“So where were you?” Eli asked in a much softer tone than before. “I was worried you’d disappeared.”
I sighed, unable to hold on to my bitchy attitude in the face of his concern. “I was doing something stupid.”
A grin teased the edges of his lips. “Like what?”
I focused my gaze on his ear to avoid looking in his eyes. “I thought I had a lead on the killer, but it didn’t pan out.”
He yawned again. “Yeah, I’m not having any luck, either. But just keep using the graph I gave you.” He leaned back in the chair, his eyes already slipping closed.
I moved into position as his breathing deepened. The dream was another one about ice fishing, cold and miserable. When I spotted Katarina, an irrational urge to do her harm came over me. It was as if all the emotions I’d been struggling with on the outside had followed me into the dream—and been intensified by ten.
I scowled at her, resentment for every time she’d mocked me, for that kiss with Eli, burning inside me like wildfire. The dream-Katarina let out a scream. The flesh on her face began to bubble like melting wax. Her hair blackened as if burned, then fell out. A sudden burst of fear inside me loosened the anger’s tight grip over my mind. What was going on?
Eli rushed over to her, a look of utter terror on his face. “What’s happening?” he yelled. He took hold of her arms, but the skin there had started to fester and flake off, revealing the bones beneath. Her face looked like a mummy’s.
What are you doing, Dusty?
Horrified, I realized I was responsible for this. My thoughts, my actions, my magic. Even worse, I knew Eli’s fear was genuine. For the first time he didn’t know this was a dream—a nightmare.
I closed my eyes, disgust at myself leaching away the last of my anger. I pictured being somewhere else. No Katarina, no ice fishing. I imagined the wind soft and warm instead of sharp as razor blades against my skin. The sun hot and low in the sky, like in Hawaii.
I opened my eyes and gasped at the change I’d wrought. Eli and I were alone, standing on the sundeck of a yacht.
He looked at me, dazed. “What happened? I saw Katarina…” He gulped. “Did you do that to her?”
I didn’t answer. Couldn’t. Something huge and dark was flying in the distance over an endless stretch of blue-green water. The black phoenix. Something dead hung from its talons.
* * *
I tried not to think about what I’d done in Eli’s dream as I waited by the phone for Paul to call the next day. But I did think about it. A lot.
And Paul didn’t call. I figured he wouldn’t, but that didn’t make it hurt any less. By six o’clock I gave up.
“Maybe something happened,” Selene said. “He might’ve lost your number.”
“He could’ve looked it up in the directory.”
“Maybe there was an illness in the family.”
I slumped down onto the sofa in our dorm room. “He’s a Kirkwood. We would’ve heard about it on the news.”
Selene sighed. “Well, if he doesn’t have a good explanation then screw him. He doesn’t deserve you anyway. He’s just a mu—” She hesitated. “Loser.”
I stared at her, shocked by what she had been about to say. “He’s a mule?”
Selene frowned. “That’s a nasty word, Dusty.”
“You’re the one who said it.”
“Almost said it.”
“Same difference.” A mule was a derogatory word for someone who couldn’t do magic. The term was normally directed at halfkinds, whose magical sterility was the result of their parents being different kinds, similar to how most real mules couldn’t reproduce because of the whole horse-donkey chromosome thing. “Wait, so Paul’s a halfkind?”
Selene shifted uncomfortably in her seat across from me. “His mother is Eliza Kirkwood, Magistrate Kirkwood’s younger sister. Nobody knows who his dad is, but he definitely wasn’t witchkind. My mom says it was a big scandal when it happened. People still talk about it every now and again.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Selene pulled her ponytail over her shoulder and began finger-combing her hair. “I didn’t think it would matter to you.”
She was wrong. It did matter, but only because I realized he and I had a lot more in common than I thought. Not that it counted much. He’d still blown me off.
And after what I did in Eli’s dream last night, I wasn’t sure I blamed him. Evil, evil, evil, a nasty voice kept whispering inside my head.
“Are you okay?” Selene asked.
I nodded, but tears burned my eyes.
Selene came over and sat beside me on the sofa. She put an arm around my shoulder, hugging me. “Seriously, he’s not worth getting upset about. No boy is.”
I hugged her back and then stood up. I hadn’t told her the horrible things I’d learned from Marrow or what I’d done in Eli’s dream. She was my only true friend, and I didn’t want to risk having her opinion about me change.
“I’m going for a run,” I said, disappearing into the bedroom. I changed into my running clothes, then headed for the door.
“Be careful,” Selene said, worry in her voice.
I didn’t answer and closed the door behind me. I took off at a jog down the hallway and broke into a run as soon as I was outside. I ran as fast and hard as my body would let me, allowing the physical demand of it to siphon away all the bad feelings inside. When tears dampened my cheeks, I told myself it was from the wind.