Page 80 of Summoned
“Well, there’d besomepeople. Who else is going to see our new dresses?”
They laugh.
“I know one person who definitely wouldn’t have been here. Little Baroness… Miss ‘this dress was made for longer legs.’ Do hers reach the heavens or something?”
“Ihatethat skank,” Misha hisses, venom sharp in her voice. “Thank God we won’t have to put up with her anymore.”
“Soon. Very soon.”
I freeze, rage swelling hot in my chest.
Misha turns toward me, shoulders squared as though she’s about to strike. I hold my breath, bracing for impact. But she stares right through me, as if I’m not even there.
I glance down at my hands, my body, and the warped reflections in the chrome cabinet handles.
Nothing.
“Magic, Nicole,” Gaetano whispers behind me.
I don’t have time to marvel because Marie’s scream cuts through the kitchen. I flinch.
“What the hell isthis?” she shrieks, pointing at the cake.
Misha rushes to her side, her face draining of color. “That’s… that’s… Someone smudged the crowns with… Fingers! Someone put their fingers in our cake, Marie!”
Marie flails her arms like an outraged turkey. “How is this even possible?! Someone’s trying to sabotage our party.”
“On our special day!” Misha clutches her head.
I press my lips together, trying to hold back the laugh threatening to escape. Marie is the first to recover. She steps in front of the ruined cake, thoughtfully dabbing her lips with a finger. “This wasn’t random, Misha.”
“You think?!” her sister snaps. “Call security. No, call the police.”
“No one’s going to take us seriously over a cake…”
“It’sus, Marie! Of course they will. Don’t touch anything We’ll ruin the evidence.”
Damn! I can barely hold back my laughter. I start to shake.
Before I give in, my knees buckle, and I’m swallowed in darkness. I know this feeling. He’s teleporting me.
I land on solid ground, surrounded by a thick, silver veil. Gaetano’s warmth clings to me, giving me a sense of safety. But then his hands fall away, and panic rises in my chest.
The veil thins, revealing a vast midnight sky dotted with a thousand stars. The rocky ground beneath my feet stretches out to the horizon. It’s dark and rugged, but between its cracks grow trees with black trunks that twist and bloom into thick canopies of deep blue petals. The colors are vivid and alive, reflecting the stars above.
I turn to ask where we are. My stomach flips. I’m standing on a high plateau and, from my vantage point, a wide, silentriver flows below, nestled between ridges of gray stone and dark grass. Yet it doesn’t move like water. It flows like silk. A woven rainbow unraveling—violet, gold-orange, milky white, emerald-gold, and more, colors spilling into one another. From time to time, delicate, ghostly shapes rise from the surface and drift along with the current.
A strange, overwhelming sense of awe rushes through me, lighting up every nerve in my body.
“The River of Forgotten Dreams,” Gaetano says, stepping up beside me.
25
Gaetano
The closer I get to my sacred goal of collecting three hundred souls, the more often I find myself revisiting the dreams of my past.
There’s a difference between goals and dreams. Goals are what you chase. Dreams are like pink bubbles floating around. They’re there, but you never reach for them because you can’t. Until one day, the wind carries them far away… and they vanish.
