“Oh no…” Twist muttered, realizing that no one but him had seen the dragon at all.
They had only seen Twist leap suddenly from his chair and shout about something that wasn’t there. Myra stared up at him in silent confusion.
“Twist, relax,” Jonas cautioned gently, moving closer, as Twist’s pride began to scream in anguish.
“I’m sorry, I…” Twist muttered uselessly, caught between the sudden need to flee and the desperate desire for any explanation that wouldn’t make him look mad.
“We’ll be outside,” Jonas said, taking hold of Twist’s arm and moving for the door.
Before Twist could come up with any response to Jonas’s swift decision to drag him away from the others, he found himself half-blinded by the bright sunlight, out in the cool breezes on the open deck. It was only then that he realized that his hands were shaking, his breath was short, and he was very nearly about to faint.
Jonas stood before him and held him steady—the cool calm in Jonas’s touch whispering softly at the edges of Twist’s fright—as he peered into Twist’s eyes with his own deep-purple gaze. Without a word, Jonas took the back of Twist’s neck, and Twist’s entire world went white, empty, and calm. A few moments later, Jonas’s hand moved back to Twist’s shoulder, lightening the effect on Twist’s Sight. Twist found his breathing now smooth, and his nerves significantly calmer.
“That’s better,” Jonas remarked, still peering at him with purple eyes. “Just relax.”
Out of the cool oasis of Jonas’s deeper touch, Twist’s mind began to recount the last few minutes over again. He snapped his eyes shut with a grimace at his own obvious insanity.
“Hey, I said relax,” Jonas chided. “You’re all right.”
“No, I’m not,” Twist moaned.
“Tell me what you saw,” Jonas said gently.
It took Twist a moment to force himself to admit anything, but he didn’t manage to open his eyes for fear of seeing Jonas’s reaction. “I saw…him. Again.”
“Him, who?”
“You know. The blue bastard.”
When Jonas didn’t respond right away, Twist opened his eyes to find a worried frown on his friend’s face.
“But you’re not asleep,” Jonas mentioned. “Are you sure of what you saw?”
“Yes,” Twist said miserably. “I saw it all clear as day. The evil cretin stepped out of the shadows behind Aden and started to smash through the mirror with his fist. It made a horrible racket. And the bastard was laughing the whole time!”
“All right, all right,” Jonas murmured. “Have you ever seen him when you were awake before?”
“Well…” Twist muttered. “I thought I saw a glimpse of him once. But it could have just been a trick of the light. There was nothing there when I looked for it.”
“Where did you see him the first time?”
“In a mirror, back on the ship from Hawaii. When Myra cut my hair.”
“What did he do that time?”
“Nothing,” Twist said with a sigh. “I just thought I saw him out of the corner of my eye.”
“But you’re sure it was him?”
“I don’t know,” Twist moaned, shutting his eyes and hanging his head.
“It’s all right,” Jonas said yet again, taking Twist’s hand.
Twist let his thoughts dissolve into the calming fog that wafted through his Sight at the touch.
“You’re not insane, by the way,” Jonas mentioned. “In case you were wondering.”
“You don’t know that,” Twist muttered, staring dismally at the deck.
Jonas moved decisively, taking Twist by the shoulders. When Twist looked up at him, Jonas stared Twist in the eye.
“Yes, I do. The bastard is messing with you. Mirrors do weird things to Sights. Everyone knows that. And ghosts and magical nonsense like to use them, as well. It’s perfectly reasonable to assume that the ghost that’s infiltrating your Sight would favor mirrors. You said that you saw him come out of a mirror in your dream.”
“But I was awake a moment ago,” Twist countered.
“It was still a mirror. How did the vision end? You seemed to realize that it wasn’t really happening before I took you away.”
Twist’s mind snapped back to a fleeting glimpse of Myra’s frightened face when he’d started screaming about nothing, and his pride ached once again. He struggled to pull his attention back to Jonas’s question. “It stopped. It just stopped suddenly.”
“What made it stop?” Jonas asked.
“I don’t know…” Twist said distantly, clamoring to remember. “I looked away,” he said, suddenly realizing. “You drew my attention, and I looked away from the mirror. When I looked back, everything seemed perfectly normal.”
“Well, it’s simple, then,” Jonas said with a smile. “All we have to do is not let you sleep alone and distract you from mirrors.”
Twist frowned at the lightness of his tone.
“Look, we will figure this out,” Jonas said seriously. “Until then, I think it’s best to try not to let it frighten you. He’s clearly trying to upset you. The more you let him, the more he wins.”
“And if he drives me truly insane?” Twist asked bitterly.
“Don’t worry about that,” Jonas said with a smile. “After all we’ve been through, if you haven’t lost your mind yet, then you never will.”
Twist found himself smiling back to Jonas with just enough will left to decide to believe his theory. Jonas’s certainty felt like solid ground in the emotions that bled into his Sight. As his nerves began to ease once again, Twist noticed the subtle sensation that they were being watched. He glanced to one side to find Myra standing at the top of the stairs, watching them with palpable apprehension. Fear flashed hot and sharp through Twist’s heart.
“Come here, poppet,” Jonas called to her. Myra hurried closer, her eyes never leaving Twist. “He’s all right,” Jonas said calmly, drawing her rapt attention. “But the ghost is getting more aggressive. It gave him a nightmare while he was awake.”
Myra gasped in horror, her clockwork fingers covering her mouth.
“It seems to like mirrors,” Jonas went on, his tone just a shade more soothing. “If we keep him away from mirrors, he should be fine. See?” he added with a gesture to Twist. “He was just a bit startled, but he’s fine now.”
“Oh, I’m so glad to hear it,” Myra said, moving closer to Twist. She took his hand in one of hers and reached up to stroke his face tenderly, while a strange mixture of her concern and relief splashed about in his mind. “You gave me quite a fright, you know,” she chided him gently.
“I’m sorry I did,” Twist responded, taking her other hand to kiss it.
“It’s all right now,” Myra said, smiling warmly to him as her emotions took on a brave resolve. “Jonas and I will look after you until that nasty beast is gone for good and this business is all sorted out.”
Twist smiled at her unfettered optimism. Whether or not she and Jonas truly believed that they would be able to find a cure for Twist’s predicament, Twist was heartened by their offered support. He did his best to dispel his own fears, even if just for their sake. As if they were each playacting for the others’ benefit, the three of them then decidedly turned their attention to other things. Jonas left Twist with Myra for a moment as he returned to the dark mirror room. He said that he wanted to find out what had happened between Aden and the gypsies, and Twist tried not to think about how Jonas would explain Twist’s episode to everyone. Myra did her best to distract him in the meantime.
They found soon after that while everyone had been speaking with Aden, the two airships had already begun to move again. The captured pirates had been locked away, safe and sound in the belly of the Rook vessel, which now flew in tandem with the pirate airship. Since Skye had explained that getting to Africa was a matter of urgency, Aden had agreed to let the commandeered ship and its crew be processed at a Rook installation that was near to their destination. It was decid
ed that, in the interest of convenience, Twist, his companions, and a few Rooks who would work the ship, were to remain on the pirate ship for the rest of the journey to Sierra Leone.
While Twist and Jonas were out of the room, the gypsies had apparently accepted Aden’s offer of a temporary truce. Luca told Jonas in hushed tones that Aden had offered to meet with a representative from his family to discuss the terms of a more lasting peace. In the meantime, Harman and Luca were to consider themselves guests of the Rook aeronauts that now surrounded them. Although they were far from pleased with this idea, the gypsies seemed to accept the situation out of necessity.
“So what is this, anyway?” Jonas asked, holding the vial of slightly glowing red liquid before his purple eyes. He, like Twist and the rest of their companions, had found a comfortable perch on the edge of a crate on the top deck of the pirate airship, under the strong afternoon sun.
“Dragon’s blood,” Luca answered with a shrug.
Twist shivered against the word, but the feeling passed quickly. Harman sat beside his son, still silent and sullen, while Luca appeared to be coming to terms with their new situation. Twist also noticed now that neither of the gypsies appeared nearly as threatening to him as they had before. Luca in particular had lost most of his sinister air. The most worrying thing in sight at the moment was the vial that Jonas now held.
“Well, yeah,” Jonas said, still peering at it. “I know it’s called that. I saw some once before. Powerful stuff,” he said to Skye in an aside. “I’ve seen one drop of this turn a policeman into a toad on the spot.”
“What, really?” Skye asked, astonished.
“Is he still a toad?” Myra asked curiously. “That must be terribly awkward for him.”
“I think he changed back after a while,” Luca answered. “Showy spells like that don’t last very long.”
“Oh, good,” Myra said, looking relieved.
“Yeah, but what is it?” Jonas asked. He glanced up to Twist across the small clearing, his eyes still a deep purple. “I mean, to me it just looks like—”
Jonas’s words stopped so suddenly, with a violently stark intake of breath, that everyone looked to him instantly. Twist was dumbstruck as Jonas’s face paled and his eyes—trained directly on Twist’s—snapped to a purple so deep it was nearly black in a single instant. The buzz in Twist’s neck grew cold enough to make him shiver, and his own pulse quickened in his shock. The vial slipped from Jonas’s hand as he stared ahead blankly, his breath beginning to race. Luca was nearest to him and dove to catch the vial, barely able to do so before it crashed onto the deck.
“Careful!” Harman gasped, paused in midlurch to save the vial as well. Luca, clearly astonished with his success, held it tightly in his hand.
“Jonas, what’s wrong?” Skye asked, looking at Jonas with obvious concern.
Jonas snapped his eyes shut, clutching white-knuckled to the edge of the crate he sat on. He hung his head and gasped in quick breaths, clearly trembling from head to toe. Twist hopped off of his seat and hurried to him as he felt a torrent of naked terror and pain pour down his spine from the buzz in his neck. Myra followed a step behind, her hand over her mouth in alarm. Skye moved closer as well, while the gypsies only looked at Jonas in utter confusion.
“Jonas?” Twist asked, reaching out to touch his arm.
Jonas shuddered at the sound of his name, and Twist pulled his hand back. His eyes still tightly closed, Jonas reached out to Twist. His trembling fingers clutched tightly to Twist’s collar as he stood up. Without a single word of explanation, Jonas turned and began to rush away from everyone, dragging Twist along with him. Twist didn’t protest at all but only struggled to follow after him as Jonas refused to release his collar.
They flew down the steps and into the now-empty second deck together, and all of the way along the length of the ship to the narrow space inside the bow. Jonas finally let go of Twist and turned his back on him, his hurried breath audible as he gasped. He leaned both hands heavily on the surface of the table that was bolted to the middle of the floor near the bow. Even in the dim light, Twist could still see his form shaking terribly.
“Jonas?” Twist tried after a long moment of only hearing his friend’s frightened breath. He leaned around to peer at his face, but Jonas’s head was hanging low, and his face was well hidden from Twist. Overwhelmed with his own fear for his friend, Twist couldn’t come up with anything else to say to him. How had Jonas known how to so easily soothe him, not an hour before? Jonas always seemed to know exactly how to calm Twist.
“I can’t—” Jonas began on a choked sounding voice. “I didn’t—” he began again. He snapped his mouth closed and seemed to force himself to take one long, slow, deep breath before he spoke again. “Shit, Twist, I thought you were safe.”
Twist jerked against this, of all responses. “What?”
“I just saw…” Jonas clenched his jaw in obvious frustration, his shoulders still shaking slightly. “I saw…you die.”
A cold wave of his own alarm washed over Twist, threatening to make him start shaking as well. Reduced to nothing but fear and confusion, Twist’s mind left him with only one possible action, useless as it might seem. He reached out and put a comforting hand on Jonas’s back. Twist’s Sight erupted with a frigid and dim version of Jonas’s usual fog. Jonas’s quivering form tightened in surprise at Twist’s touch, but he then seemed to accept it and made no complaint. The fog receded in Twist’s mind, leaving a cloud of fear and pain behind it. After a moment of silence, Jonas’s trembling began to ease.
“Tell me what you saw,” Twist said softly, borrowing Jonas’s soothing words from earlier.
“No,” Jonas answered instantly, shaking his head. Twist noticed that his voice sounded choked again.
“Jonas, just tell me,” Twist said gently. “It will help. I told you about my nightmare. And the vision in the mirror.”
“This wasn’t a dream.”
“Tell me,” Twist pressed, holding his tone calm.
Jonas didn’t respond for a moment. Then he moved suddenly, stepping away from Twist to keep his back to him. Twist let him go, waiting anxiously as he stared at his friend’s back. The absence of the touch felt like the loss of a remarkable burden to Twist. Jonas took another long, deep breath before he spoke again.
“It will be vampires,” Jonas said, his voice tight but not choked now. “It could be twenty of them, maybe even more.”
Twist listened quietly, but he felt his own heartbeat speed up in fear at the thought.
“We’ll be in a building,” Jonas continued, his words taking on more speed. “There’s some kind of door—like a vault or part of a machine. It can only be opened from one side. I don’t know how it works or why we’ll be there. It’s just…” He paused, taking another breath as his quick words seemed to get away from him. “You’ll push me through and slam it shut, locking yourself out.”
Twist frowned. He’d never thought he’d have any sort of heroic end. He shook his head, forcing down his own fear at Jonas’s words.
“Oh God, Twist,” Jonas said, his voice quivering. He reached up to run his hands through his hair. “How could you be so stupid? Why can’t we both run? Why does it have to en—” His words stopped abruptly on a jagged, pained gasp.
His mind racing around the dangerous turns on Jonas’s words, Twist stepped closer and put his hand on Jonas’s shoulder. The fear-filled, freezing fog returned to his mind and weighed heavily on his spirit. Twist pushed through his friend’s emotions, fighting to hold on to his own clarity.
“Jonas, you’ve looked into my eyes a thousand times,” he said as calmly as he could.
“What?” Jonas asked, glancing halfway at him, over his shoulder.
Twist leaned toward his gaze, but Jonas instantly snapped his eyes away.
“You can’t see my death. You never have.”
Jonas didn’t respond, but the fog at the edge of Twist’s senses seemed to lighten ever so slightly.
“There’s no surviving that,” Jonas said, shaking his head.
“Doesn’t that vial that your friends stole protect against vampires?” Twist asked, desperate to hang on to his bright, beautiful train of thought.
“I’m telling you,” Jonas said, finding a measure of strength somewhere, “there were easily two dozen of them.”
“I’ve faced dozens of enemies before, and I’m still alive,” Twist said confidently. He then paused, frowning at the strangeness of the thought, before he forced his mind back on track. “There were loads of Cyphers in that cave outside of Suez,” he said, grasping at the memories, “and even more on Loki’s ship. I took on who knows how many bat people in Indonesia. Not to mention Zéphyrin—”
“Stop it,” Jonas said, although his voice didn’t actually betray any annoyance.
Twist could almost catch the ghost of a smile in his tone, and the fog was turning distinctly brighter.
“Jonas, please,” Twist said, leaning around his shoulder again. “Look at me.”
“Hell, no!” Jonas gasped, moving away again and breaking all contact. He still kept his back turned on Twist.
“You can’t see me die,” Twist said sternly. “You know you can’t.”
“I just bloody did!” Jonas growled, his anger resurfacing for only an instant before falling under a torrent of bitter sadness that escaped him in a moan. He covered his face with his hands, struggling to catch the sound.
Twist stepped closer and took a hold of his arm, turning him around to face him. Jonas threw his hand off, his eyes tightly closed in his flushed face.
“Get off!” Jonas growled, his voice threatening to choke him again.
Determination gripped Twist’s soul. One glance at his eyes was all it would take to calm the fire and ice that he felt raging in the buzz at his neck. He reached out and caught Jonas behind the ears, with both hands, holding his face trained directly on his own. The fog returned again to his mind, now nearly black in his senses. Startled by the depth of Jonas’s fear and pain, Twist struggled to retain his own calm. Shock at Twist’s action slowed Jonas’s protest, giving Twist the first chance to speak.
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