Ever since I woke up in my bed four days ago—after being passed out for two, from what I understand—I've had trouble sleeping.
It turns out Mauro's finger marks had another surely unintended consequence: three days following the incident, shortly after waking up, those marks got to tingling, and the next thing I knew, I was connected to Mauro and could hear everything he was hearing, almost like a supernatural walkie-talkie. I couldn't see anything, but based on what I could hear, Oskur's furious. He lost three years' worth of work and a part of his house, he said. He has no idea how it happened, he said. As far as he knew, he was the only person in the world that was aware of the vault, he said. There was no electricity inside so the fire should have been impossible, he said.
When Pol came over and told me his side of the vault experience, I shouted a silent thank you to the Silhouetted Woman, our Clairvo-Shadow insider that saved our lives and helped us to victory by speaking into both of our heads. If she wouldn't have told him to light the fire, glow as brightly as he could to resist me, and tackle me into our combined shadows on the wall behind me, if she wouldn't have insisted that I think of my closet at just the right moment, we either would have burned to death, or have been caught in the vault when Oskur shifted in mere seconds after we got out.
Because everything in there was paper and the vault itself was basically made of kindling, he couldn't stop the blaze. Mass initiation thwarted. At least for the time being.
But still, I don't sleep well.
Sometimes I dream about the mysterious fire that took out most of the east wing of Oskur Shetani's manor in New Orleans—New Orleans! (Turns out the newspaper from dad's chair did have a hint for us)—and I remember our victory.
Sometimes, in the really dark times, when the sliver of Pitch that lives in me has its way, I give in to the rage, and I dream of vengeance. I hold a knife to the throat of the boy who broke my heart, and I press down just enough to break the skin. He stares at me, his color-shifting green eyes wide with a fear, and as his blood runs down the knife, I feel invincible.
But sometimes, the dreams are nice. I dream about my better times with Reign. These dreams usually include lots of laugher, full frontal embraces, witty banter, and glowy kisses....
"Bliss—"
The whisper filters through the thick fog surrounding this one good dream and unravels it, thread by thread. No more laugher. No more embraces. No more witty banter or glowy kisses; the glowy kisses are something I will likely never experience again.
I don't want to wake up. Waking up means remembering, and I don't want to remember anything. I think of my mom's smiling face and imagine I'm back with her in our little shotgun house in butt-crack nowhere Virginia.
"Bliss... Bliss, wake up... I have to tell you something—"
Mom's image fades, and I remember. Reign and Celia at the fountain. Reign's harsh words in the boiler room. Reign and Celia at the accident scene. Reign and Celia at school. Reign and Celia. Reign and Celia. Reign and Celia.
I squeeze my eyelids tighter and try to force myself back into unconsciousness. I see his green eyes twinkle; I hear his overly loud laugh; I feel his heart beating against my cheek; I taste his lips; his pine-coffee-ember scents tickles my nose.
"BLISS—Wake up!" The shaking begins. I groan.
I turn my head slightly and peek out of one eye, shoving back the dark shape blocking my view of the clock: 04:37AM.
"Ruby Aurora Thrill," I croak, throwing an arm over my face, "it's four thirty in the freaking morning—"
"Oooh, you said 'freaking'! You're not supposed to say that word." She shakes her head with her eyes wide.
I lift my head from the pillow and glare at her. "What. Do. You. Want?"
"I just came to tell you I had a dream about you," she huffs, crossing her arms indignantly. "I think it's pretty important, but if you don't wanna hear that's fine with me—"
"Look, I'm sorry Rube." I push myself up onto my elbows. "I had a super long week, and I'm really tired, understand? Tell me about your dream and then I really need to sleep, okay?"
She nods, her eyes lighting up. "Okay, it was a little bit weird, but I saw you go in a dark room to look for the stuff you need to turn on the light."
My eyes open wide. Out of the corner of my eye, I see an oddly shaped silhouette on my nightstand and it registers that I had to move something to see the clock.
Ruby continues: "You were real sad at first because you thought you lost, but you really didn't. The treasure hunt isn't finished yet."
My heart begins to race. I slowly rotate my head and discover a stuffed red bird with a flame-like Mohawk that has a small sheet of paper safety-pinned to its wing. I run my fingertips over the note and down the wing; there's a button enclosed in the wingtip. I squeeze it, and the bird's belly lights up, making the whole thing look like it's on fire. The paper says 'For Ruby', and I see River P. scrawled across a strip of duct tape in little kid handwriting on the bottom of one of the soft, clawed feet.
"Wow, that's pretty!" Ruby says, reaching for it. When she moves it, a folded sheet of paper slips from the nightstand; my reflexes kick in, and I catch it before shifting my attention back to Ruby and the stuffed animal. I watch in complete disbelief as she hugs it to her chest. "Tell the scary boy I forgive him," she says.
I look back at the paper in my hand, turning it over a few times in awe. After switching on the lamp, I unfold it slowly, running my fingertip along the single jagged edge and over the two rounded corners: it's been pulled from a composition notebook. The date of the second day of school is penned in the upper right-hand corner of the sheet in Reign's handwriting. I read:
A Question
By Reign Patos
A question:
From where?
There's something there.
Can't help but stare
I wonder
Her face, her frame,
her tongue untamed
I feel it
pull me under
A furious glare
from eyes so bright
Allure unmatched,
enchanting sight
My thoughts, consumed
now ceaseless plight
A question:
From where?
"Ooh, what's that?" Ruby says, breaking my concentration and pointing to the nightstand.
I follow her finger. When my eyes land on the white teardrop pendant on the thin silver chain, "one must concede to," engraved along the curve, I stop breathing.
"Oh, there's one more important thing," Ruby says, her tone becoming a bit heavier.
"Uh huh," I stare at the necklace. My necklace. The one Mom gave to Rave, and Reign gave to me. I can't bring myself to reach out and touch it... I can't take my eyes away either.
"The bad people took your friend," Ruby whispers.
It takes a moment for the sounds that pass through her lips to reform into a cohesive, comprehensible statement in my head. It's almost as if the words bounce around before aligning themselves in the right order in a sentence.
The—bad—people—took—your—friend—
I bolt upright and swing my legs over the bed, dropping Reign's poem and grabbing her shoulders to pull her in close to me so I can look into her eyes. "What did you say, Ruby?"
She stares at me with those big, light brown eyes—so unpretentious, so unassuming, so very, very innocent—her face lit from beneath by River Patos' phoenix.
"I said the bad people took your friend."
END OF BOOK ONE
So there it is. Nic Stone's first ever novel. I did start the second one in the series (it was going to be a trilogy), and I believe I still have the outline--it's called INTO DARK...
What do you think? Should I get back into it?
THANK YOU FOR READING!
-Nic