Already I was growing stronger, muscles sleek, flesh glowing. The distilled dreams of a hundred Sleepers warmed my belly through the elixir that Sage had poured down my unwilling throat. The Nectar of the Hunt stirred the old hunger within. For the first time in almost a century, my desire for the old dreams vanished.
My sister had won. She had lured me back into the Land of the Living.
“Did Thane hurt her?” I asked, my voice weak. My cousin had been hunting Maddie, I knew it.
“No.” Sage paused, some unwilling bit of news on her tongue. “But he marked her.”
I sighed and glanced away.
Then Sage placed a firm hand on my wrist. “We must hide the dead body. Quickly. The sun has departed. They will come stumbling through the wood soon, with their bright lights and their weapons of sulfur and steel.” She lifted her head, caught a scent on the wind. “One of them is here already, a man who wears the stench of oil and death.”
We stood at opposite ends of the dead human, lifted him gently, ceremoniously, both chanting a holy requiem poem. Then, wings flapping, we carried the body into star-spun skies, shifted our skin like chameleons, and we sailed to the boundary of Ticonderoga Falls.
But the Legend followed me, even there. When the moon rose in the heavens, and we mourned the human’s death, joining the hymn offered by the birds—at that very same moment, the Legend sang in my ear. Maybe a mother was telling her children a story as she tucked them into bed. Or maybe one teenager was daring another to walk through the shadowed wood.
The curse descended and his human disguise cracked and fell away, it seared and turned black. Because of it, he is no longer a beautiful mythical creature in a wooded glen. He is now a monster who slinks through darkened corridors, someone who haunts your dreams . . .
Chapter 39
A Wintery Nightmare
Elspeth:
I woke and shook off a wintry nightmare, bits of it still glowing around me as I opened my eyes. In my dream, light had spattered through silver trees and fragrant blue snow filled the fields—I had been standing barefoot in a snowdrift, toes burning and tingling from unbearable cold. But now, the dream melted and changed back into my father’s room. Armoire in the corner, carved chest against the wall, a massive four-poster bed where I now stretched.
It felt strange to be on this side of a dream. Disoriented, groggy, still remembering snippets of another landscape and the disjointed story that went with it.
I shivered, then realized that a stiff, cold wind was blowing in from the open door to the widow’s walk. My mouth was dry and my limbs stiff. I sat up slowly, then glanced down at the bandage on my arm, remembering the previous evening and my encounter with that dog. With a flick of my thumb, I peeled off the gauze.
The wound had healed, completely.
I flexed my muscles, felt a slight twinge.
Voices outside, laughing and joking, stole my attention. I crossed the room, padded out onto the small balcony, then peered down. Just across the road stood a small herd of humans—young boys. Most of them were younger than me, but at least two looked like they could be my age.
Just then one of them turned, glanced up in my direction.
I immediately shrank back into the shadows. But in my mind, I studied what I had seen—their clothes, their hairstyles, the shade of their skin—and then within a few moments, I made a new skin for myself. I didn’t look exactly like they did; I knew I had to change a few details or they would grow suspicious.
You can’t show up at a party looking exactly like the host.
I kept my long black hair, but lightened my skin, rimmed my eyes with black, put on tight blue pants, red plaid sneakers, a black sweater and a short black leather jacket. For a finishing touch, I added a tattoo on my left hand.
Then I retreated back inside the mansion, opened the door to the hallway and peeked out. A heavy silence claimed the house. Head cocked, I picked up on a heartbeat—in the room down the hallway, Driscoll’s room. I could feel him, crouched and silent, hiding, probably hoping that we would all leave soon.
The door swung closed behind me with a soft whoosh as I crept down the stairs toward the foyer. All the adults were gone. They had left for the Hunt without me. For a moment, I felt a pang of regret, I had really wanted to hunt at my father’s side this year. Maybe I could still catch up with him later tonight.
But right now, more than anything I wanted to go outside and play.
With the humans.
Chapter 40
Indulgences
Driscoll:
The sky darkened, the air sizzled with electricity and carried a stench like burned hair. They were folding reality. Breaking reality was probably more accurate. I huddled in the bed, my back to the wall, a pillow on my lap. Sometimes I buried my face, trying to block out the sounds and the images in my head. From where I sat I could see both the door and the window, so none of them would be able to sneak up on me.