“Stop it, Dusty. Stop it right now.” Eli stood up, looming over me.
“Don’t touch me,” I hissed, and on some distant plane I heard the insanity in my voice. It frightened me somewhere deep down, but not enough to break through the plinth’s spell.
“If you don’t stop I’m going to touch you.” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Eli clenching his hands into fists. “Dammit, Dusty, what’s wrong with you?”
I shook my head, using my palms now. I could almost see it. A straight edge and a curved top, a P and yet that didn’t feel right. It could be a B or an R. P or B or R or P or B or R. Which one? Eli stooped toward me again, and I sensed his hands reaching for my frantically clawing arms.
“Don’t!” I screamed.
Boom.
Something struck the tower, and it gave a violent lurch as if from an earthquake.
Eli stumbled backward while I fell forward into the plinth, my forehead smacking stone. Dazed, I pushed myself back into a kneeling position as the tower gave another shudder.
“What the hell?” Eli turned and ran to the tower’s edge, looking out at the night sky surrounding us.
Only as I struggled to my feet, I realized the sky wasn’t dark as it had been when we arrived, but was suddenly bright, as if lit by an unseen sun. The unnatural sight of that brightness broke the plinth’s hold on me at last. With my limbs trembling as hard as the tower, I hurried to the edge, wanting to see what was happening.
I looked down at a sparse forest, populated by giant, ancient trees, some of them nearly as tall as the tower. At once, I found the source of all the shaking as a giant fireball shot up from the ground and struck one of the trees. It exploded on impact. Fire and debris spewed outward.
Boom-boom-boom.
The explosions were everywhere now, closing in around us.
Another fireball struck the tower, this one from far below, at its core. It rumbled upward, almost slowly. The ground shot up beneath my feet like a sinkhole in reverse. I pitched forward and slammed into the wall. The fissure spread and widened. The wall broke, huge chunks of stone falling over the edge. For a second I struggled to catch my balance, but then I lost it completely, helpless to stop my forward propulsion. Helpless to do anything as I plunged over the side.
The rush of wind ripped the scream from my throat. My body was beyond my control, my limbs locked in place by the momentum of the fall. Even still I twisted and turned through the air like a performance skydiver. I tried to pull back from the dream, but I was too afraid to concentrate. Far above me I saw Eli leap off the edge of the tower. He dove toward me, arms stretched forward. No fear showed in his face, only determination.
Several long, terrifying seconds later, his body struck mine with the force of a meteor. The dream world exploded around us. Pain tore through me, my entire existence seeming to shatter.
The next moment we were back in Eli’s dorm. I tumbled sideways off the sofa. My head cracked against the stone floor, Lance’s designer rug doing little to soften the impact. Starbursts covered my vision, and a sick feeling expanded in my stomach. I lay there, motionless, but I could still feel myself falling through the air, plummeting to my death from that tall, crumbling tower.
I kept my eyes open, afraid to shut them as I willed away the pain and terror. I’d never been afraid of heights before, but I had a feeling that might change after this.
Eli’s face filled my vision as he leaned over me. “Are you all right?” He reached for my arms.
I tried to nod, but the motion made my head pound even harder. Eli took hold of my wrists and pulled me upward. I let him, but only because I thought I would get sick if I opened my mouth to speak. When I was in a sitting position, he let go of my wrists. At once I began to fall backward, my equilibrium still screwed. He grabbed me, cursing beneath his breath as he dropped to his knees and wrapped his arms around my shoulders.
I sagged into him, vaguely aware of the tears wetting my face.
“Shhhh.” He stroked my hair. “It’s okay. It was just a dream.”
But we both knew that wasn’t true. His dreams weren’t normal dreams. Not the ones we shared together. If I had fallen all the way, if I had struck the ground …
I shuddered, my body convulsing with another surge of terror. He held me tighter.
Slowly the fear began to pass, and I forced my sluggish brain to start working again. How had we ended up in my dream? How could it be so powerful to make me lose control like that? I tried to remember all the things I knew about dream-walking. Some Nightmares were powerful enough to infiltrate dreams from afar. Was it possible someone was interfering with both my dreams and Eli’s? I couldn’t imagine what else besides magic could affect me like that. My compulsion to read those letters went far beyond the level of normal dreaming. Even now my head buzzed with the desire.
I heard Eli draw a breath, and I braced for the inevitable questions, but none came. He seemed to understand that I wasn’t ready to talk. He just held me instead, his arms a strong, comforting force around me, his hand gentle as he stroked my hair.
I don’t know how it happened, but sometime later, my body shifted toward his, and I felt his warm breath on my face, a slow in and out. Inch by inch, I turned my face toward that warmth. His lips grazed my cheek. And then he was kissing me, his mouth full on mine, hot, wet, and demanding, as if he’d longed for it as much as I had. His hands slid up my neck beneath my hair until he cupped the back of my head between his palms, locking me in place. Tingles coursed through my body, explosions of pleasure erupting over my skin.