Stolen Dreams

by Christine Amsden

  “I do.” I hesitated. “Do you know who?”

  “Evan had to kill a bounty hunter a couple days ago. Did you know that?”

  I hadn’t. Somehow, despite knowing how powerful Evan was, I had trouble picturing him as a killer, even in self-defense. That was part of the Evan he tried to present to the world–hard, dangerous, and unfeeling. I knew better, or thought I did.

  A killer. I shuddered, despite the warmth of the house. It must have changed him to cross that line, but in what ways? Would I recognize him if I saw him again?

  “As to the future,” Abigail said, “I can’t say. There are too many variables, and I–well, there are other issues.”

  When it seemed clear that she wouldn’t elaborate on the other issues, I pushed for more. “So what can I do?”

  “You could marry my grandson.”

  Again, I shuddered. “If you’re not going to be serious–”

  “I am perfectly serious. How can they continue to use you two as excuses to fight if you manage to forgive one another?”

  “My family will think he’s put a spell on me, and besides, I’ll never forgive him.” I paused, considering her wording. “Wait, what do you mean ‘one another?’ What does he need to forgive me for?”

  “You should ask him.”

  “I’m asking you.”

  Abigail sighed. “Look, Evan’s a prideful man.”

  “Arrogant, you mean?”

  “Let’s not argue semantics.” Abigail’s eyes hardened, chastising me. “You’ve made it clear how you feel about him, so how is he supposed to feel about you?”

  “I’ve never done anything to hurt him! Just the opposite.”

  “You’ve never really tried talking to him, either. Honestly talking to him. It might work wonders.”

  “I did talk to him.” I’d asked him for my magic back and he’d flatly refused. The memory still made my cheeks burn. “If he wanted to put a stop to this, he could do it.”

  “Strange. He said the same thing about you.”

  “Good thing I didn’t go to him, then. I came to you. Do you have any other ideas?”

  She paused, then nodded. “Yes. Become my apprentice. There’s a lot I can teach you, and somewhere in there, perhaps we can find the answer.”

  I hesitated, not because the idea wasn’t tempting, but because my family would never allow it. “Would I have to come out here every day? My parents–”

  “–don’t have to know, at least not right away.” She closed her eyes again. “I think we’ll be safe meeting here for a few weeks, at least.”

  “I can’t pay you. I won’t be in your debt.”

  “You wouldn’t be. We’re working together to stop a tragedy, aren’t we?”

  “I suppose, but what would you teach me? I’ve been doing some pretty neat things with potions, but–”

  “I will teach you dreaming.”

  “Dreaming?” My heart sank. For a minute there, I thought she might have something valuable she could offer me, but dreaming was a branch of magic my father liked to call a hack. Only wannabes messed with dreaming and dream interpretation.

  Abigail chuckled, then coughed. She took a sip of her tea before saying, “Your father doesn’t respect it, does he? Well, he’s never been the type to want to look too deeply inside himself. I suspect he wouldn’t like what he found there.”

  “I don’t remember my dreams,” I said.

  “Then that’s a good place to start, isn’t it?”

  I didn’t answer. I took a sip of tea to cover the silence while I considered her offer, really considered it.

  “I won’t marry your grandson,” I said. “I don’t want you to suggest it again.”

  She scowled. “I know your heart is broken, but would you throw away a lifetime of friendship so easily?”

  “It’s not me who’s–”

  “And to let your pain over what he did push you into the arms of a self-centered, power-hungry man like Alexander DuPris–”

  “I’m not marrying him!” I flushed at the reminder of how widespread the rumors had become. Alexander had posted an engagement announcement in his newsletters, and splashed it across the Internet. When I’d returned home I had been so caught up in trying to help Amanda escape, and the aftermath of that incident, that I hadn’t realized what was happening until just about everyone believed the story. I’d even had to sit down with Kaitlin and Madison to explain the truth.

  “You aren’t?” Abigail frowned.

  “Why?” I asked, suddenly nervous. “You don’t see us getting married in the future, do you?”

  She closed her eyes, looking inward. “Maybe not. I-I told you, there are a lot of possibilities.”

  “And other factors,” I repeated, wondering what those were. Maybe if I became her apprentice, she’d tell me.

  “Yes.” She opened her eyes. “Evan believes it. Your friend, Madison, told him it was true.”

  I cringed, but then I remembered the only time she might have told him such a tale, and felt a hot rush of anger. “Good. I hope it made him miserable.”

  Abigail frowned, but continued, “He also heard it from one of Alexander’s men–that mediator who came to town for a while. I can’t recall his name….”

  “Tyler,” I supplied. After his initial attempt to arrest Evan, Alexander had stayed well away from the situation, unless you count exploiting my story for political gain. (I did, but he didn’t agree.) The only thing he did do to try to help was to send a mediator. Tyler Lake was a good choice, gifted in empathy and possessed of true objectivity that is a real rarity; but his efforts had failed, and I worried that he was serving a dual role: mediator and spy. The fact that he remained in town after his initial peace talks had failed seemed to confirm my suspicion.

  “So,” Abigail said, “What did happen in Pennsylvania?”

  I hesitated. “It’s a long story.”

  “Well, then, why don’t you put on another pot of tea?”

  2

  I DIDN’T DATE IN HIGH SCHOOL. MY first honest-to-goodness date wasn’t until the day after graduation, when Braden Walker took me to the movies and then to Kaitlin’s Diner for a slice of strawberry pie. At the time, I thought it was the best, most romantic thing that had ever happened to me. Finally, a man had seen through rumors and speculation to the real me, or at least saw something that made him willing to try.

  Before that, I watched my friends date–I particularly watched Evan date, although I didn’t admit it to anyone–and wished for some of that success. Wouldn’t it be wonderful, I thought, if everyone wanted to go out with me, and I could have my pick? I spent many nights casting that dream into the heavens, like wishing on a star.

  I followed Alexander to Pennsylvania in September with new dreams of saving the world replacing those long-ago teenage fantasies; but it was the old wish upon a star that came true, and in reality, it was a nightmare.

  Look, I have a pretty fair picture of myself–my strengths and my weaknesses: I’m attractive but not beautiful; I’m friendly but not charismatic; I’m kind but no saint. So why, all of a sudden, were dozens of men, essentially all the unattached men living and working with Alexander, interested in me?

  Evan had once warned me of the type of interest men would have in me. At the time, I worried that he himself shared that interest, and though his motives no longer concerned me in the least, his warning did. Breeding stock, he had called it. Many powerful men would want a woman with lots of magical potential to pass on to their children, but no actual magic to threaten them.

  He hadn’t known the half of it, because at the time, I hadn’t been Alexander’s personal political symbol. My secret was now out. Way out. It had first come out during the botched attempt to arrest Evan, but Alexander had not let such a minor failure get in his way. If he couldn’t have Evan as a symbol of justice, then he would have me as a symbol of possibility and endurance. “Look at Cassandra,”–he liked to use my full name, as my parents did–“She has no magic of
her own, but she has turned knowledge into power. If she can do it, then what excuse have we, who were blessed with everything she never had?”

  I didn’t recognize myself in his highly charged political speeches. He called me brave because I had learned to overcome my disability, but I was neither convinced of my bravery nor my disability.

  And all the while a secret so closely guarded that even I hadn’t known it became common knowledge. It was even splattered across the Internet for any practitioner who cared to read about it.

  When I wasn’t being publicly paraded around in Alexander’s shadow as a symbol of virtues I didn’t possess, I stayed at his compound in the Appalachian Foothills. The place was impressive to say the least–ten stories deep, with only one above the ground serving as a front for the normals.

  Within the compound, a thousand people lived and worked, almost like members of a commune, although with more inequalities than I would have imagined. Jobs were doled out based on magical potential above any other factor, so much so that I found a woman with a law degree working in the kitchens, and a man with an M.D. on the janitorial staff. When asked why they didn’t leave, they kind of gaped at me like I had grown two heads.

  “Look what you’ve been able to do with no magic at all,” the doctor told me. “That’s the sort of knowledge he’s trying to make public, so that we all have a more even playing field. I want to be a part of that.”

  “By pushing a mop?” I asked.

  “He’s got healers on staff. Besides, I specialized in psychiatric medicine, and there isn’t such a need for that here.”

  My conversation with the lawyer was much the same. I asked Alexander about it, of course, and he told me that real change took time, but didn’t I want to be a part of it?

  Did I?

  I had gone to Pennsylvania with big dreams about helping people, but in a vague, idealistic way, sort of like hoping for world peace. The truth is never that easy. The truth is politics, and I quickly came to realize that I was no politician.

  I wouldn’t have suited Matthew Blair because of his political ambitions. But as the weeks wore on, becoming months, I developed an odd feeling of gratitude toward him, for everything he had done to me. He had not succeeded, but in the meantime he had helped me understand mind magic in both its subtle and overt forms; and he had given me practice fighting it–a skill I found myself using nearly every single day.

  The teenage version of me would probably have thought being wanted by dozens of men would make me feel beautiful. In reality, it made me feel cheap, like some popular toy everyone wanted for Christmas and then forgot about the next day. No one wanted me for me, only for what I could do for them. It might have been better if I were some drop-dead-gorgeous beauty, because at least then they would have wanted me for something that was mine, even if it was only skin deep. But no, they didn’t care what I looked like, how I acted, what I thought, how I felt, or what I knew. They only cared about power, and how I could help them get it.

  Alexander never got between me and my beaus, as he called them, except to warn them against any direct physical attack. He wouldn’t stand for that kind of assault in his compound. He never said anything about mental attacks, and by so doing, gave everyone tacit permission to use mind magic against me.

  I couldn’t let my guard down for a second. You probably can’t imagine how exhausting that is, and I don’t like to think about it. My family and friends were all thousands of miles away, and a cell phone is cold company.

  Then one day, I had enough. I had finally come to understand that my role in Alexander’s organization was as a trophy, not as a person, and I was done with it. Trouble was, it wasn’t quite as done with me.

  * * *

  Alexander invited me to dinner the Sunday before Thanksgiving. It wasn’t the first such invitation, but it would be the last, because the next day I would be going home. I had already packed, and was only waiting now to tell Alexander in person. I owed him that much.

  Alexander isn’t exactly a mind mage, but he has the strongest gift of charisma I’ve ever run into. My six-year-old brother might come close when he grows up, but I thought Alexander topped even him. Which meant denying Alexander anything was… difficult. His charisma had come into play when I had agreed to come work for him in the first place, although he hadn’t needed to turn on the charm to full force. I admit, I had been running away, at least for a time. (Perhaps I should go with regrouping instead, since running away sounds like cowardice.)

  That night, though, he had his charm dialed up to full volume. I noticed it the moment I walked in to see, not the usual collection of advisers and favorites, but a table set for two, lit by candles.

  I almost turned right around and left his apartments, ten floors below the ground. I didn’t even have my potion belt with me, thinking I wouldn’t need it with Alexander. I swore then and there that I would never leave it behind again.

  “Come in and have a seat,” he said, ushering me to one of the two place settings. As soon as I was settled, he took the domed cover off of my dinner plate to reveal tempting roast duck, boiled potatoes, and steamed broccoli.

  I didn’t eat a bite until I splashed a single drop of my special potion on each item. I might not have brought the whole belt, but Alexander didn’t rule the kitchens, and the single vial fit nicely into my clutch.

  The potatoes and broccoli passed inspection. The duck didn’t. It was laced with some kind of mind-altering potion. Too bad, it smelled amazing.

  “My men have kept you on your toes, haven’t they?” Alexander asked.

  “That’s an understatement.”

  “You’ve bested them all, though.”

  “Yeah.” I didn’t tell him about the near misses. There were too many of them for comfort, and I simply couldn’t remain vigilant twenty-four seven. Sooner or later, something would get through.

  “So listen,” I began.

  “Cassandra,” Alexander said at the same time.

  There was that moment of awkwardness when two speakers realized they had tried to take control of the conversation at the same time, and the silent tug-of-war while one conceded the reigns to the other.

  “Cassandra,” Alexander began again, “I know this hasn’t been easy for you. I also know you wish I would be more forceful in keeping them away.”

  “Why haven’t you been? One word from you, and they’d stop with the love potions and mental whammies.”

  “Would they?” Alexander asked. “I’m afraid they wouldn’t, but that it would give you a false sense of security. Besides, there is one obvious way to put an end to all of this.”

  “Oh?” Nothing had occurred to me.

  “Get married.”

  “Are you serious? To one of those… those… throwbacks to another time?” It was the kindest thing I could think to say about a collection of men who wanted a woman like me.

  “Throwbacks to an….” Alexander frowned, the expression etching deep lines into his distinguished face. “You think they want to dominate you? Do you think anyone in this compound believes you could be dominated?”

  Yes, I did. Despite everything, or maybe because of it, many of them believed they could “tame” me. A couple had used that precise word.

  “If you would just take some time to get to know a few of them, they might surprise you.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t want to get married right now. The idea is so far off my radar, it may as well be on another planet.”

  “Because of Evan?” Alexander asked.

  “Because of a lot of things.” But yes, mostly Evan. It wasn’t that he had broken my heart, although he had, as prophesied, or even because he had broken my soul, though he had done that too. It was because, thanks to Evan, I no longer believed a man would want to marry me for the right reasons. One day I might choose a lesser of evils, if for no other reason than because I wouldn’t let a world full of greedy, power-hungry men keep me from my own dream of having lots of children, but that day was f
ar off. I was only 21, after all. I had plenty of time.

  “You should get married,” Alexander said. “I know things have been tough for you, but you need someone to love.”

  “None of your men love me.”

  “They don’t know you. Most of them would, if they did.”

  I stabbed my fork into my plate at random, catching a piece of duck. Great, it was contaminated now. I tossed it down.

  “They don’t know what love is if they think they can throw it in duck sauce.”

  Alexander chuckled. “Maybe not, but I still think they’d learn. It would also be such a shame… you do want children, right?”

  The question sliced like a knife through my heart. He knew I did.

  “You’re young. If you start soon, you could have as many children as your parents.”

  “Oh, I don’t know if I want that many.” I hadn’t set a number because I always figured I would know when I was done.

  “And I hate to say it, because I know you don’t need it, but getting married would protect you.” He held up a hand before I could protest. “If from nothing else, it would protect you from annoyances.”

  “There’s a reason to get married–to stop everyone else from asking!”

  Alexander smiled, but didn’t join in my mirth. His eyes were sober and solemn. He lifted his napkin from his lap, patted his mouth, and then set it on top of the table, his eyes never leaving mine the entire time.

  “You’re a very attractive woman, Cassandra.”

  I felt a familiar fluttering in my stomach, but at the same time, it was strange. I had felt something like it before, especially with Evan. A certain look or a simple touch from him, and I felt fluttery sensations straight through to my core, and I didn’t even want to think about how his kisses made me feel.

  These fluttery sensations were similar but, I finally realized, they didn’t flow from my heart. Instead, they seemed to flow from my eyes, where they connected to Alexander’s.

  “Thank you,” I said, because it was polite. I didn’t feel any gratitude for the compliment, and wished fervently that he hadn’t issued it. I could see where this was going, and I didn’t like it in the least.