“Elinor!” Giovanni calls after me. “Elinor!”
Kara.
“Kara!”
I startled awake to Knight shaking my shoulder. In the bed, Giovanni murmured in his sleep, “Elinor . . . Elinor,” then fell silent again.
I grabbed Knight’s wrist. “She went with him. She’s going to die!”
“Who?” Knight said. His eyebrows drew together in question, yet his tone remained calm. “Was it a dream? Or a vision? It took a whole minute to wake you.”
I gripped my head and stared at Giovanni. “A dream. I don’t know. It was so real.”
“A nightmare?”
“No. Just a dream. It was like I was experiencing Elinor’s memory.” At his puzzled look, I lifted my chin toward the bed. “His girlfriend. She died in the demon realm, and I have a glob of her essence hitchhiking on mine. Don’t ask me how.”
He peered at me with interest. “Could you control the dream?”
“I didn’t even try. I was just there. I was her.” I sorted through the experience. “I’ve had memory flashes from her before, but never this vivid. I felt what she felt.” I managed a weak snort. “And trust me, it wasn’t anything like what I’d’ve felt in the same situation. She was timid, without a shred of snark. Afraid. Trusting. But at the same time, strong.”
“I get it.” A note of excitement crept into his voice. “I really get it. You were seeing through her eyes, but was there more? Was there another perspective?”
“No.” Gooseflesh crawled over me as the images whispered. “Maybe. It’s weird. The dream was through her eyes, but now I can also see it as if from a camera nearby. How is that possible? I don’t . . .” And then it was gone, leaving me with memory of only her perspective.
Knight grinned and slapped me on the back, startling me with both. “That’s a dream-vision, Kara! That camera view will be there during the dream, too, but it takes practice to separate enough from the subject—Elinor in this case—to fly with the camera.”
“Fly?” I’d had plenty of dream experiences thanks to the dream links Rhyzkahl had forged with me. Some were fully lucid, with others like flashes of memory. I’d even had Elinor dreams, but never where I’d been her while also having a separate perspective. Knight lived with visions and “feelings,” so I had no reason to doubt him. Yet I also wasn’t sure his experience applied to me.
“Flying is what I call it,” he said. “Once I learned to separate from the person, I was able to use that camera view to fly around and get more information. Stuff they couldn’t see or hear.”
“You’re telling me that I could have moved behind Szerain, or up above the trees?”
“It w
orks that way for me, but I can’t say for sure it would be the same for you,” he said. “It sounds crazy, but that’s how . . .” He hunched his shoulders, enthusiasm gone like a pricked soap bubble.
“How what?”
He shook his head. “It’s probably nothing like your dream. Forget I said anything.”
“Marco, if there’s a chance there’s more I can do in these dream-visions, I need to know. If you could teach me how to be a flying camera, it might come in handy if this ever happens again.” When he fidgeted and glanced toward the door, I put the pieces together. “You’ve never talked to anyone about this before.”
He shook his head but didn’t volunteer more.
“It’s cool. You don’t have to spill your guts.” I gave him an understanding smile. “Trust me, I’ve seen and done things I have no desire to share.”
“Not like me,” he murmured.
I shrugged. “You have visions.” And occasional prophetic moments, but he didn’t seem to remember those. “You know things about people, and yeah, it makes them uncomfortable, but that’s their problem.”
“It’s all the time, Kara. All the time.” He shoved his hands in his pockets. “I can’t help it. I can’t unsee or unhear it. I can’t shut it out. I know more than I have a right to know. Especially . . . especially about emotional moments.” His gaze cut toward me then skittered away.
“Have you ever seen me?” The instant the question left my mouth I realized how stupid it was. He’d just told me he saw stuff all the time.
Knight flushed. “I’m late for a detective meeting,” he said and hurried from the room.
Crap. Did he see something bad? Or just really personal? “Marco, it’s cool,” I called after him. “I’m used to having no privacy.” Shit. Wrong thing to say.