Amanda felt a blade press against her throat and a voice in her ear. Sirena’s voice. Around her body, a scaled tentacle wound itself tight. More blades pressed against places above veins. At her elbows the back of her knees, anywhere vulnerable and far more than one person could hold.

  “You will give me that pegasus by dawn tomorrow or I will make sure your captain never sails the sea again, any sea. Got that?”

  Amanda couldn’t have burnt her even if she’d wanted to. She wasn’t completely sure of the woman’s form. She wasn’t even sure if what she felt was a blade of pure steel or some hard edge of whatever shape Sirena had taken on.

  Amanda couldn’t answer. Fear had taken her voice and a nod would have meant moving into the knife. The tone in Sirena’s voice was cold as ice. She spoke with an almost cackle as if she were on the verge of laughing manically.

  “Let her go!” commanded another voice.

  Sirius stood a few feet away with his sword drawn.

  Amanda frowned. This wasn’t how it had happened before.

  Before?

  She’d been here before.

  “Or what?” Sirena asked.

  Amanda could feel the woman writhing against her like a snake except there were far too many limbs for a snake. Those were definitely scales she could feel against one forearm though.

  “Or this,” replied Sirius. He sheathed his sword, clicked his fingers, and suddenly Sirena was gone.

  Amanda felt the hold loosen and when she looked around her there was no sign of the woman at all. Nothing but the red warehouses of Scarlett surrounded them. “What did you do?” she asked Sirius as she tired to think of a magic that could just vanish someone like that. Had he turned her into a very small insect?

  “It worked!” Sirius exclaimed in surprise.

  “What did you do?” Amanda repeated, all kinds of confused and trying to shake the feeling of deja vu.

  “You’re dreaming,” Sirius explained. He held up an infused bottle of sand and with a proud grin said, “I dreamwalked.”

  Amanda also heard the words he said and the tone but it took her a good minute to process them.

  Sirius was watching her carefully as if he were worried. “I’ve never done this before,” he explained. “But you were having a nightmare and I thought maybe I could help…”

  Doubt was creeping into his voice now. He wasn’t sure he had done the right thing.

  Amanda wanted to reassure him but she was still confused. “This is a dream?” It looked so real. It felt more real than she’d remembered.

  He nodded slowly and then with a gentle wave of his hand he wiped the scene around them away.

  The buildings faded like paint dripping down a canvas and then they stood in a green field on top of a little hill overlooking the sea. A large tree stood nearby. A treehouse was nestled in among its branches and a swing hung from one of them.

  A smile had returned to his face. “This is my dream now. Come on.” He held out his hand.

  She took it and followed as he tugged her along toward the treehouse.

  The inside was just big enough for the two of them to sit. Amanda probably could have lain down lengthwise but Sirius definitely would have had to bend at the knees.

  Amanda gazed up at the ceiling. It was painted blue with yellow stars. It wasn’t as accurate as the ones on his cabin ceiling but it made the place seem cozy and open all at once. There was something innocent about it.

  “My sister and I used to play here all the time when we were young,” Sirius explained. “We created it, well she did. I think I’ve managed to replicate it close enough.” He looked down at the sand in his hand. “I’m not used to being the one who’s controlling the dream.”

  “It’s a cool place,” Amanda said. She was starting to get used to the idea that this was a dream, although she wasn’t sure how they were going to wake up. Right now, she wasn’t in any rush.

  She lay back down on the wooden floor and looked up at the ceiling. “So, what’s that constellation then?”

  Sirius lay down next to her and inexplicably they found themselves lying on soft grey blankets instead of a hard floor. Sirius laughed. “I don’t know. You know, the great thing about a dream though, is you can make the sky look like anything.”

  With a wave of his hand the roof of the treehouse disappeared and above them a night sky formed, no longer a light blue but now a dark velvet. A single white butterfly lit off from the edge of the roof and flew away into the night.

  Amanda watched as the sky rearranged itself, the stars shifting into the shape of a pegasus with its wings gently flapping. Then a ship, then fireworks, then a whale with a horn.

  “It’s a narwhal,” Sirius explained.

  “A what? That is not a creature.”

  “Yes it is.”

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  “I don’t believe you.”

  He laughed. “I’ll show you later. I’ve got a book on them.”

  “Of course you do.”

  They were lying just like they had on the first night they’d kissed, only inches between them, and once again they were staring more at each other than at the sky.

  Things might have gone the same way as they had then if not for a subtle shift in the light that drew Amanda’s attention over Sirius’s shoulder.

  It wasn’t immediately obvious because the wall was bathed in a fine blue light, but a glisten between two of the boards set her hair on edge. Something wasn’t right.

  “The wall is leaking,” Amanda remarked, her mouth figuring out what she was looking at almost at the same time as her brain.

  “Huh?” He turned to get a look and that was when the walls collapsed.

  The sea flooded in, covering them both in a rush of salt and foam and wet cold before they could shout out. Amanda tried and got a mouth full of water. And then the floor fell away.

  She flailed her arms until she found purchase in the water and came up spluttering next to an equally confused Sirius.

  “That wasn’t me,” he said.

  Amanda coughed up more water. “I think it’s time to wake up.”

  Vaguely in the dark she could see Sirius nodding. Then something grabbed her foot and dragged her under.

  She sat up. Beside her, Sirius did the same.

  Breathing heavily she looked around the room, their room at the hotel. Nothing looked out of place, none of the walls were leaking water. Everything was normal.

  She sighed. They were back.

  Sirius grabbed a hand and immediately her senses went into overdrive again. She could feel how tense he was.

  “We’re still dreaming,” he whispered.

  Suddenly the room didn’t feel so safe anymore and in the shadows in the corners of the room, Amanda could swear that something was moving.

  The bed creaked even though neither of them had moved.

  “I’m not doing it, feel.” Sirius placed her hand on his so the sand sat between their palms.

  She could feel it alright. There wasn’t much left in the sand but that didn’t matter because right now, Sirius wasn’t using the dreamwalking at all.

  “Why are you whispering?” she asked in a whisper of her own. She already knew the answer but she feared the silence.

  “Because I don’t want to draw its attention.”

  “I think we have its attention already.”

  From the end of the bed a figure was pulling itself slowly and jerkily up. It’s flesh was disfigured and its bones stuck out. It made an unsettling squelching and grinding sound as it moved ever so slowly toward them.

  Moving at a slow pace, perhaps fearing speed might taunt the thing into action, Sirius leaned over the edge of the bed for his sword.

  He gave a surprised grunt and tugged his arm rapidly back up, sword clutched in his hand.

  A different hand was attached to his arm, a hand without a body. It was a pale white, covered in bruises and obvious signs of decay, and it was squeezing as tightly as it could, its long rotting nails digging into his skin.

  He ignored it and pointed his sword at the creature that was crawling over the covers toward them. Its face was so disfigured it was impossible to identify it as anyone.

  “Back away fiend,” he commanded in a voice without fear.

  Amanda had no idea what casting her fire might do in the dreamworld. She’d read stories about dreamwalkers killing family in their sleep because they thought they were something else. Something evil.

  But Sirius was unafraid and he attacked the creature with his sword. The moment his sword touched the thing, it turned into butterflies, hundreds of white ones.

  Something else lunged at him from the shadows in the corner of the room and he attacked that too.

  Another came at Amanda from the side and she was left with no choice but to use her fire. The figure fell away into dust but her hands shook and she worried about unforeseen consequences. What had just happened in the waking world?

  She moved to where Sirius was and the pair stood back to back, one armed with a sword, the other with flame.

  “How do we wake up?” she asked, worried in case they were burning alive in their sleep.

  He reached back and calmly grabbed her hand. “Like this.”

  The next moment, Amanda was blinking herself awake again. She sat up quickly and eyed the room. Small, permanent lights, fixed low into the walls gave enough of a glow to make out shapes in the corners of the room. Whether the shapes were just shadows or something else was impossible to tell without turning on the main light. Some of them sat strangely and she couldn’t understand what was casting the shadow.

  She reached an arm out over the gap between the bed and the side table, flicked the light switch, and then quickly pulled her arm back.

  Light flooded the room. The dark shapes disappeared. She considered turning it off again just to see if the shapes were still there, but she decided she didn’t want to know.

  A glance at the clock on the nightstand said it was still late, or perhaps that was early? They would need more sleep if they were to be awake for the trial tomorrow.

  She glanced toward Sirius. She could see his mouth starting to form the word sorry so she put a finger to his lips. “Don’t say it.”

  “I think I made things worse,” he said instead, although his posture had relaxed, along with the guilt on his face at her gentle smile.

  One look at Sirius’s face made the corners of the room far less terrifying and her momentary worry of switching out the light again was banished at the thought of cuddling up to him. ”I beg to differ,” she told him with a smile and a shake of the head.

  No sooner were the words out of her mouth than a loud crash made them both turn to look at the partially open door of the ensuite.

  They looked back at each other.

  The bathroom door flew wide open with a loud crash! Through the darkened doorway hordes of cutlery came flying toward them, butter knives (thankfully not steak ones), forks, and dozens of teaspoons. This was followed by a couple dozen mismatched socks and finally the blood, which started slowly seeping from tiles to stone and across the floor as if it were heat-seeking.

  Amanda wasn’t sure if she should laugh at the ridiculousness of it all or run in terror, but one thing was obvious.

  “We’re still asleep,” she gasped.

  “No. No, we’re not. It’s just followed us through,” Sirius replied.

  “How do you know?”

  Sirius didn’t answer. Instead, he grabbed her hand and pulled her from the bed and the room. He slammed the door shut behind them, and held the door handle tight. Then he leaned down and kissed her like he never had before. Breaking apart he asked, “Is that real enough for you?”

  Momentarily stunned, she forgot her fears. “Well, if it’s not, I don’t want to wake up.” The adrenaline combined with his passion had given her butterflies.

  She frowned. “Butterflies. That was weird right? It turned into butterflies when you struck it. And I saw one earlier in your tree house.”

  The door rattled against Sirius’s hand but he held it firm. He nodded slowly. “I think you’re onto something. I mean, the dreamworld can do some weird things but there was one creature I remember being associated with butterflies as well as spoons. An elf.”

  “Spoons? An elf?” If passion hadn’t stolen her fear a few moments earlier, confusion would have taken it then. “Like the little pointy eared pixie things from human stories?”

  Sirius shook his head. “No, different elf. It’s a dream creature. It turns into butterflies, and steals things, and I can’t remember the rest. I don’t think they were that dangerous. I have a book on the boat. It’s in one of those. One of the ones on dreamwalking.”

  “Let’s go get it.”

  Sirius shook his head. “The guards are in the lobby. Also”-he nodded at the door-”I need to keep this door shut.”

  Through the door they could hear a shattering sound like a mirror being smashed. Something rattled the door handle again but Sirius held it firm.

  Amanda frowned. “It can’t pass through walls?”

  “I don’t think so.” He didn’t look confident.

  “I’ll go fast then.” But she hesitated. “I don’t want to leave you here.”

  “I’ll be fine. Go.”