Silver Blood (Series of Blood Book 1) Emma Hamm (mobile ebook reader .TXT) 📖

at one of the lights. “What was I doing before the dream?”

Jiminy grinned. “Sleeping I’d imagine.”

She blew out a puff of breath that stirred the strand of hair which had drifted across her face. She leveled him with a glare. “Aren’t there rules about telling dreamers that they’re in dreams?”

“Yes.” He leaned back on his hands to avoid looking at the cliff edge. “But you don’t handle dreams the same as the others. How did you not know you were dreaming?”

“I don’t know.” She shook her head as she looked around them. Wren appeared to be as surprised as he was that she was dangling this high off the ground. “I have a feeling it has something to do with the real world. But I can’t put my finger on it.”

He pondered her confused tone for a few moments. The silence was not filled with the voice of her creature as he had expected. It had been so curious last time and spoke to him with such ease that he had assumed E would make itself known once more.

“Have you considered that E might be a Dream Walker?” he asked her. “I’ve never met any other creature who was so aware of the dreaming world.”

“E isn’t a Dream Walker.” She said quietly. Her fingers scratched at the edge of the cliff and crumbled bits of it away. The lights scattered in the wake of the falling stones. “Why are we here?”

He shrugged. “It’s your dream, not mine.”

She looked up at him an arched an eyebrow. The mischievous expression almost made him grin.

Burke wasn’t going to encourage her. He was elated that he could see her again. Staying away from her dreams had been incredibly difficult. He had grown used to her odd quirks and how many times he had been forced to hide smiles behind his hands whenever she spoke to customers. Not having her in his life had been uncomfortable.

In essence, he had missed her.

Her eyes slid past him, back towards the city that was stretched out before them. He watched her lids lower as though she had recognized some bit around them. Hope bloomed in his chest. The sooner she recognized the dream, the sooner she could control it.

“Wren?” he asked. She was too intent, glaring a little too hard at the light coming from below them. Almost as though she was uncomfortable in the knowledge.

“E.”

Burke relaxed once more. “Right, you’re talking with the Curiosity. I’ll stay quiet.”

“No,” she muttered, “E isn’t here. That’s why the dream is so foggy.”

“What?”

“I’m confused,” she whispered as she stared even harder at the ground. “I don’t feel right, Jiminy. E is gone, and I don’t know where I am.”

He blinked at her. Wren was hardly even speaking the way she normally did. Her voice was slurred, and her eyes were half mast. She was usually lucid in dreams, but now she was reacting the same way any normal human would. Jiminy hadn’t expected to find her like this.

The gears in his head turned until thoughts finally clicked into place. “Wren, did the Five send people to come and get you?”

She glanced at him with giant grey eyes. “I don’t remember. Is it even possible to remember the waking world in a dream?”

“You can. You have to think, Wren. Did someone come and get you?”

She pressed a palm against her forehead and squeezed her elbows against her ribs. “I think so. I remember water and… and a lion. But that doesn’t make any sense!” Her voice grew loud with frustration.

Lyra and Jasper. Of course they had sent the two agents he disliked. He growled. “I told them not to send those two. They’re too meddlesome. Wren, they likely hit you with a nulling dart. It separates you from your creature.”

“You mean E is gone?”

Burke knew the exact moment he lost control of the situation. She shuddered, once, twice, and then a fog started to roll in towards the city. He wanted to swear, but instead he reached out to grasp her arms. She was still shaking. Her eyes were locked onto the white mist that was slowly swallowing the light beneath them. He didn’t have much time.

“Wren, look at me.” Slowly, her eyes eased away from the city. “You have to stay calm or you’ll lose control of the dream.

“But E-”

“E is fine. It’s probably sleeping or waiting for the drug to wear off. Just like you.”

Her eyes danced over his features, and for a moment, he thought that she was going to be okay. He had her. The dream was so nearly under her control. But then her eyes moved again. As though a magnet was drawing her gaze, she looked back down at the city.

“Wren?” he asked quietly.

“I remember this.”

“This place?’

“This nightmare,” she shuddered. “I remember what happens here.”

His nostrils flared as a metallic scent on the air was pushed towards them by the wind. He didn’t want to admit that he knew the scent. Blood.

Slowly, he turned to glance behind them. In the darkest recesses of her dreams, the shadows were beginning to stir. The lights blinked out one by one. Each time they cracked open, and shadows spilled from what was once glowing.

The darkness had the vague shape of men. But their edges were constantly warped as wind blew through them. They brushed past the two seated on the edge of the cliff and trailed down the edges like a waterfall of pitch black. An army of shadows moved towards the city.

His head snapped back towards Wren. Her eyes followed the dark forms, and her expression remained flat.

“I know them,” she whispered, “or I used to.”

“You need to control the dream, Wren.”

“I can’t,” she whispered as she watched the shadows while they started to take on recognizable shapes. “Not without E.”

“For God’s sakes, Wren. You have to!”

He didn’t know if the shadows were a threat to them. It didn’t appear that they even looked at the people on the cliff. They continued to stream down towards the city