The Revelation of Light and Dark (Chronicles of the Stone Veil 1)

“Let’s go clubbing,” Rainey suggests.

“Or something quieter.” This from Adira, who is most certainly not the clubbing type.

“Not for me tonight, I’m afraid.” This from me, and I brace for my friends’ disappointed looks, which come immediately. I add lamely, “I’m tired.”

And I am. Between the coffee shop and the nights at Carrick’s learning about my new abilities, along with my inability to sleep because of all the scary things I now know, I’m barely getting five hours of sleep each night. Of course, my friends have no clue what I’ve been up to because I’ve lied to them, telling them that I’ve had to work late at One Bean, getting everything in order for the transfer of ownership.

“Come on,” Myles whines, giving a tug on my shirtsleeve a few times. “We miss you.”

“And I miss you, too,” I assure them. “It’s just I have a lot on my plate right now. Things will settle down soon, I’m sure.”

But I’m not sure of anything.

I encourage them to go out without me, but they, in turn, insist it won’t be any fun without the VIP for whom we are celebrating. We make vague plans to do a night out soon, but when that will be, I don’t know.

* * *

At home after making a cup of peppermint tea to settle my stomach—because you apparently can eat too many tapas—I get in my pajamas and settle into bed. It’s barely eleven and I’m not ready to sleep, despite the fact I’ve been running a hundred miles an hour for days now. While my body might need slumber, my mind won’t turn off.

Leaning over, I open a drawer on my nightstand and pull out a leather-bound book along with a matching tri-fold pouch in the same brown leather.

Scooting up against the headboard, I open the pouch, revealing a handful of charcoal pencils along with a sharpener. I select one, check the point, and then open the book, which is actually a sketchpad. Fallon had given me the set a few Christmases ago, hoping I’d get back to my artistic hobby of drawing. I’ve done some sketching here and there, but it’s been many months since I’ve felt creative.

I flip through some of my last drawings—a dragonfly on a long blade of grass, a woman admiring her reflection in a store window, and a single baobab tree on a grassy savannah plain.

I can draw pretty much anything—my range pretty extensive—but my chosen medium is always charcoal. I don’t paint, and I don’t use pastels. I like the simplicity of black and white, as well as all the shades of gray in between, that I can use to create depth and texture.

That makes me think of Zaid—his aura neither the light glow, nor an oily black, but a soft gray. The man certainly has depth, most of which I don’t care for, but it can’t be said Zaid isn’t an interesting person.

Or daemon, rather.

Or is a daemon a person? Does person mean human, or can it be any human-looking creature?

I grunt in frustration over my lack of knowledge, and this is a prime example of why my brain can’t turn off—so many questions and not enough time to get them answered.

Flipping to a clean page, I start to sketch Zaid. Just his daemon face with the thick brow that extends slightly over his nose, the sharp angles, and hollow cheeks. I go heavy with the charcoal on his eyes, not adding a hint of light to them as I’ve never seen anything reflective. I don’t draw in the glasses as they disappeared along with his human countenance when I breached his veil. I sketch his thin lips, pressed in constant disfavor with me.

Last, I color in the narrow aura that surrounds his head, using my finger to soften the charcoal strokes until it’s the same gray aura that is a blend of smoke and pearls indicating he might be an equal blend of his parents.

Beside his sketch, I jot a few notes.

Who are his parents? Are they here in our reality or elsewhere? His aura is gray, but who does he actually favor?

Staring down at Zaid’s likeness, I have to wonder why he seems to dislike me as intensely as Carrick does. I’m guessing it has to do with my abilities, and they don’t like being out of the loop on such things.

But why? And maybe the answer to the question “why” lies within what they truly are. Zaid is a daemon and no clue what Carrick is, but I know I’m nothing like either of them. I feel like it might be the differences between us that created the animosity on their part.

Oh, well.

I flip to a new page, then spend a few minutes sketching the daemon I saw in the bar with Carrick last night. She’s what I imagine fairies to look like, and I wished I’d thought to ask Carrick exactly what she was.