The Secret World of Briar Rose(95)

“Stop it,” they demanded. “He’s never going to find us.”

The demon stilled her long enough for the rocks beneath her to slowly fuse back together. Smoke cleared from the sky, leaving behind white.

“You lost a lot of blood. I did too,” Malicine said. “Do you understand what that means? I opened a portal to your dreams.”

The amulet in their staff flickered red. Amelia blinked as slow understanding dawned upon her. Pale blue washed into the sky like quiet waves. The world turned quiet, as if waiting for her thoughts. She tried to make sense of the emptiness, but there were no rules to reference. This place was not Gyldan, nor the Otherworld. She was not alive, but she was not dead. She was somewhere in between.

Amelia waved her hand and watched butterflies scatter from her fingertips. Black veins decorated sunny-gold wings, colors swirling like sand in a desert night. She followed their blurry flights. A meadow paved the way for her footsteps, careful and light at first, then quick and manic, bounding across fields as trees sprouted from earth, tangled branches lifting her into the air. Her dress spun daffodils and tulips, petals pressed to fabric, leaves folded into sleeves. A laugh burst from her lips and turned into wind chimes. Rays of light streaked to her fingertips.

She looked down at her hands and saw that her palms shimmered like the sun. This was different from the gold that ran through her veins. This was true magic.

A single sunflower sprung from grass. A memory rooted in her mind. Smells of pastries and apple cakes, an autumn breeze. At Gyldan’s marketplace, she’d discovered a miniature cottage house with a sunflower garden. As she recalled that hazy afternoon, gray stones lifted themselves from the ground and hovered in the air. They stacked on top of one another until they were two stories tall. Dry vegetation melded together into a roof, and glass washed over the gaps where windows should be. Behind the house, grass parted ways to create a soil field that stretched for miles. Thick stalks sprouted in rows. Sunflowers bloomed, their faces full of black seeds that shone like oil under the sun.

Her heartbeats raced with her across the field. The fertile soil sensed her footsteps, and another stalk grew beneath her feet and lifted her to the sky.

Malicine called after her. “Amelia, wait—”

But she was already running across the stalks, adrenaline pushing her forward. Black seeds crunched beneath her toes before she leapt into the air. Vines reached to catch her in leafy grasps and settled her on the thatched roof.

“Slow down,” Malicine warned.

“How can I?” she exclaimed, her arms stretched wide over the straw and heather. The sun’s warmth radiated on her skin, freckles blooming like tiny brown flowers. A finch with rainbow feathers perched on her fingertip. “This is everything I’ve always wanted. A garden of sunflowers. A cottage on a hill. A place where no one knows my name. Just like . . .”

The dollhouse she gave me.

The words died on Amelia’s lips. The wind carried it away like dandelion seeds, leaving her mute. She stared into the distance, where a muffled sound of thunder rumbled behind the mountains. Dark patches of gray formed a silhouette of a faceless woman. Small tufts of clouds collected around the silhouette’s neck, like a string of pearls. Amelia knew this person. She must have. Long ago, she received a dollhouse for her birthday. Who had given her such a gift?

Someone wise.

Someone kind.

Someone who believed in her—

Someone who died because of her.

Dark clouds advanced toward Amelia. She felt uneasy, the sound of hissing droning in her ears. Then, a strike of blade against flesh. Blood splattered across the pearls. She jolted back, the sudden memory of Lilith hitting her like a hammer to her chest. Tears stung her eyes as she remembered the pearls rolling across dirt, the limp weight of her father’s body, her hands drenched in his blood. She tried to forget by looking back at the garden, but the sunflowers began to wilt, their petals shriveled to a muddy brown. Limp birds descended onto fields of dead grass. Gray skies loomed above, growls of thunder reverberating through black clouds.

Wind sliced Amelia’s skin. She shrieked and fell backward. The thatched roof turned into brittle straw, and she broke through the flimsy material, falling to the ground. Dirt and bugs crawled over her pale flesh. She shivered in the flimsy fabric of her dress, where flowers died and stank in rot. Snakes slithered around her ears. Their tongues hissed reminders of what she left behind. Your fault, your fault, your fault, they said, and each word made her sink deeper, until the roots beneath the soil wrapped around her limbs, squeezing her bones so tight she would break into pieces.

Malicine called for her, but their voice sounded far away and distorted, like Amelia was underwater. Talon dove to the ground and snapped at the snakes and vines, cutting them into ribbons. Once Amelia was freed, Malicine pulled her from the ground and pushed her aside. They swung their staff and sent a ripple of air. The force made the terrain roll over like tidal waves: the bare trees with sunken faces in their trunks, the snakes that coiled and hissed, the mud that had dragged her down like quicksand.

A rift broke through the ground and separated them from a gray mass of land. The terrain warped into a small island, where dark clouds hovered in a circle of fog and broken memories. Water poured into the fracture between them, separating the island with miles of ocean.

In the distance, Amelia could still hear muffled thunder. A menacing fog veiled the shadows living on the island. Gravestones of people she let—