“You’re doing remarkably well. I’d never have guessed you’re a novice. Zero wins. Impressive.”
I tried to ignore him, but already I felt my heart pounding furiously.
He eyed my pile of waiting flowers, the corners of his mouth twitching. “I see once again you’ve managed to bring half of the Cultivating Field with you. Don’t they have rules against a Weaver hoarding all the details?”
I bit my lip and leaned closer to my dream quilt, but it was impossible to focus with Darius’s silky insults intertwining with my concentration.
He eyed my jagged stitches. “Your stitchery is excellent. I see you’re going for a fuzzy dream riddled with blank holes. Mortals just love dreaming about nothing in particular.”
I slapped my needle down. “What’s your problem?”
He dropped his sarcastically friendly act, his typical scowl firmly back in place. “Shouldn’t I be the one asking that question? From the moment we met I’ve tried to help you, and yet you repeatedly ignore my advice, as is evident by your repeatedly using far too many details for a newborn dream. Magic is an art, not a jumbled mess like that.” He pointed to the tangled threads and half-sewn flowers of my unfinished dream still on my lap, one that under his scrutiny seemed even rougher than usual. “Why aren’t you listening to my advice?”
“Because you gave it,” I snapped. “I have no reason to trust you.” Any Weavings I lost were due to my lack of practice, not the dreams I chose to create.
He was silent a long moment. “I see. It appears my attempts to help you have only made everything worse because you’re convinced I have an ulterior motive to see you fail.”
“That sums up the situation nicely,” I said tartly.
He sighed. “I’d hoped that by helping you I could have earned your trust by now, but it appears I’m no closer now than when we first met. And here I thought you were just stubborn. Or perhaps I haven’t gone as easy on you as I’d thought.”
“Stop pretending all your actions have been noble,” Stardust snapped. For the past several minutes she’d been shifting her glare between my needle and Darius with an expression like she very much wanted to stab him with it. “Any nightmares created below their full potential are more a testament to your laziness than to the goodness of your heart.”
Bolt poked his head from the staticky fields of Darius’s hair. “Darius isn’t creating easy nightmares because he’s lazy. He told me it’s because he wants to give Eden a chance to beat—”
“That’s not true,” Darius hissed, but a blush lightly brushed his cheeks, defying his words. He avoided my eyes. “Even if it were—which it’s not—I’m not doing it for her sake, but to maintain the balance between the Dream and Nightmare Realms. It’ll cause havoc if one becomes too powerful.”
“I’m sure that’s the reason.” Bolt winked at me.
My pulse sped up at the reminder of the recent danger to the balance, while Stardust gaped at Darius in disgust before frowning at my unfinished dream, nowhere near completion. “How much longer?”
“Probably an eternity,” Darius said. “I hope you brought provisions to be camped here forever.”
Stardust glared at him. “I wasn’t asking you.”
“Do you need to be somewhere?” I asked her.
“I’ve discovered a clue to the mystery we discussed earlier.” She gave me a knowing look, but I hadn’t the faintest idea what she was talking about.
“Can’t you do it when I finish?”
She shook her head. “It’s too important to delay.”
I suspected the real reason she wanted to leave had nothing to do with investigating or even because she was bored, but was motivated solely by her growing dislike of Darius. But she’d never abandoned me in the middle of a Weaving on nights Darius was being unusually difficult; normally she stayed loyally by my side and defended me against his taunts.
“Fine,” I snapped. “Don’t forget to pick me up afterwards.”
Darius gave an exaggerated yawn. “If she ever finishes.”
Stardust hesitated in the window frame. “Are you sure?
“She’ll be fine,” Darius said. “I would never harm my weaving partner.”
Stardust didn’t look convinced, but after a little more prodding from me she left. After reminding me several more times he didn’t have to wait for me and could easily give Maci his nightmare right now, Darius settled down with History of Legends. Other than the rustling of pages, Maci’s soft snores, and the click of Bolt’s knitting needles, there was blissful silence, the perfect environment to work.
I fought to push away my returning worries of the Universe’s balance in order to carefully weave my dream together, occasionally looking up to see if Darius was watching before I unpicked. Often he wasn’t—instead either reading his book or admiring himself in his weaving mirror—but once or twice I caught him peeking over his book to monitor my progress. Whenever our gazes met he hastily looked away, and each time he did so, Bolt looked amused.
I paused in my work when I heard Darius stir. I looked up to find him subtly nudging a floating book towards me, which he’d opened to a section on dream construction. “What’s that?”
“Oh, just some advice. Since you’re determined to suspect my motives, I hoped that an expert might persuade you.” He pushed the book a few inches closer with his pinky.
I frowned at the book—one that was clearly from the Nightmare Realm and thus would be no help to me—and firmly shook my head before returning to my stitches, completely disregarding the book. “You are quite the puzzle.”
“You can’t be the only one having all the fun.” His grin was unrepentant…and rather adorable. With it came the feeling I’d been fighting from the moment we’d met—the one that tugged me towards him.
I determinedly pushed it away and returned to my dream, but it was difficult to construct with the feeling of Darius’s warm
