by Krista Walsh
Jasmine cast him a sidelong glance. “He dreams.”
She left it at that, and Jeff thought it best not to press. He would see soon enough.
They entered her office and took a right through the sitting room into the depths of her bedroom, another room in the Keep Jeff had never ventured into before.
A single candle flickered on the table next to the empty side of the bed, and Jeff imagined Jasmine waking up at the sounds of her husband in the throes of some nightmare, lighting one candle before rushing off to fulfill Brady’s request.
On the other side of the bed, Brady thrashed against his pillows, his spine bending backwards until Jeff expected any moment to hear it crack.
“What’s happening?” he asked. “I thought you said he was dreaming.”
Jasmine’s fingers circled Jeff’s arm and squeezed as she nodded. Jeff saw the fear in her green eyes, the worry that she would lose the man she loved for the second time, having only had such brief happiness with him.
She was Jeff’s character. With the return of his creativity, Jeff could read her like a character profile, see all of the thoughts and feelings running through her mind. But at this moment, it felt too invasive to do so, and he turned back to Brady.
“You said he asked for me?”
“He said your name. I don’t know what he dreams when he’s like this. He doesn’t often remember them in the morning. Or at least not that he tells me.”
Jeff approached the bed, Jasmine still holding his arm.
“Brady?” he called softly, not wanting to scare the man. “Can you hear me?”
The counsellor was mumbling against his pillow, his lips moving quickly in a language Jeff didn’t recognise.
Then the words changed. They were garbled, as though they came from someone unfamiliar with the language, but Jeff could understand him.
“The veil thins. We hold our breath and wait. Stop it, or watch both worlds be devoured in a maw of fire and ash.”
The effort to speak seemed to exhaust Brady. As soon as he fell silent, his body sagged into the bed, looking small and wasted.
Just as Jasmine and Jeff prepared to relax, Brady’s muscles tensed again, and he fell into a seizure.
Chapter Six
Oh gods, what’s happening?” Jasmine exclaimed, rushing to the other side of the bed.
“Get him on his side and hold tight,” said Jeff, pulling what he could remember from the CPR course he took in college.
Brady flailed against Jeff’s hold, and Jeff wondered what the hell they would do if he didn’t stop. Maggie was too far away, and in the middle of the night who would hear their calls for help?
Thankfully, after a minute, the counsellor slumped forward and relaxed, his breathing even.
“Is he all right?” Jasmine asked, her voice shaking. Jeff didn’t think he’d ever seen her so scared.
“I think he’s sleeping. He should be okay now.”
Trembling, Jasmine sank onto the bed and met Jeff’s gaze over her husband. “He’s not okay, Jeff. None of this is okay.”
Jeff let out a breath. “Pass me the candle.”
Jasmine did as he asked, and he lit the taper on Brady’s side before handing it back to her. The extra light in the room cast deeper shadows under Brady’s eyes.
When he first saw how tired his friend looked, Jeff’s thought had been that he and Jasmine kept late hours now that they were together. He understood now that could only be part of the problem.
He sank into a chair on the other side of the bed, crossing his hands over his stomach and watching Brady’s chest rise and fall.
“How long has this been going on?”
Jasmine brushed the tears from her cheeks, running her hand along Brady’s arm. “Probably ever since he woke up in the healing ward, but I only found out when he moved into my room a few weeks later. He never told me.”
“Does he know?”
She raised a shoulder. “I’m not sure. Like I said, I don’t know if he remembers most of what happens during these episodes. It doesn’t happen every night. A few times a week. Ever since these vortices started opening, it’s been more often.”
They fell into silence for a moment. Jeff could sense the tension in the room, saw Jasmine working herself up to say something, and didn’t bother to fill the gap.
“It’s Talfyr, isn’t it?” she said. “He’s killing him.”
Jeff chewed on his cheek. “If he is, I don’t think it’s intentional. What Brady said—it sounded almost like a warning, didn’t it? Like something the Sisters would say, only slightly less cryptic. I think he’s trying to help. But yes, I think it’s taking more of a toll on Brady than Talfyr realises. Or he thinks the message is more important than the messenger.”
“Well, I don’t. He should find someone else to deliver his warnings.”
Despite his own concerns, Jeff had to struggle to suppress a smile. “I don’t think anyone else would have tried as hard as Brady to forge this connection in the first place. His curiosity got him into this mess. There must be a way to get him out of it.”
“I’ll talk to Maggie,” said Jasmine, sounding more exhausted than she had a few minutes ago. “He can’t keep going on like this.”
Again they lapsed into silence, this time both caught up with watching Brady sleep. Jeff felt his own eyelids grow heavy.
“What do you think the message means?” Jasmine spoke again, rousing him from a doze. “Who’s ‘we’? How will your world be devoured? None of this makes sense, Jeff.”
“Then it’s just par for the course, isn’t it, Jax? When do we ever get involved in anything that makes sense?”
***
Jeff stayed with Jasmine another hour to make sure Brady stayed asleep, then returned to his room and collapsed fully clothed on the bed, passing out until the sun peeked over the horizon. Not nearly long enough to make up for the fitful night, but too many thoughts ran through his head to allow for more rest.
With a groan, he rolled onto his back and stared up at the ceiling.
I should have known, he thought.
Silly of him to think they could come to this world for a quick dinner and some catching up, get his imagination back and be home in time for the hockey game. Now, not only was Cassie who-knew-where in this world, but ancient dragons were passing warnings through the mouths of men, and trees were being eaten by swirling lights.
Par for the course, indeed.
The difference this time around was that Jeff felt he could help. On his first visit, he’d been too out of his depth trying to accept he was in a world he thought fictional. On his second visit, he’d lacked his greatest strength. Now he knew damn well what was real and what wasn’t, and he had an imagination that felt ten times more vivid—although he wasn’t sure if it was his appreciation for having it back, or some kind of vamped-up mental process thanks to the Sisters. That would be a concern for later.
He also had motivation.
Cassie needed his help, and damn it if he wouldn’t be there for her.
But first he needed an idea, something to build on.
Throwing off the covers, Jeff found himself shivering under the weight of his still-damp clothing. A quick wardrobe change into his usual Feldall outfit of wool pants, cotton tunic, and leather vest, and he hurried downstairs, hoping Maggie was already at work.
When he reached the stairs to the lower levels, he had no doubt he was in luck. A flash of light, a yell, and then a trail of red smoke drifted up towards him.
He thought of Brady’s recommendation that he not venture down when he saw such obvious signs of experimentation, but he had to risk it.
“Non-magical person coming down,” he called first, just to be safe. He waved away a puff of smoke sneaking upwards into his face and started down.
Outside the door he called again, “Is it safe to come in?”
“Yes, yes,” Maggie called. “Just mind the mess.”
He opened the door and immediately did a hopp
ing dance around a puddle of red sludge, the source of the smoke.
“Sorry about this,” said William, his face just as red as the sludge. His clothes were spattered with it, giving the appearance that he’d just slaughtered some poor creature.
Swallowing hard at the sulphuric smell, Jeff glanced around to make sure that, in fact, no creature had been harmed in the making of the mess.
The only change Jeff saw was the glow from the large iron cauldron in the middle of the room next to Maggie’s work table. No longer a warm golden light, but a shimmering ruby red.
“Did that just happen?” he asked.
Maggie looked over her shoulder from the workbench along the back wall and let out a sigh, nodding. “Not the desired result, but I suppose it could have been worse.”
Jeff edged closer and peered into the bubbling contents. Of the numerous colours he had seen in that cauldron, this red was the most alluring.
“One of these days you’ll have to tell me what this stuff is,” he said.
Maggie winked. “Where would the fun in that be?” She turned her attention to her son, who was still dripping sludge from the tip of his nose. “Go and wash up before it burns your nose off.”
William gave Jeff a quick nod before he hurried out the door. Maggie shook her head and turned back to her workbench. “He’s actually quite good, despite appearances.”
“He’s your son,” said Jeff, sitting on the bench at the table. The cauldron bubbled contentedly beside him. “How could he not be?”
“Flattery will get you nowhere with me,” said Maggie. “Unless you actually want something. What’s up?”
“Any luck with the research? I know it’s only been a few hours, but I thought….”
Maggie smiled and carried the heavy tome from her side of the room to drop it in front of Jeff on the larger table. “I figured you’d drop in early, so I made a point of putting together what we’ve found so far. It’s not much.”
She flipped to a marked page and turned the book around so Jeff could see. On the page were a few short paragraphs in a language Jeff didn’t understand, with a sketch of a chaotic circle made of overlapping lines around a dark centre. It looked a bit like an eye, and Jeff felt uncomfortable under its stare. The date on the bottom of the page suggested these records were taken over a hundred years ago in this world.
“Like I said last night, these notes show it’s happened before. These paragraphs here describe how the vortices opened up in random locations and swallowed anything in their paths. Like a sideways tornado.”
Jeff ran Brady’s message through his head, trying to see if they made any more sense now that he’d seen the pictures and heard what Maggie knew. When nothing clicked, he relayed them to Maggie. “Does that mean anything to you?”
Maggie chewed her bottom lip, finger tapping against the vellum page. “Maybe. The part about the veil makes sense. If these vortices are rips in an already thin veil, it would explain where everything is going. It means they’re not really vanishing, they’re just stuck.”
“Like Raul was?”
Back when the madman was experimenting with all sorts of magic, he had accidentally trapped himself for five years behind the veil, the boundary between worlds. Able to see into Andvell, but unable to communicate with or actively manipulate the world. Eventually he found his way back, waking Talfyr in the process, a hundred years before the dragon was supposed to wake up for his bi-millennial snack.
When Maggie nodded, Jeff returned to the same idea that had haunted him in the middle of the night. “I know it doesn’t make any sense, and I know I saw him die, but is there any possible way Raul could be involved in this? If we hadn’t seen Talfyr bite off his dragon head, all signs would point to him.”
“It does have his signature, I’ll give you that,” Maggie agreed. “Something overdramatic and complicated. But I don’t think so. For one thing, these doorways are opening at random across the country. If Raul was involved, he would target us first, don’t you think?”
Jeff considered her words and had to agree. “All right, we set him aside, then. Thank all that you consider holy. What about the rest of Brady’s message?”
Maggie shook her head, her blonde curls falling over her shoulders. “I have no idea. ‘We’ could be anyone. Does Talfyr mean he and Brady, or the whole world? As for between worlds, that doesn’t ring any bells for me, either. Unless….”
She trailed off, and Jeff cocked his head, waited for her to finish her thought. When she was silent for a few seconds, unfocused gaze staring absently at the table, he cleared his throat to bring her back.
“Sorry,” she said, blinking. “I was just trying to figure out how it would work. But did you notice anything weird happening in your world before you got here?”
“Mine?” Jeff repeated, raising his brow. “Nothing I can think of. But why would vortices here affect my world?”
“Because it makes sense if you listen to the Sisters’ warning. They also spoke of between-worlds. The only way I could see you personally being necessary is if it’s the barrier between your world and ours that’s breaking down.”
Jeff thought back to the past weeks’ news stories, but nothing out of the ordinary struck him. “Just the usual. I think sudden portals in the middle of Mont Royal park would have piqued some interest.”
Maggie shrugged. “It was just a thought. Otherwise, I don’t know what Talfyr might have been suggesting. The notes here aren’t very clear on how they stopped it, just that it stopped happening. But the cessation of portals coincided with the reining in of freecasters a century ago, so those two events could be related.”
“Freecasters?” asked Jeff.
“Technically, like me,” said Maggie. “It was an idea the Crown adopted during the reign of King Francis, because, as you already know, he was crazy and paranoid. He wanted to limit the magical power being used in his country in fear that people would use it against him. Only his most trusted advisers were allowed to cast, and only under the strict supervision of the generals he liked. All known casters who weren’t in his circle were executed. It would have wiped out most of the magical bloodlines, except the best enchanters know how to hide our magic. It wasn’t long after the law was enacted that he was killed.”
“So you think it must be a group of people opening these vortices?” posed Jeff.
“It could be. But to what purpose? Some magical cabal really wants their between-world decorated with lovely foliage?”
Jeff held up his hands. “In my experience, people here have done crazier things than that.” But Maggie’s mention of a magical group gave him pause. “We agree it can’t be Raul, but what about his followers? Have they been rounded up? Could they be behind this?”
A loud sigh came from the doorway. Jeff looked over his shoulder to see a fatigued Jasmine leaning against the wall. The circles under her eyes looked as dark as Brady’s, and Jeff guessed she never went to sleep after he’d left the night before.
“The sun’s only been up an hour,” she said. “What in the gods’ names are you doing up and talking work already?”
“I couldn’t sleep,” said Jeff.
“Join the club.” Jasmine passed a hand over her eyes. “I came to see if you had anything to get me through the day, Maggie. My stomach’s none too happy with me for the all-nighter.”
Maggie’s eyebrow quirked. “You and Brady almost topple the Keep again?”
As she spoke, she rose and headed back over to the worktable in the corner, sifting through jars on the shelves.
Jasmine lowered her gaze and sank onto the bench next to Jeff, dropping her head onto her arms. Jeff rested his hand on her shoulder.
“Not so much,” said Jeff when it became apparent Jasmine wouldn’t answer. He watched Maggie take some bright pink flowers out of one jar and grind them up with a few pod-like things in a bowl. “You know that message Brady shared with us last night? It was in the middle of some sort of… I don’t even know what to call it
. Nightmare? Attack? And then he started seizing.”
Maggie poured a cup of steaming water over the mixture and returned to the table, handing it over to Jasmine.
“He’s in bad shape, Maggie,” Jasmine said into the cup.
The enchantress’s blue eyes filled with concern. “I had no idea. I mean, I knew about the nightmares—he came to see me about those a few weeks ago—but I didn’t know they’d gotten so bad.”
“Did he keep researching the mind merging ritual thing after he and Talfyr bonded?” asked Jeff. “It’s Brady, so that’s a stupid question. Did he find anything?”
He looked first to Jasmine, but when she continued to stare into the table, he shifted to Maggie, who looked back at him uncomfortably.
Gaze flicking repeatedly towards Jasmine, she said, “There weren’t many successful attempts of the ritual, and the odd time a human survived, he was bonded to a much younger dragon, not quite as mature or powerful. Even still, it’s not clear that many of them lived more than a year.”
“It’s a capacity issue,” said Jasmine. She sounded congested, but whether it was from exhaustion, grief, or the nausea, Jeff couldn’t tell. “Dragons are not only far more long-lived than we are, they’re also vastly more intelligent. Eventually, they consumed the minds of their human links, and the human was left nothing more than a shell.”
“Brady doesn’t look very shell-like, and it’s been three months,” said Jeff, aiming at hopeful. “Maybe Talfyr is ancient enough to restrain himself. Show some self-control and leave room for both of them?”
Maggie let out a slow breath. “I could go through the books again, find some kind of guard. Brady and I went through them a few months ago, found one that might work. He was hesitant to use it in case it broke the link altogether, but if he’s in pain, he should do it. It could help for a while, until we find something more permanent.”
“You keep working on these vortices, Maggie,” Jasmine said, closing her eyes in relief as she sipped the sweet smelling tea. “You can’t do everything, no matter how much you want to. We’ll figure it out. We have some time.”