Page 50 of Fallen Stars

“Elara,” Eli said, clicking his fingers so her attention zoned in to him once more. “Come here.”

She did, taking a step closer to him as he pressed two fingers gently to each side of her temple. “I’m strengthening your mental shields,” he murmured. “I’ll do a lot more work on them before you’re faced with Ariete, but this ensures you’ll keep your sanity no matter what you may see in these dreams.”

Her breath was coming faster, but a wave of cool rainwater seemed to wash over her as Eli’s charm enveloped her. She experienced the same feeling she had when she had been trapped in a cell herself and he had done the same.

“Thank you,” she said gently. “I never got to say that when you helped me in that cell.”

Eli narrowed his eyes. “You’re not going soft on me are you, queen of darkness? It was a favour I owed Lorenzo.”

Elara scoffed. “I know you don’t have a heart. But don’t pretend that you don’t feel at all. You were our messenger. Clearly, we meant something to you.”

Eli’s gaze shuttered, and he took a step back as Elara felt cool steel sliding up behind her eyes, an impenetrable fortress fortified and back in place.

“What have I told you before? Thinking us Stars are benevolent will get you killed.”

“And yet here I am, still standing,” she said. She didn’t know why a morose feeling settled over her. Perhaps she’d expected more from Eli. But the god was turning away quickly, leaning in the corner as he dragged once more on his tobacco roll.

“Sweet,” Botis remarked, and she bristled. The creature had been so quiet during their exchange that she’d forgotten he was there for a moment. “So what? The Moon’s going to put me to sleep and walk through my dreams?”

Eli rolled his eyes, ignoring him as his charm flooded the room.

“I can send him to sleep myself,” Eli said as the demon’s gaze began to flicker. “I’ve begun to form the dreamscape myself since I can enter his thoughts. Your only objective will be to outrun him. We need to practice for when Ariete realises you’re in his dreams—for it will be impossible to go undetected the whole time.”

Elara nodded, bracing herself.

“Sit here,” Eli said, pointing to the floor by the door. “I’ll be right beside you. And half in the dream myself should you need help. But the idea, Elara, is that you act like there is no help, no one to save you. Because the minute you get into Ariete’s head, I won’t be able to. Call on meonlyif you are in dire danger. Use the safe word ‘silvertongue’ and I’ll pull you out of the demon’s head myself.”

“Okay,” Elara said, grimacing as she pulled her skirts up and sat on the cold, dirty floor. The demon’s eyelids were flickering as Eli’s charm pervaded his senses, putting him to sleep. Although she wasn’t yet under herself, she could see, spinning around his head, rising as though it was being projected, a dreamscape. A grey one, the blurred shape of hedges within it.

She called her dream power forth, Enzo’s face in her mind—the only thing motivating her to complete this task.

“Remember from our previous training—don’t linger for too long; don’t ask questions, and for the love of gods, don’t listen to anything the demon says.”

Eli’s voice floated over her, her soul already halfway between worlds.

She nodded, and Eli nodded back to her, brow furrowed as he concentrated on changing and shifting the dreamscape, and with a sigh, Elara pulled on her tether and began to dreamwalk.

Chapter Sixteen

Elara drifted to the demon’sdreamscape flickering before her, the sense of it so wicked and uninviting that she had to propel her soul forward with gritted teeth. She entered with barely a thought, fighting back the urge to gag, and instantly ducked.

The dreamscape was somewhat familiar thanks to Eli’s tampering with it. She found herself in a garden and spun, noting the sprawling ivy-covered mansion from his last dreamscape looming behind her. That familiarity alone set her mind at ease a little. That was before a lightning fork had launched from the sky, narrowly missing her.

Then, as she took another moment, panting already as she crouched to the ground, she realised there was something utterly wrong about it. Although Eli had done his work to manipulate the terrain she’d be dreamwalking on, she could see how it was Botis’s dreamscape everywhere.

The sky was a deep, angry red, for one, the grass at her feet shrivelled and barren. The walls of the house looked like they were leaking something, a liquid running down them, and as Elara peered closer, she saw it was blood.

She recoiled, remembering the demon and pushed herself to her feet instantly.

Like clockwork, she heard a voice.

“Oh, dear Mooooon,” it crooned, the rasping that of Botis’s demon tongue. “Where areeee youuu?”

“Remember,” she heard Eli’s voice whisper, unable to decipher whether he was mindspeaking or talking out loud throughout the dreamscape, “have your guard up the moment you enter. You have no idea what Ariete may throw at you. And make sure he doesn’t catch you. The demon or Ariete.”

Elara launched a hand out, her shadows ripping another bolt of lightning headed for her from the sky. Her every sense was on edge, her breathing shallow.

She could hear the demon taunting her as she squinted at the barren land in front of her and the copse of trees where the voice was coming from.

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