My divided heart all but stopped.
“I dreamt of you,” he whispered again.
“A nightmare, I presume?” I countered, unable to help myself.
He smiled. “That I won’t say. Although you may see it whether I want you to or not.” He paused, his mirth fading. “Do you understand what I’m saying to you?”
I stepped back, suddenly overwhelmed. My hands slipped from his and I walked about my chamber, in and out of the light. His dream might be the one to materialize tonight. Apprehension took hold of me like a claw.
“How did you see me in your dream?” I asked.
“In both ways,” he answered. “I saw you as Clem. And I saw you as Anna.”
“That won’t necessarily expose me,” I said, breathless from the shock of his confession. But when I met his eyes from across the room . . . I realized that it would. Whatever his dream held, it was going to reveal my secret.
“I’m sorry, Clem,” he murmured, and he did sound contrite, as if he could control what his mind created in sleep.
I almost laughed. “We have never dreamt, you and me. All our lives, we have been void of dreams until now. And at last, we dream, and your first is tainted by a treacherous girl who you must despise.”
“I would not trade such a dream,” he was swift to say. “Not for me, not for the world. Not even to break this curse. But for your sake in this strange game we find ourselves trapped within . . . I would.”
“Well,” I said, glancing out the window. “Thank you for the warning. Although perhaps you’ll dream of something else this afternoon.”
“Perhaps.” But he didn’t sound confident. And I was swiftly learning that our dreams were intent on unmasking us and our plans. Our secrets, our past. What we hoped for.
What we desired.
An awkward lull beat between us. My face felt hot when I pressed my hands to my cheeks, and I wondered if I was getting ill.
“I should go,” Phelan said. “Let you get some rest.”
I turned and watched him leave, the door latching quietly behind him. I was still staring at it two breaths later when the door unexpectedly swung open again, Phelan’s gaze finding me instantly.
“I wanted it to be you,” he said, his voice deep, rough-hewn. “When I returned to the museum for that final interview . . . gods, how I wanted it to be you.”
And he had gotten his desire, only not how he had envisioned it.
I took the first step to him, and it broke the storm that had been building between us. He met me in the center of the room, and I had enough sense to flick my fingers and charm the door shut before we collided.
His hands grasped my waist, drawing me to him. I took hold of his collar, my mouth hungry to taste his. Our lips met, cautiously at first as we explored each other. My fingers drifted into his hair as I drank his sighs, his breaths. His hands moved to the curve of my neck; his fingertips traced the dip of my collarbones. I arched into him as he pressed me against the wall.
Vaguely, I heard an inner voice remind me that I was held together by stone and ice. Vaguely, I remembered my disguise, and I told myself that I had not come all this way as Anna only to break now into Clem.
My heart sang a vibrant ache; the pain branched through me, a sharp warning that stole my breath.
“Phelan,” I gasped, my fingers tightening in his hair.
He drew away. Cold air washed over me.
I opened my eyes to meet his gaze, afraid that he would see me come undone. But he was looking at my side, where he had pushed aside the drape of my cloak to touch me. His hands fell away; his right palm was smeared with blood.
“You’re bleeding,” he whispered frantically. “You didn’t tell me you were wounded.”
I had forgotten about the swipe his brother had taken at me, hours ago. And everything seemed to crash over me at once: my exhaustion, my worry, my desire.
“Come here.” Phelan guided me to the bed, easing me down to sit on the edge of the mattress. “Let me tend to you.”
“Do you mean to undress me again?” I asked wryly.
He wasn’t amused by my humor. “You might need stitches, Clem.”
I winced, feeling the wound with each breath. “And what are you going to stitch me with?”
“I brought my supplies.”
“Then perhaps you should fetch them.”
He stroked a tangle of hair from my brow. His thumb grazed my cheek to find my mouth, tracing my parted lips before he brushed them with his own. A soft, fleeting kiss. Heat flared through me as I watched him depart.
Alone, I inhaled the solitude and pressed a fist to my chest, aching. It took me a moment to regain my composure, and I rushed my fingertips over my face, measuring my disguise. It was still intact, holding fast. But I sensed the frays along my edges. It wouldn’t be much longer now.
I stripped and examined my wound, arcing just over my hip bone. It wasn’t deep, but it was steadily bleeding again, most likely reopened when Phelan had pressed me against the wall.
A knock on my door. “Anna?”
It was him. His voice made everything leap within me, breathless.
“Anna?”
I swallowed and reached for a clean chemise. It was wrinkled from being shoved in my satchel, but it was soft against my skin as I unlocked the door.
Phelan stepped inside, carrying his medicine kit.
“I can stitch myself,” I said, reaching for it.
He withheld the box, glaring at me. “Are you serious?”
“As the grave. Hand it to me, please.”
“You’re pushing me away from you. Why?”
I hesitated, even as I longed to tell him everything.
“No more lies, Clem,” Phelan whispered. “We have both held our secrets long enough. Tell me what is troubling you. Tell me how I can help you.”
It was strange how those words of his struck deeper than his kiss. I wavered, leading him back to the bed. I lay down and let him stitch my wound, because I knew that I needed him to do it. And this was a good opportunity to get the answers I still needed from him, as he wouldn’t be able to up and run if I asked something he didn’t want to answer.
I stared up at the ceiling while he stitched my side. “How long have you known of your mother’s plans?”
He exhaled, as if he had been waiting for it. “I sensed she was up to something when she gave me and Lennox orders to take Hereswith and study the book of nightmares for a dreamless sleeper. We suspected she was looking for a particular wraith, but I didn’t realize her full intentions yet. When she finally told me that she herself was a wraith, and that she had located nearly all of her kind and planned to return to the mountain and break the new moon curse . . . I was furious. That was the night you saw me tear apart the library. It made me question everything . . . who she was, who I was. What was to come for all of us.”
I bit my lip against the sting in my side. “When did you realize who I was?”
“When I saw those scars on your leg,” he replied, cutting the thread. “That entire day, I kept telling myself it was ridiculous, that there was no way you could have fooled me for so long. But I started to examine every single one of our interactions, and I realized I should have seen it, right from the very beginning when you viciously attacked me at the interview.”