Elias isn't at breakfast the next morning, and I wish I could say I didn't care. That it didn't bother me at all to not see him or sit next to him or slide my hand onto his thigh and watch him squirm.
Because it does. I can't stand the fact that he isn't here. The look on his face when I told him I was getting away from him haunted my every waking thought last night. It was like I broke him. Why would he have reacted that way if he had anything to do with the death of the troll—whose name we have since learned was Tyler. But then again, couldn't Elias be acting?
Fuck's sake, I am so confused. I feel like I could have made a mistake, but at the same time, my dreams don't lie. Do they? I really don't know. I didn't even dream last night. My sleep was fitful with nothing but blackness as a backdrop and all I wanted was to be in his arms.
But this is just a game to him, isn't it? He just wanted to keep Lorelai off his back, and keep me protected, but why? Because he's a nice person? Or because he wanted to keep me under his thumb?
That doesn't seem right either, not after everything I've gotten to know over the past week.
"Good morning, Cora," a smooth voice says from behind me, and I look up to see Lorelai.
"Hi, Lorelai," I answer, wondering if Elias has told her anything about what happened last night.
"Sleep well?" she asks. By her tone, I am certain she knows everything.
"I did not. And I think you know why."
"You left Elias's room. What the hell happened? You two couldn't keep your hands off one another yesterday at the massage class. I thought you were about to co—"
My face blanches and I hold my hands up, shushing her. "Please, Lorelai. I'd rather not revisit it when it probably will never happen again."
"Sounds like that's your choice and not his. Why are you torturing yourself? We're all here to make a connection, and you made one with Elias."
How much can I tell her? I won't tell her the connection started off as a "fake dating" deal, but can I tell her about my dreams? But what pops out of my mouth is not what I planned at all.
"What is a coelhinha?" I blurt. "I mean, even if you don't know what it means, what—what language is it? Any ideas? I'd look it up, but—but obviously I can't. No internet."
"Portuguese," says the older fae woman down the table. Her shoulders meet the ends of her straight chestnut hair as she shrugs. "It looks like you are someone's special little bunny."
Lorelai scrunches her nose in disgust and says, "Rita, why don't you mind your own damn business. Aren't you supposed to be looking for a new playmate for you and your husband? This end of the table is the no-fucking-with-married-supes side."
Rita scoffs and mumbles, "No wonder why you show up to this event year after year and leave still single."
"You're just jealous that I get my hands on all the beautiful women before you can."
"Now, now, darling," Rita's husband says, patting the top of her hand on the table.
My eyes dart between the three of them, and I wonder why the hell Lorelai knows so much about Rita, her husband, and their bedroom habits. I shudder and decide I don't want to know.
Instead, I say, "You're sure?"
"Yeah, I'm sure," Rita sneers. "My mother loved Brazil. Every vacation to the human realm we spent it there. She even made us learn Portuguese and insisted we speak it in her house."
"Thanks," I say, looking back at Lorelai, who's still fuming over Rita's insult. "Lorelai, listen. This is really important. What nine languages does Elias speak?"
She rattles them off so fast, there's no way she has time to be telling me anything other than the truth. "English, Italian, French, Romanian, Spanish, Hebrew, Russian, Mandarin, and Croatian. Why?" She sticks her finger down her throat suddenly and pretends to throw up. "Ew, did he learn Portuguese just to call you bunny rabbit? That's nasty."
My mouth goes dry. My dreams never lie. Why would Elias, if the dream was meant to be real, speak a language that he doesn't know? That doesn't make any sense.
Oh, no. I've fucked up. Majorly.
"Cora? What's wrong? You went silent on me."
"I think I—fuck, Lorelai, I think I messed up. But..."
"But?"
I place my fingers on my temples and press hard circles. Everything I know—which isn't a lot to be honest—I'm second guessing. Do I have the potential of being one of the most powerful beings or are my dreams faulty? Elias said some dreams were just that, but how can I tell? What I saw last night was just as real as what I experienced before.
"Do you know anything about Dreamwalkers?" I ask.
"I've never met one. But I hear their power is similar to mine."
I lean forward and clasp my hands on top of the table. "And what are you, Lorelai?"
"How much has Elias told you?"
"He has given me little snippets of information about everyone here, but he has said nothing about you."
She smiles at that and an air of cockiness surrounds her. It doesn't annoy me, far from it. There is pride for something beyond herself in it. "It's good to know that loyalty to a friend trumps the fascination with the hot girl. If I were in his shoes, I would have spilled all his secrets to you, no extra persuasion needed."
Lorelai glances down the table to where our nosy neighbors sit. She grabs her mimosa and holds her hand out to me. "This is the kind of conversation we should have alone."
We make our way through the house in silence, Lorelai opening doors for me and checking that no one is following us. She leads me to a wing of the house I've never been to and out a set of doors. The gardens are breathtaking. Every type of exotic flower fills the beds—purple, orange, and hot pink. Marble statues loom over us on pedestals, the bodies on top engaging in an assortment of lewd acts. It should make me want to blush and turn away, but the curves of their bodies are so beautiful that I'm transfixed.
It isn't until the hedges are well above our head that she slows her steps. Black trellises are covered in big blooming roses in both familiar colors and shades I've never seen before. The blood red, cobalt, and ebony call to me and I reach out to touch their petals.
"Don't," Lorelai says, grabbing my wrist. "They are poisonous."
I pull my hand back and clasp my fingers together, fighting the urge to feel the silky roses.
She leads me to a bench in the center of the rose garden. My gaze remains on the marble statues that now depict multiple bodies in one sculpture. I can't help but to file the images to memory. There are several positions I didn't know were possible but would love to try.
"I'm a siren. With just the sound of my voice, I can entice someone to do my bidding. My ability is limited to those who find me attractive. But a Dreamwalker...they don't have limits like that."
I nod slowly. "When used correctly. But what about when a Dreamwalker just found out what they are? Would they be able to trust their dreams? Or would they sometimes play tricks on them? Like, do their dreams always tell the truth? Or is sometimes a dream merely a dream?"
Lorelai narrows her eyes, but she answers, "A Dreamwalker's dreams always mean something. Whatever is going on in the dream may not always come to pass, but it always means something. A Dreamwalker's dreams don't lie."
My heart stutters and I close my eyes before saying, "So you're telling me if Elias spoke Portuguese in my dream, something is very wrong with that picture?"
The perfumed air around us becomes thick; the floral scent clogging my lungs. It isn't the same as having an asthma attack. This is like the reality of breathing vanishing, like everything I know to be true disappearing.
Lorelai picks at her almond-shaped black nails and stares off into nothing for several minutes. The magnitude of whatever she is mulling over almost seems to crush her. Her eyes dart to mine and she says, "Very wrong is an understatement. How sure are you that it was Elias in your dream?"
I raise my eyebrows and the inappropriate urge to laugh is overwhelming. "I am, like, 1000% sure. He, uh, knew things about me. Things I want to..." I clear my throat. "try that I have never told another soul in my life. And not to mention...I'd know Elias anywhere. It was him, Lorelai. And here's what I haven't even told him. The thing that scared me so much." I take a deep breath and then I freeze. The words are stuck in my throat and I can't seem to release them.
But then Lorelai grabs me by the shoulders and shakes me. "Cordelia, I need you to tell me everything. What is it that you haven't told Elias? What scared you so much?"
"Lorelai, now you're scaring me," I whisper. "What's wrong?"
"Tell. Me," she says, her bright eyes burning into mine. I don't feel her persuasion. I know she's trying to use it on me, I can sense it. But it isn't working. Which doesn't make sense because I do find her attractive. That's another thing about my power to unpack at another time.
Because I don't really need the power of her persuasion to get me to talk. I need to get this off my chest.
"It was the words Elias said to me in my dream before I woke up...right before they found Tyler hanging from the chandelier. 'I'm coming for you, Delia. In the end, you will be mine.'"
She releases me and springs up. Her long legs eat up the ground. "You either need to find a way to keep...Elias out of your dreams, or you need to move back into his room."
I struggle to keep up, but I nearly run into her when she turns toward me. "Wait, what do you mean? Where are you going?"
"We have to find Elias. Now. What's it going to be, Cora? Are you capable of controlling who comes in and out of your dreams? Or are you going to trust me when I tell you that you need to stay with Elias? He is the only one who can keep you safe."