Clara
I had become adept at lucid dreaming.
Not an expert, but enough to remind myself after few minutes of ranting and concentrating that this is a dream and change a few things slightly. The initial shock and horror are slowly eased, and I begin to focus on doing something about saving myself and waking up as quickly as possible.
But out of all the dreams, this was the first time I knew from the start that whatever was happening wasn't real. Because I remember reading about it online, and now it was playing out like a recording. Except, with me in it.
I was falling off a building along with a very peculiar, yet gorgeous, albino woman. She watched me with wide blue eyes and a gaping mouth as she fell, probably because a poor soul had just found herself in a body that's committing suicide.
But my attention was on the little boy that's left standing there. His small hand outstretched as if trying to hold her, screaming something at her with a tear-stained face. His dark, moppy hair fluttered as he stepped closer to the edge in his unsuccessful attempts.
I still kept telling myself that it's a dream. Not because I wanted to wake up, but because I needed to see him again.
Those sharp eyes filled with sorrow. This was the first time my fear of death had been cast aside, and I'm willing to die again just to repeat the scene.
I tell myself, as I plummet to the ground, that it's a dream and I'm in control. Repeating it like a mantra while my eyes are closed, bracing for the impact.
But when nothing happened, I open my eyes and found myself at the start of the dream. As if...I had rewound back to that point.
This time, as I'm about to fall, I grab the kid's arm, accidentally pulling him with me instead of staying with him.
"Sorry!" I had yelled as I held onto the kid, tightly wrapping my arms around him as we fell.
"Alister?"
But like some kind of NPC, he didn't say anything or reacted in any way while we crashed to the ground.
"WAKE UP!"
My eyes fly open with a gasp as I'm in the middle of being shaken up. I'm clutching Micah's body tightly as he continues sleeping in my arms, and thankfully, it doesn't look like I was crying this time.
"Thank goodness." Zach breathes as he sits beside me in the backseat. "You scared us with all that squirming and whimpering."
I glance forward to see Stephanie looking at me with concern from the rearview mirror and Simon fully looking back at me from the passenger seat with his mismatched eyes, hair held back by a hairband.
I take a moment to collect myself and try not to think about how pathetic I must have seem 'squirming and whimpering', as Zach so kindly put it. My eyes drift to the Hirudin dagger held in his hand. The one I had in my thigh holster.
He follows my gaze and grimaces. "You were going to stab yourself and Micah with this."
The mere mention of me unconsciously hurting the little boy is enough to curse myself and want to hand him off to someone else just to be safe. But I trust none of them with this, not after what they did, except maybe Zach, and frankly, I know they don't want to hold a kid on their lap for long.
"How are you feeling now?" She asks. Just the sound of her voice is enough to bring back my earlier frustration.
"Don't talk to me." I say, clutching onto Micah a little tighter. The remnants of the dream still fresh in my mind as I slowly start to process it all.
"Oh, come on! You're still mad about that?" She scoffs, stretching the words like I'm the unreasonable one.
"We did say we were sorry." Simon insists, looking very punchable at the moment. Not as much though as when he interrupted my time with Alister. Just the thought of that blissful kiss and what could have happened if we kept going is enough to make me feel warm and fuzzy all over again.
I snap my gaze to them instead before I get distracted again. "You're both university students, right? That definitely means you don't have the intelligence of a toddler and a decent amount of common sense if you've clearly made it this far in life. And it certainly doesn't seem like you're retarded. Atleast, one of you isn't."
Steph rolls her eyes, not looking the least bit sorry.
"I left him with you for four minutes! And you idiotic imbeciles with all the help from that one exhausted brain cell thought the best way to comfort a distressed child was to knock him out with chloroform!?" I yell and then wince as I glance at Alister, his head resting against the window. Still asleep.
"I tried to stop her..." Simon says quietly, sinking back into his seat like he's trying to disappear into it.
"In my defense." Zach chimes in, lifting his hands like I'm holding a gun to his head. "I was with Alister in the diner taking care of the bill. You can't be angry with me."
"No, but I do blame you for leaving him with these two reckless fools." I say as I try to sit up straight, my back starting to ache.
"He was crying about his parents again. None of the excuses were working." Steph says as if that makes it alright.
Zach smiles apologetically and gently offers to take Micah off my hands after setting the dagger down. I eye him warily but comply as the stiffness in my back persists.
I take the dagger from him and run a finger on its surface. My reflection staring back at me from the blade.
I used to believe magic could fix anything.
When I was seven, I scraped my knee running through a garden towards the marble fountain.
"Make a wish." My nanny told me, pressing a penny into my palm as she tried to clean the injury. I squeezed my eyes shut and whispered my wish before tossing it in.
Make it better.
That was all I wanted. Not just for the scrape, but for everything else. For my father to smile at me the way he did at James. For my mother to stop looking through me as if I were nothing more than an inconvenience. For the unease in my chest—the feeling that I didn't quite belong—to disappear.
When I opened my eyes, nothing had changed. The scrape was still there. My parents were still distant. The hollow feeling inside me remained.
Wishes weren't real. Magic wasn't real.
Except now, with the final artifact resting in my lap, I knew better.
Magic is real. While it can be wonderful, it's also cruel, unpredictable, and dangerous. And this time, I wasn't some naive little girl making a wish—I was someone who had fought, bled, and suffered for this. For a chance to break the curse.
For a chance to be free. This time, we had to make it happen ourselves.
A life where we weren't bound by curses, by expectations, by the ghosts of who we used to be.
What would that even look like?
I glance over at Alister.
If...I tell you about the dream...about who your precious Miranda really was, will you still go along with everything? Or put a stop to everything we've been working towards.
I know I shouldn't doubt him. He wants to get out of this situation as much as I do. He knows Leora is evil, and it shouldn't matter that everything he was taught, everything he believes in, everything he stands firmly for...was taught by that witch. She had been playing with and tormenting him for much longer and he has no idea.
Why did Leora keep her identity a secret? If Alister knew that's his former mentor then he would have been willing to do whatever she said. Maybe it's because of the fact that Alister doesn't make hard decisions on emotions. Sure, he might have been hurt, but he must know that getting rid of Leora is a top priority.
Whatever it is, I feel like this is something Leora is going to take advantage of. If she hasn't already, then she's planning something and waiting for the right moment. I need to tell Alister about it before he gets manipulated. I'd talk to him about it and smack him in the head before he gets any weird ideas or hesitates.
The car hits a bump, and Alister's head knocks against the window. He jerks awake, eyes snapping open as he straightens up, looking around in confusion.
Zach smiles as he turns to him. "Good evening."
Alister exhales through his nose, pinching the bridge of his nose and squinting out the window. His 'magical' glove compartment in his car that almost has everything one might need ran out of his spare glasses. Probably because while he was locked in the trunk, we took the two spares left and wore them around, pretending to be him.
It was so much fun, until Stephanie broke them accidentally.
Alister was not happy.
As he crosses his arms, the motion draws my gaze downward, tracing the way his black and red shirt pulls against his frame. His sleeves are rolled up just below his elbows, exposing his forearms—lean muscle, sharp lines, veins that stand out. The sight makes me swallow hard. This man isn't good for my heart.
I think back to the adorable boy in the dream. The way he looked like he was begging Miranda not to leave him. Like he didn't have anyone else in the world. Like she mattered more to him than his own parents.
He's...very lonely. And by choice.
He didn't have a pleasant childhood, and I'm guessing the reason he hates his family has something to do with that. And then later comes this abductor who offers him something he had been starving for. Love and support. How broken must a life be that even coercion feels like affection when it's the only warmth you've ever known? And when she left him too… it must've felt like the universe confirming that he was meant to be alone and unloved.
Alister doesn't let anyone get close to him. He doesn't want to be hurt or allow anyone to hurt him.
Yet, he made an exception for me. I still don't know much about him. He hasn't opened himself to me the way I have. But, I feel we're getting there. Slowly but surely. I just want to take all that pain away. To shield him from every echo of what broke him. To make him see that he doesn't have to keep building walls just to survive.
I'm going to stay by his side. No matter how long it takes for him to believe that I truly mean it.
"We're almost there." Steph calls out.
I glance out the car window. The houses here are spaced far apart, each hidden behind tall iron gates or thick hedgerows. The trees close in tighter, their shadows thickening until they almost feel like they're swallowing the road. In the midst of this quiet, we approach a clearing, and I catch a glimpse of something ahead. The outline of the mansion.
We didn't quite understand what Rubecca meant when she said she'll send us the location. Just assuming it must be some place in the savage sector. But the shock on our faces was identical when the destination turned out to be a property in The Highlands neighborhood. According to her, she rents it out to tourists, travelers, and whoever else is passing through.
It was after 3 am, yet sleep felt like a distant memory to us. There was the option of going back home and trying again tomorrow, but honestly, none of us want that.
Not when we're so close.
The mansion looms ahead, and I can't shake the feeling that we're crossing into something far removed from the world we just left. The windows seem to glint with a cold, distant light, like eyes staring back at us from the dark. Its stone facade illuminated by carefully placed floodlights that cast deep shadows along its ivy-draped walls. The trees part as the path opens, revealing the imposing gates.
When the car eases to a stop, for a moment, none of us move. Then, I push the door open and step into the fresh air, holding the knife tight in my hands.
Simon steps out next, holding the mirror close to his chest. Steph follows, fingers gripping the tarnished golden stem of the goblet. Alister moves with his usual unbothered ease, hands stuffed into his pockets as he eyes the house. Zach lingers by the car, his phone screen illuminating his face before he tucks it away.
I peek inside the car and see Micah curled up in the back seat. I suppose it's a good thing he's asleep. I wouldn't want him to witness the ritual, and I'm sure he would have been afraid all alone in the car.
"We'll be right back after it's done. I'll make sure we get it over with quickly and then we can leave. Promise." I whisper as I run my hand through his hair, not caring about the fact that he can't hear me. It still feels good to be making something like a vow.
A white car is parked further up the driveway, partially hidden in the shadows—probably Rubecca's. Before we can dwell on it, the mansion's heavy double doors swing open, spilling light onto the entrance steps.
Rubecca steps out. Her long silver hair almost luminous against the dark fabric of her brown shawl. Behind her, Madam Reeze emerges, moving like a wandering spirit, her layered skirts swaying around her ankles, while dozens of rings adorn her fingers.
Rubecca's face lights up the moment she sees us. "Ah, finally! I was beginning to think you'd gotten yourselves lost." She spreads her arms as if she might gather us all into one big embrace.
"Why couldn't this have waited until morning?" Reeze complains from the doorway, rubbing at her heavily lined eyes that somehow don't get smudged. "Some of us need to sleep, you know."
Rubecca sighs, stepping away from me to glance over her shoulder. "Oh, hush, Reeze. The sooner we get rid of the curse, the better. And once the gems are removed… I'd like to have them." Then she shifts her attention again—this time, to Simon.
Her brows lift slightly, intrigued. "Ah… and you must be the boy with the Eagle's Eye pendant."
She steps toward him, gazing at him with fascination. "Can I see it?" she asks. Her fingers reaching out to gently push aside the red strands of his hair, exposing his striking blue eye. "I wonder if it's as interesting as your eyes?"
Simon shifts uncomfortably, his hand instinctively moving toward the collar of his shirt. "It's back at home."
Rubecca sighs, a touch of disappointment in her expression. "Ah, that's a shame." She steps back then, with a sudden change in energy, claps her hands together, a spark of excitement in her eyes.
"Well, no matter. Let's get on with it! The ritual circle is ready, and everything necessary has been prepared. Come, come inside." With that, she turns to lead everyone in.
Wait, this is my chance!
I quickly grab Alister's hand, stopping him in place and making him look back in confusion.
"Give us a minute, will you?" I call out to the others as they walk to the door.
Steph's face twists as she shakes her head. "Ugh, you two are disgusting."
"Try sitting next to—OW!" Zach gets cut off when a rock is levitated off the ground and hits his head. One by one, they disappear inside the mansion, and the heavy doors shut behind them.