I’m sorry about what happened at the flying colors. It was inexcusable.
I hope we can still be friends.
I stared breathlessly. I caressed the smooth orb set in its gold, amethyst-encrusted stand before reaching inside to shake it. A recreation of the flying colors lit up the globe, full of glitter, light, and color, dancing like a waltz.
“What do you think, Eden?”
I hastily closed my bag to hide Darius’s gift and blinked guiltily at the three gazes which had settled on me. “What do I think about what?”
Stardust rolled her rainbow eyes towards the ceiling. “About Angel’s point that the only other Nightmares you were alone with today were Blaze and Trinity, who insisted on speaking with you in private. It’s an interesting theory, and we even have something to back it up—remember we saw them at the cultivating display with some of their Nightmare cronies and Blaze gave one of them something? They could have easily been plotting something. I wish now more than ever I’d managed to overhear what they were talking about and hadn’t lost them when I tried to follow them. But as sound as this particular theory is, there is one problem—they’ve never seen you perform magic, so when would they have had the opportunity to get a sample of your dream dust? It sure is perplexing…”
“Uh-huh.” I was only half listening as I stroked the snow globe hidden inside my bag.
“I wonder if I have any notes about some of the Nightmares they were with,” Stardust continued, oblivious to my inattention. “That wolf one in particular seemed mighty suspicious, as did the one with the mold motif. This requires more evidence.”
She flew to the dresser and rummaged through drawers, muttering to herself, and returned a moment later with a teetering pile of books stacked on top of herself. Several tumbled from the heap.
“Comets.”
A notebook landed facedown next to me, its cover familiar. Stardust’s eyes widened as I stooped to pick it up. “Don’t touch that one.” She darted over, but I took it before she could grab it. My heart jolted at the familiar loopy penmanship.
Mother’s notebook.
Chapter 30
I stroked the cover in a daze. A piece of Mother had emerged from the ashes, having survived the fire that had swallowed my past in flames. It was like seeing a ghost.
I hugged it to my chest and turned towards Stardust, now entirely occupied with arranging her books in a perfect stack. “Did you take it?”
She hummed to herself as if she hadn’t heard me.
“Stardust, where did you get this?”
She guiltily peeked over her book tower. “I borrowed it the night we snooped in your Mother’s study because I thought it could be a valuable clue.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you’d taken it?”
She leaned closer and lowered her voice. “Because your house burned down and your Mother disappeared. Then with all the evidence you were finding about her likely being the Weaver the Council has been looking for…I wasn’t sure what to do.” She lowered her gaze, repentant.
I gingerly opened it. I faintly remembered Mother’s notebooks containing drawings of unusual plants, but I was unprepared for the sketches that bombarded me. In my time as a Weaver, I’d become quite familiar with the flowers grown in the Cultivating Fields, but the plants filling these pages were entirely foreign to the Dream World. I searched for anything I recognized, but all were unfamiliar.
“Do you recognize any of these, Iris?” I tilted the notebook towards her. Her eyes widened as she took it and studied each page, her brows furrowed. “These are unlike any plants I’ve ever seen. What could they possibly be used for?”
“Look at this.” Angel pointed over Iris’s shoulder at the paragraph beneath the heading “To Enhance Dreams” and read aloud: “These are reproductions of mystical plants found in Dreamer legends, said to have been discovered at the beginning of time. Each possesses a mysterious power, which must be woven into dreams in order to produce its magical effect.” She raised confused eyes to mine. “These are no ordinary plants.”
I took the notebook back and flipped through it, pausing to read Mother’s hasty notes. There was a marigold that transformed a dream’s details into their sinister equivalents, thus changing dreams into nightmares; a zinnia that pulled past dreams still lingering in the Mortal’s memory and combined them with the current dream being woven; a dahlia that allowed dreams to linger hours after the Mortal had awoken; and…a reality rose, identical to the flower I’d found in the burnt remains of Mother’s garden, now burrowed inside my weaving bag.
I tipped the notebook sideways to read its description: The reality rose erases the dreamlike quality of a dream’s details, causing the Mortal to forget they’re dreaming.
I traced Mother’s sketch of the rose. To cause a Mortal to forget they were dreaming would create a realistic dream far more effectively than even the best flowers from the Cultivating Fields, guaranteeing a win against even the most formidable opponent.
A chill rippled up my spine. These were definitely no ordinary flowers. I glanced at my friends, whose identical grave expressions mirrored the worry filling my heart.
Angel spoke first. “These seem like something that would be found in—”
Iris cut her off with a warning look and Angel snapped her mouth shut. I glanced between them. “What were you going to say?”
“It was just a random thought,” Angel said hastily, casting Iris a sideways glance. “But there are rumors that the Ebony Market sells illegal flowers.”
“Ebony Market?” My heart pounded in my ears. “You never told me that’s what it was called.”
Mother’s name was Ebony. I scrambled to piece this information together, and a possibility for why Mother had been suspended slowly formed: she’d been creating and undoubtedly using illegal flowers in her Weavings, evidence of which I’d just shown my friends.
The realization hit me like a crashing meteor, confirming what my subconscious seemed to have already figured out, but which I’d refused to acknowledge. While
