Page 32 of Potion of Deception (Potion of Deception #1)

Her eyes followed the radiance, but it only led her to an empty spot on the terry cobalt carpet.

She scanned the room from the gray walls to a grand bed with a dark blue canopy studded with stars.

Fresh flowers – blue bells, on a luxurious chest of drawers with gold handles.

Nearby stood two bottles of magic powder.

She looked closely, trying to take one of them, but her hands went through it.

“Oh, right,” Violette murmured, remembering that she was only a ghost in these reminiscences.

She leaned closer to eye the vials. Though it turned out the symbols on the yellowed labels were completely unfamiliar to her. Her lips pursed as she turned her head in the other direction in search of at least some clue, instead she caught a living silhouette against the opposite wall.

Violette quickly trod towards the Queen at the desk and peered over her shoulder.

She was writing something but the words coming out of her pen were not like anything else, again these incomprehensible symbols that Violette saw a minute earlier on the vials.

She scoured the scroll with her eyes trying to find something she could understand, but alas, there was nothing useful.

A feather swayed – the final dot. The Queen picked the scroll up, admiring her work. A whisper came out under her breath and Violette realized that what she wrote was nothing else but a spell.

“Great. Hope it will not come to it,” the woman murmured, folding the parchment in a wooden box painted with blue lupines.

A frown warped Violette's face. If this memory was supposed to help her dilemma with Dante, why did everything around her seem useless?

The Queen was writing spells unfamiliar to her, in a foreign language, and spoke only in riddles.

The royal family behaved strangely, throwing a ball while there's a horrid monster walking outside the castle, and Dante…

Dante from the past was here, completely different from the one she knows.

During all the time she'd spent in this dream, she only came across more questions than answers.

At least that she knew for sure – the magic Queen Orienela used definitely cannot be found in the ordinary books about sorcery, and since she doesn't know the symbols, it was most likely because it was a forbidden type of magic she couldn't see before.

Considering the fact that they found the Hegga's book in her crypt, it meant she'd practiced their magic, though it was unlikely that she was Hegga herself; she looked too young and beautiful to be called a crone.

And although, unlike most of the wizards, Violette didn't find conversation about black magic scary or forbidden, she didn't like what was happening.

A vampire was enough for her to deal with, and now she had the queen who practices dark spells…

What else should she expect? This little adventure acquired new colors and the worst of it – it only attracted her more.

The unknown. Secrets. Her treacherous nature radiated curiosity and she didn't try to shake this feeling off, though it was necessary to direct it in the right way.

Violette again ran her eyes around the room right up to the moonlight. She walked to the balcony, letting the glow shower her. Her eyes gawked at the full moon, wondering about the words written inside the box they found .

But no matter how long she stood there, the answer didn't magically come to her mind. She lifted her index finger to the chin, her gaze dropped down.

“Reach your eyes to the moon…” she repeated under her breath, entering the room again.

“Any progress?” Dante’s voice came from the doorway.

Violette looked up at the vampire and shook her head.

He closed the distance between them in two steps, examining the space around. Then following the moonlight, he headed to the balcony.

Violette's eyes lowered to the dark coffee table, where a book lay beside a crystal jewelry box, a velvet pillow cradling a golden crown, and a small framed portrait of the Queen.

“Oh, she loves herself,” Violette murmured, reaching to the frame before remembering she couldn't touch it.

Suddenly, a subtle, beguiling glimmer caught the corner of her eye, beckoning her to look closer.

The crown. The same one depicted in the grand portrait back in the hall.

The center stone was not as luxurious as she’d imagined a queen might wear, yet it held her attention all the same, shimmering in a way she couldn’t look away from.

“There's a trick,” Dante sighed, coming back to the room but he didn't manage to continue as Violette cut in.

“It's a moonstone,” she gasped.

Dante stalked in a moment, peering at the spot Violette’s eyes sank in.

“The stone on the crown is a moonstone,” she repeated in awe. “That's it! Reach your eyes to the moon!” She raised her head with an inspired smile on her face.

“Great.” The vampire sat on his knee, scrutinizing the crown.

His hand reached for the stone and it answered with a glowing blue light but he couldn't take it, not touch it.

“Hm…I don't think it's here. I know there's spells to hide the objects in memories but I think this one is just a prompt for what to seek in reality.”

“And where do we have to look for it?” Violette parted her lips.

“The crown was on the Queen when she was buried.” Dante stood up without taking his eyes off the gem.

Violette slanted her head at his side with confusion.

“We are going back to the crypt.”

His voice sent frost over her skin. She winced at this terrible thought.

“We will…dig up her grave?” She swallowed.

Dante nodded.

Then he said something else but she couldn't quite hear it: his voice was nothing but a distant noise.

His features got blurred and the surroundings started to get misty.

Everything around started to disappear and Violette felt a strange pull as if something tried to drag her out of this dream.

The last thing she saw was two sapphire eyes flickering in the darkness and then she woke up.

Her body was aching. Violette was sure she was just sleeping but it felt like she was dragging a heavy burden on her back the whole day.

Her body was weak and the pain was tightening around her head like an invisible ring.

She took a deep breath and slowly breathed out.

It didn't help with the headache but it made her head a little bit clear, at least she understood where she was.

Her eyes darted to Dante's body on the ground, he still was in the dream.

So she sat, curling her legs to her chest, waiting for him to come back. They had a lot to talk about.

After a few minutes Dante snapped a sigh and then his eyes opened.

“Why do I feel like I was run over by a carriage?” he breathed.

“I think it's a side effect of the powder,” Violette yawned. Every muscle of her body was burning. One more yawn escaped her mouth.

“Then we should find a place to stay,” Dante said.

He didn't look as tired though.

Lucky, probably an advantage of being immortal, Violette thought.

She glanced at him as he reached a hand to help her to stand up. Suddenly as she looked at the ground again it seemed to her like a very comfy place to lay down. She actually would lay anywhere, curling up in a ball, no matter how hard or cold the surface would be.

“Standing?” Dante asked .

She nodded.

Then he turned around and waved. “The faster we are, the faster we'll find an inn to rest.”

Violette absolutely agreed with his statement. They should hurry up so she could meet her long-awaited friend for the next couple of hours – a soft comfy bed. She drew an unstable step, another one and then her face flew down, but instead of the cold floor it crashed into Dante's warm shirt.

“Little Witch?” He looked down at her as he caught her in his arms.

She didn't answer. She was far away in a real dream. Somewhere where no vampires, no diseases, no crypts exist. A place far enough to not hear Dante and his tries to wake her up.