A Shade of Vampire 77 A Fate of Time - Bella Forrest Page 0,29

Dream and Nightmare had not been an easy one, and it would only get harder. They sent shivers down my spine whenever they looked at me. At times, I worried they might just knock me out and eat my dreams, like they'd wanted to from the moment we'd first met. Despite the urgency of our situation, they never stopped teasing me.

Nevertheless, we did make progress.

I had to pull them away from various points of attraction, for they were two of the most easily distracted creatures I had ever come across, but we managed to cross through multiple worlds where the Time Master had been known to reside over the millennia.

One world, in particular, stood out, and it was our latest stop in the quest to find Dream and Nightmare's elusive brother. Surprisingly enough, we'd made it all the way into the Earthly Dimension. None of the In-Between locations had panned out, and there had been no trace of him anywhere in those worlds.

"Did you know we'd end up here?" I asked Dream as we stepped onto Astram, a small planet in a galaxy not that far from the Milky Way.

"Whatever do you mean?" she replied.

"She wants to know if you pulled a Soul Crusher on her." Nightmare chuckled.

Dream smirked. "Oh, as in, I dragged you all over the In-Between, knowing we had better odds of finding Time here?" she replied, and I nodded once. "Honey. We've wasted about six hours treading worlds and looking for him. I'd much rather spend my time doing something else. Like putting you to sleep and feeding on your sweetest dreams."

"Ugh, enough with that already. It's getting old," I snapped.

Glancing around, I realized that this planet, unlike most of our previous destinations, was inhabited. Stone buildings rose on top of rolling green hills. Towers overlooked the entire region, with fires burning bright at the top.

It reminded me of the Irish countryside, if I were to be specific. The sky was a perfect blue, and the color of grass was so intense, it put a smile on my face. Taking a deep breath, I could taste it on the tip of my tongue. This was a beautiful world, with trees as tall as buildings and villages sprawled around pink-and-orange patches of blossoming orchards.

A river ran through the citadel, snaking through the wheat fields, flanked by settlements on both sides for at least ten miles before it vanished into a giant forest. Large birds flew overhead, their wings spanning at least twenty feet.

"How did Time make it all the way out here?" I asked. "Did you know about this place?"

"Well, it was on our list. At the very bottom. Hence why we didn't mention it earlier," Dream replied.

Every time we reached a new world in our search for Time, each carefully written down on a piece of paper by Dream, she and her twin would perform a series of what I could only assume were tracking spells, looking for traces of the Time Master. Every time, we'd come up empty.

"I do wish I had Soul's knack for finding energy signatures," Nightmare said. "I bet I would've found something by now."

"It doesn't really matter," Dream assured him. "If the tracks in one place have faded, it means he hasn't been there in a long time. We need to feel him. Really feel him."

"Do you feel him here?" I asked.

She shot me a cold stare. "Not yet. Don't rush me."

"We are running out of time!" I replied, overwhelmed by exasperation.

The last time we'd spoken to Seeley and Taeral, they were still scouring the oldest parts of the In-Between, looking for Death and the Spirit Bender. I had yet to think of a way in which a First Tenner like Spirit could've literally abducted Death, but I didn't exclude the possibility. The Soul Crusher had made a point of underlining that one of his kind could pull such a thing off with the right resources.

It made more sense than Death leaving smack in the middle of a war with the elements.

"I think we should make our way to that fortress," Nightmare suggested. "I've got a good feeling about this place."

Dream exhaled sharply. "You'd better. It's our last known location. We've reached the end of the list."

"Again, I ask, how did he make it all the way here?" I asked.

"Time was always an explorer," Dream explained. "He traveled across dimensions with zero restraint, always searching for the edge of the universe. He never found it, but he didn't stop looking. He