Adne screamed, rolling away from him. “No!”
She lashed out with one arm, finally opening her eyes. She struck at nothing but the air.
Bosque wasn’t in the garden. Adne was alone. Choking on her breath, she began to sob.
Why was this happening? It would have been easier for Adne to face the idea that, between grief and exhaustion, she was having some sort of psychotic episode. But Adne knew magic. And she felt its presence all around her, along with the overwhelming sense that something was coming for her.
Adne always thought she would welcome the absence of nightmares about her mother’s death. But those dreams had only fled when the new visions had arrived. Though she could hardly believe it, the new dreams were worse. These weren’t grief-ridden images of the past. More than dreams, Adne sensed they were portents of the future.
The nightmares had begun when the sun set on the day of the Searchers’ greatest victory. The Rift had been closed. The war was over. With her limbs tangled in Connor’s, Adne had fallen asleep. She’d expected a peaceful night. Though her heart still ached from losing her father and her brother, Adne believed that their sacrifices had helped set the world right again.
She wasn’t ready for the tide of horror that visited her while she slept.
In her dream she’d been walking through the Rowan Estate gardens. Dead wolves lay on the frozen ground all around her. Adne passed them without hesitation. The wolves weren’t her concern. She was needed elsewhere.
Adne stopped when she reached the withered hedge.
“I knew you’d come.” Bosque Mar materialized before her. “We have so much to discuss, Ariadne.”
Bosque reached out to her. Without hesitating, she took his hand. He smiled at her. His smile contorted, mouth stretching wide into a grotesque grin until the skin of his face split open. The handsome face of the man dropped off in clumps of flesh until his true visage was revealed.
Adne screamed until her cries roused her from sleep.
The details of the nightmare weren’t always the same. Sometimes it took place in the Rowan Estate library. Sometimes in the bowels of Pyralis while Lyulf stalked around her. But no matter where Adne found herself in the dream, Bosque was always waiting for her. And she always went to him when he beckoned to her.
The first night she’d woken trembling after the dream, Adne thought she could pinpoint its source. Her first and last encounter with Bosque Mar was branded on her mind, vivid and disturbing.
“What a lovely young thing.” Bosque watched Adne move, running his tongue over his lips as if tasting the air. “And with such power. You’ve been playing with my garden, dear. Without permission.”
He twisted his fingers and Adne stumbled. “Please stay awhile. I think you could be quite useful to me.”
She rolled over, clawing at the rug beneath her feet, which had begun to unravel. Its loose threads wound together into thick ropes that wrapped around her ankles and continued to snake their way up her body.
Amid the chaos of that final battle, Bosque had singled Adne out. When he’d spoken to her, she’d felt his gaze as acutely as if he’d been touching her. Even as she’d struggled against the bonds he’d invoked to hold her captive, Adne had shivered, unable to fight the awareness that with one look Bosque understood who she was and the power she could wield better than anyone else ever had.
She didn’t know what that meant.
Adne had pushed aside the unpleasant dream as she would any other, assuming the nightmare was simply the aftermath of the war.
But the next night, she’d dreamed of Bosque Mar. And the next. And the next.
Adne had told herself repeatedly that the nightmares meant nothing, that they were the last shreds of fear left from years of fighting the Keepers. Bosque Mar had been banished from her world and he had no way of returning.
And yet, every night the Harbinger visited her while she slept.
Today the dream had intruded upon her waking mind. She couldn’t bear it.
Crumpled on the ground, Adne held the wooden box tight against her chest. Logan needed something from Rowan Estate, but he didn’t have it—at least not everything. They’d kept this box from him. That meant Adne could stop him before he managed to pull off whatever scheme he was concocting. By outmaneuvering Logan, she would keep the nightmares from coming true. Whatever Logan was searching for, Adne had to find it first.
The crunch of boots sounded on the garden’s gravel path. Adne looked up to find Connor bearing down on her. He crouched beside her.
“What’s up, buttercup?” Connor’s tone was casual, but the skin around his eyes was tight with concern.
Adne knew her face was streaked with tears. Trying to pretend they weren’t there was pointless. “I shouldn’t have run out of there,” she said. “I freaked.”
“Uh-huh.” Cupping her face in his palm, Connor rubbed the tear tracks on her cheek with his thumb. “I got that much. But it’s not like you, Adne. Why’d you spook?”
Adne grimaced, wishing Connor had picked a word other than spook. It was too close to the truth. She felt haunted.