He hissed as we glided into the night, as if I was suddenly a great hindrance to him, and I thought about being a child dreaming this nightmare. I thought about how the entire crux of this dream was that the child was terrified to let the demon carry them out the window. And yet how it was the key to ending it, to awaken.
The demon dissolved into smoke beneath me.
I was flying, falling, tumbling. I aimed for the closest roof and eased myself down with a slowing spell, but it was still a rough landing. I hit the shingles, knocked a few loose as I slipped, scrambling for purchase. I cursed the rain and my temerity, thinking of all those lessons when my father had instructed me to be cautious.
Those lessons felt as if they belonged to another life, another girl.
I hung from the gutter and eased my way to the corner of the house, where I could drop down to a trellis. Halfway in my descent, the lattice groaning like it wanted to break, I heard Phelan on the ground beneath me.
“Are you all right, Anna?”
I paused to glance down at him. The rain sat on his face like tears. His dark hair swept across his brow in a terribly endearing manner.
“I’m fine. The demon is gone.” And the lattice responded by finally cracking beneath me. I was suddenly spilled into the darkness below, into Phelan’s frantic arms.
The impact sent us sprawling into a bracken patch. My hands delved into the damp soil above his shoulders, my legs straddled his waist, and I felt every point of contact between us. The heaves of his breaths beneath me. How his warmth chased away the cold nip of the night.
I attempted to slip off him, stiff and awkward in my drenched clothes. He grasped my waist, tightening his hold on my hips as if he wanted me to remain. Or perhaps to simply cease moving.
One of his hands rose to carefully tuck a thread of tangled hair behind my ear. So he could behold my face in dim light. And when his thumb traced my lips, as if he had imagined kissing them . . . a gasp escaped me. I felt a hint of pleasure and pain, both lurking deep in my chest. I winced as if a needle was prodding my heart.
“Anna?” he whispered, uncertain.
I instantly shrank away, realizing this was foolish. To allow myself to be so close to him and enjoy it. His fingertips grazed my jaw as I retreated. I refused to acknowledge the confusion and chaos of my feelings then, but I knew I would have to later, like a sunburn appearing on my skin.
“We should go,” I said, successfully sliding off him this time. “Another battle awaits us.”
That sobered him. Maybe the knight would come, and maybe he wouldn’t. But lying in a garden entwined with Phelan Vesper was a bad idea, either way.
We returned to our original post, the streets empty and lamplit, gleaming with rain. I fixed my shield upon my arm, preparing for the second leg of the night. My adrenaline was beginning to ebb. I felt sore and weary, and my drenched clothes were chafing my skin.
It’s almost impossible to judge time on a new moon night. I don’t know how long Phelan and I stood there, our breath like clouds, our skin pebbled from the cold, our shields waiting on our arms.
But it felt like hours until the silence was broken by an unexpected sound. Someone was singing in the distance, a slurred chorus that echoed off the town houses.
Phelan and I both whirled to look behind us. In a ring of lamplight, I saw a man stumble. I could see he had a bottle of wine in his hand, and he continued to sing, defiant and foolish and utterly unaware of himself.
“Gods above,” Phelan said, exasperated.
“I take it he’s not part of the nightmare,” I said, but I felt a jolt of worry. It was always dangerous for residents to wander the streets on the new moon, even after a nightmare had broken. I had heard horrible stories of how magicians had inadvertently slain innocent mortals who had been in the streets, because the wardens believed they were part of the nightmare. Of course, this typically only happened to magicians who were unprepared, those who did not study and memorize their nightmare ledger.
“It’s Allan Hugh,” Phelan groaned. “And no, he’s not part of the nightmare. He’s very real.”
“You should do something,” I whispered, thinking it would be disastrous to have a drunk Allan wandering the streets if the knight appeared. “Can you take him home?”
But even that was a risk—to make Allan’s wife have no choice but to unlock her door on this capricious night.
Phelan sighed. “Yes, he lives one street over. I’ll take him there now. Will you—”
“I’ll wait here for you,” I said.
Phelan must have heard the resolve in me. I was not about to trail him and this drunk individual. He nodded and began to run up the street, splashing through puddles, calling for Allan’s attention.
I watched until they had vanished into the darkness. I soaked in the silence again; I closed my eyes and leaned my head back, face upturned to the sky.
And that’s when I felt it. A tremble in the cobblestones beneath me.
A shift in the wind around me.
The rain eased, as if nature was retreating, hiding.
I opened my eyes and watched the knight appear.
He was unchanged. He walked his same steady, heavy-footed pace. His armor was still bloodstained. His helm still inspired a blaze of terror in me. He drew his sword and the tip of it rang on the stones alongside him, a warning for me to run from him.
I walked to meet him, shield ready on my arm.
I’m faster, I reminded myself. Stay out of his reach and if you stumble, remember the shield.
He took his first swing at me. I danced out of the sword’s path. I would wear him out, and I taunted him again, stepping close to provoke him, darting away from his reach. He swung, I evaded. I believed I could continue doing this until dawn, and I had every intention to until the knight feigned a move and I misread him. He turned and caught me by surprise, but my reflexes saved me.
I swung my shield around to block. His sword lodged within the wood and I expected my buckler to crack in two, but it held firm, suddenly illuminated as its enchantment stirred. I was drenched in golden light, and the knight bent to it, to me. I stumbled backward, and his sword came with me, embedded in my shield. I was amazed at the sight of him disarmed.
He seemed stunned as well.
And I claimed that moment of surprise, just as I had done with the demon. I swung my shield and the hilt of his sword at his chest, and the blow rocked him from his feet. He went down with a grunt on his back.
“Anna!” Phelan shouted from a distance, and I knew he was running to me. But I didn’t spare him a glance.
I let my shield slide from my tingling arm and stood over the knight, my foot on his chest. He was dazed. Frozen on the cobblestones. I knelt and removed his helm.
The streetlight spilled over his face. A face I knew alarmingly well.
It was my father.
29
I couldn’t breathe; I couldn’t move. I hovered above the knight and stared at his face—familiar and yet hauntingly strange in the darkness of the new moon. A face that was beloved to me. And yet there was no recognition within him as he stared up at me. His eyes were unforgiving and sharp as flint; his auburn hair was lank in the rain. His mouth was pressed in a hard line, and vengeance burned within him like stars.
I recognized him, and yet part of me denied it.
My father appeared younger with the shadows playing over his features. Startled, I realized I had seen him like this before. On the night when the Vesper brothers had arrived to Hereswith and Papa had been sick. He had asked me to glamour him to look hale, and as I cast the spell, I had caught a glimpse of his younger self.