Her eyes narrowed. “Why? So you can tell me again how totally unsuitable we are? So you can tell me how we can never, ever possibly work out—seeing as I’m not human and you apparently only hook up with people who double as dinner?”
My temper started to flare at the slight, but then I reminded myself that she wasn’t well. “I’m sorry for what I said last time—I mean it. I’d met Sydney long before I met you. But that’s not what I’m here to talk about. Please—can we come in?”
Nina stared at me wordlessly for a long time, and I used the opportunity to call on spirit and sneak a glimpse of her aura. Like Lissa’s yesterday, Nina’s aura was filled with the pale gold of a spirit user. Unlike Lissa’s, however, Nina’s gold had a weak, almost watery quality to it. It didn’t burn like a flame. The other colors were equally frail, flickering in and out.
“Okay,” she said at last.
She stepped aside and let us pass. What I found inside was nearly as disconcerting as her appearance. I’d been to her place before, back when she and I had done a lot of party-hopping together. The tiny apartment was actually more of a studio, with bedroom and living room merged into one. Despite the small size, Nina had always gone to great pains to keep her home tidy and well decorated. Much like the care given to her physical exterior, though, that upkeep seemed to be a thing of the past.
Crusty, smelly dishes were piled high in the kitchen sink, where a couple of flies buzzed lazily. Laundry, books, and cans of energy drink were piled everywhere—tables, floor, even the bed. Weirdest of all was a stack of magazines on the floor with a pile of shredded paper next to them.
“How do you sleep?” I asked, unable to help myself.
“I don’t,” she said, clasping her hands behind her back. “I don’t. There’s no time. I can’t risk it.”
“You have to sleep sometime,” said Neil pragmatically.
She shook her head frantically. “I can’t! I have to keep trying to find Olive. I mean, I’ve found her. Kind of. Depends on how you look at it. But I can’t get to her, you see? That’s the problem. That’s why I have to keep trying. Why I can’t sleep. Understand?”
I didn’t understand at all, but Neil’s breath had caught at the mention of Olive’s name. “You’ve found her? You know where she is?”
“No,” said Nina, sounding slightly irritated. “I just told you that.”
Without warning, she flounced down on the floor beside the magazine pile. She picked a magazine up at random and began tearing it, page by page, into tiny little pieces, building up the pile of shreddings.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Thinking,” she replied.
“No, I mean with the magazines.”
“This helps me think,” she explained.
Neil and I exchanged glances. “Nina,” I said carefully, “I think maybe you should go visit a doctor. Neil and I can go with you, if you’d like.”
“I can’t,” she protested, still methodically shredding the magazine. “Not until I reach Olive.”
I crouched down beside her, wishing I had a better idea of how to talk to someone so clearly unstable. You’d think I’d be an expert. “How are you trying to reach her? By phone?”
“By dream,” said Nina. “I succeeded. A couple of times. But then she blocked me. She turned the dream against me. I’m trying to fight through it, but I can’t.”
I could tell from Neil’s expression that he was hoping that had made sense to me, but I was more confused than ever. A particularly resistant person could make it difficult for a spirit user to form a dream connection, but the rest made no sense. “Olive’s not a spirit user,” I told her. “She can’t do anything to the dream without your permission. You wield the ultimate control.”
“She can, she can, she can.” Nina began tearing up the magazine with renewed energy. “Each time I try to talk to her, she throws up some obstacle! Things I never even thought of. Her nightmares, my nightmares. Someone’s. I fight them. I do. Really, I do. But it takes so much spirit.” She abruptly stopped the shredding and stared off into space bleakly. “It’s exhausting. And by the time I get through, she’s slipped away. She wakes herself up, and I can’t talk to her. Can’t ask her why she left me. Do you know?” Nina’s eyes flitted from me to Neil. “Do you know why she left?”
“No,” I said gently. “All I know is that you need some serious rest.” I started to put a hand on her shoulder, and she jerked away, anger glinting in her eyes.
“Don’t torment me,” she said in a low voice. “Don’t come here and act like you’re my friend.”
“I am your friend, Nina. No matter what happened—or didn’t happen—between us, I’m your friend. I want to help you.”
Her anger instantly flipped to despair. “No one can help me. No one can—Wait.” Unexpectedly, she grabbed my arm, her fingers digging in with astonishing—and uncomfortable—strength. “Maybe you can help me. You’re the best dreamer. Come with me the next time I visit Olive. Then you’ll see—you’ll see how she’s controlling the dream! If we combine our powers, maybe we’ll be strong enough to stop her! Then we can talk to her!”
I shook my head. “Nina, there’s no way she can—”