all of a sudden, I realized what the problem was. It wasn’t that I didn’t understand what he was saying.

It was that I had no idea who I really was.

That sounded stupid, but it was true. What parts of me were my true self? What values did I put at the center of my life? What even was my personality?

I tried to imagine someone describing me in third person. There goes Cory Dawson. Eighteen, brown hair, gray eyes, and… what, exactly? What was I?

Aside from terrified of whoever it was who’d tried to kidnap me. And desperate not to go back to my old home. And guilty of someone’s death. And a dead weight in everyone else’s lives.

I could describe my friends here perfectly, though I’d only known them for a month. Felix was thoughtful, wry, and wise. Ash was pure, irrepressible curiosity and zest for life. Keelan was loyal and helpful, Min was confident but down-to-earth, and Erika—Erika had been insightful, warm, and driven.

But what was I? A patchwork of other people’s traits. Stolen parts that I’d mashed together until I resembled a real person. But inside, I felt empty. There was nothing there.

Sure, I tried to be kind, but was I really doing that because that was who I was on a deeper level? Or because I wanted other people to like me? Did I actually have a moral compass, or was I only trying to ingratiate myself with others?

“I don’t know what to pick,” I said, looking at Noah helplessly.

He barked a laugh. “It doesn’t have to be that deep. It’s not a tattoo. You can change it later if you want. Just pick something that reminds you of who you are.”

You , I thought wryly. You and your dismissive eyes and your scorn for my weakness. You and the fact that you’d rather not be in the same room with me, even now .

It made me feel small, and dirty, and that, unfortunately, was something I was very used to.

“Okay,” I said, shrugging. Couldn’t hurt to try it. “I’ve got one.”

I lay back on the couch and waited for Noah to start. When he said nothing for a long time, I turned my head to him.

“You can close your eyes any time,” he said.

I frowned. “Aren’t you going to talk me into it?”

“Talk you into what?”

“Sleep,” I said. “That’s what Professor Romero does. He walks me through falling asleep. A kind of meditation.”

Noah’s brow furrowed. “An incubus should be able to fall asleep on their own, within a few seconds if necessary.”

“Well, we’ve already established that I’m not a very good one,” I said, a little annoyed. “So are you going to sit there and watch me, or…”

He sighed. “Just close your eyes, would you?”

I did, and after a moment, he started talking. It sounded more like he was talking to himself than to me, but his voice was quiet, almost gentle, and surprisingly soothing.

“As a half-human incubus, there’s a part of you that’s always connected to the dreamworld. You’re human, but you’re also dreamstuff. You just need to tap into it.”

I could hear him shifting in his chair, trying to get more comfortable.

“There’s a weightlessness inside you. Or there should be. Some people feel it in their gut. Others in their head, or their chest. Wherever it is, it’s light and smooth. Thin as gossamer, but stronger than steel. It connects you to the dreams you were made from.”

His words washed over me, and as he spoke, I felt something stir in my chest. Was it weightlessness? Or nerves? I wasn’t sure, but it wasn’t something I’d ever felt when Romero was talking.

“Find that connection and follow it. You don’t need to grab it or tug. Put your hand on it and let it pull you in. Pull you under.”

I experimented with that in my mind. I pictured my hand touching the bubbly feeling in my chest, and immediately, it smoothed out. It felt dark, like a long ribbon of midnight blue silk. And as soon as I felt it against my skin, it began to pull me through the air, like a feather on the wind.

“You’ll feel its caress. See where it brings you. That primeval forest inside of you, full of sparkling lights. It’s dark in the trees, deep night, but there’s no reason to be scared. It’s exactly where you’re meant to be.”

Some part of me frowned, but I wasn’t sure if it was the dream part, or my body in the waking world. A forest? That wasn’t what I saw at all. I was back in the starry sea again. I’d slipped underwater with such ease, I’d barely noticed it happening.

Dimly, I could hear Noah’s voice in the background, but it was more of a hum than distinct words. It was still comforting, though. The way a mountain is comforting, or an old tree. Something ancient and immovable. Always there.

I turned my attention away from his voice and spun around in the sea. It looked the same as it always did, some stars bright and shining, others more muted, all of them spinning and spiralling in individual dances. Were they the same as the twinkling forest lights Noah had talked about?

Noah . His name drifted through my mind and if I’d had a mouth at that point, I would have smiled. My anchor. Ridiculous. It probably wouldn’t even work.

But there was only one way to find out.

A dark green and gold star spun at the edge of a reef to my right.

It reminded me of the colors in the night forest Noah had described, which was as good a reason to pick it as any.

I reached down and brushed my invisible fingers against it.

It grew and grew, and as the swirling colors reached the top of my head, pulling me into its vortex, I repeated one word over and over.

Noah, Noah, Noah, No —

Blackness swallowed me and I tumbled forward. When I could see again, I was standing in a small room that looked vaguely familiar. There was a bed in one corner, covered with a plaid blanket, and a rickety desk piled high with gold-lettered books. Advanced Teleological Magic said one of the spines.

Magic? I blinked. What the hell? Who did this room belong to, and why was I here?

As if to answer my question, a door on the far wall swung open and a guy walked in, running a hand through his auburn hair worriedly. He smiled when he saw me, though.

“You’re still here,” he said. Clearly, he knew me, but I wasn’t sure I knew him. I felt like I should, though. “I was worried you’d gone back to your room.”

“My room?” I said. So this room wasn’t mine, then. But whose was it, and who was this person in front of me?

“I told them you were here to work on your light spell,” the guy continued. “That I got stuck tutoring you as a punishment.”

My light spell? Spell, as in magic?. But magic wasn’t real, was it?

“You okay, Cory?” he asked. “You look kinda shaken up. Don’t worry, they won’t interrupt us again.”

“I’m fine, Lance,” I said, then blinked. Lance. Of course that was his name. I knew that. He was an upperclassmen at Vesperwood and I was—

Vesperwood . As soon as the word popped into my consciousness, my memories resurfaced. Some of them, anyway. Of course I was at Vesperwood. I’d come here a month ago to work on…something.

Dammit, I still felt like there were big chunks missing from my memory.

“Good.” Lance stepped forward and slid a hand behind my back. He leaned in and kissed me greedily, his mouth claiming mine. When he pulled back, he had a crooked grin on his face. “Because I think I was about to tie you to the bed. And I’d hate for that to get postponed.”

I swung my head around to look at the bed again. It tickled something in the back of my mind. I’d been thinking about a bed a little bit ago. But not this one. A bigger one, with a colorful quilt of tiny hexagons. And it belonged to…

“Noah!” I said out loud, as the other half of my memories came flooding back. I’d been in Noah’s cabin, working on a lesson in dreaming. I was asleep on his couch, right now, and he was watching me from his chair. And this—whatever was happening with Lance—was a dream. Lance ’s dream.

“Noah?” Lance said. “What about him?”

I jumped, startled. I’d almost forgotten Lance was right in front of me. I knew this was a dream, but he didn’t. He had no idea this wasn’t real.