Total pages in book: 119
Estimated words: 112849 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 564(@200wpm)___ 451(@250wpm)___ 376(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112849 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 564(@200wpm)___ 451(@250wpm)___ 376(@300wpm)
I wake up in a cold sweat right before my head is cut off.
Sometimes I feel the blade go in, just a tickle, and then I’m gasping for air.
As I am right now.
This time it takes me a moment, my head reeling, to realize it was just a dream and that I still have my head and I’m safe.
Except I’m not safe, not really.
I’ve never been more unsafe in my life.
I am sitting upright in an unfamiliar bed, the sheets tangled around my legs, my body shivering. The window is open though I swear I closed it before I went to bed, and the curtain is billowing as a cold, damp breeze wafts into the room. Venice has a peculiar smell to it, not as unpleasant as I was warned, but still dank and musty, with a hint of the sea, like exposed tide.
You’re okay, I tell myself. You’re safe in your new apartment. Just breathe.
I push back at the end of my nose to get more air in and breathe in deeply a few times until I feel my heart rate returning to normal. But even though I’m calming down, my head is swimming. Fucking jet lag. It’s been years since I’ve traveled to Europe, I’d forgotten how bad it can be. Even with certain herbs and spells to ease the jet lag, nothing seems to work on me. I’m sure if I tried, I might find some success, but since I don’t have any excess energy to spare on this mission, I’ll just have to deal with it the old-fashioned way, via melatonin and coffee.
I pick up my phone and glance at the time. Three-thirty a.m. Now I’m too wired to go back to sleep and I decide to do the worst thing for dealing with jet lag: I look at the time back at home in Seattle. Seven thirty in the evening. The sun would still be up. In my mind’s eye I can picture the way the sun glints off Puget Sound, how my friend Kathy would probably text me and ask if I wanted to go to the bar after dinner. I’d appreciate the gesture, even if it’s one of pity, and I’d probably turn her down to spend another night alone.
This was a mistake, I think, twisting the rings on my fingers around and around. I shouldn’t be here. I should be back at home, trying to live a normal life.
And yet I am here. I’m here because this is my last chance to prove myself, to the witches, to the guild, and to Bellamy. If I fail, I lose everything for good. And then, yes, I can go and try to live a normal life again. But what good is a normal life when you know you’re anything but?
The curtain suddenly flutters as another strong breeze comes in through the window and I’m about to get up and close it when mist starts flowing inside, like a stream of vapors suspended in the air.
I stop and watch for a moment, confused at how fog can just enter through the window like that, until I get an uneasy feeling in my gut, like someone poured cold liquid in my veins. Perhaps this isn’t fog at all.
“Be gone,” I whisper harshly. Even though I have a corner unit in the apartment building, facing onto the lagoon between Venice and Murano, I don’t know how thin the walls are. “You are not welcome here.”
Anyway, if anyone could hear or see me they’d think I was a crazy person talking to mist, but I know it’s not just mist. I can feel it’s something else, the way it sits in the air like cobwebs, like it’s searching the room for something.
Me.
“Dahlia.”
My name is whispered like an exhale of air.
I suddenly get to my feet and push the air toward the window with my palms out and the mist disintegrates, the leftover particles flowing back out the window. I quickly slam the window shut and while I do so, I glance outside. There is a small dock that juts out from the main floor of the building and though there are no boats tied up there, I swear I see a dark figure standing at the end. Except there’s something wrong with it. At first glance it seems like a human, but the more I press against the glass, trying to get a better look, the more it seems to shift, as if it’s lowering itself onto the dock, spreading in directions that shouldn’t be possible. Almost as if it’s on four inhumanely long legs.
My breath fogs up the glass and I quickly rub it away but when I look again, the dark figure is gone. The dock is empty.
Okay, what the hell was that?
Jet lag, a voice inside me says. You’re tired. It’s jet lag.