Verum (The Nocte Trilogy 2)

She turns, her eyes just like Dare’s, and so very sad.

“I don’t know where I am,” she whispers, and her eyes beg me for help. “I don’t know.”

She turns away, looking out the window at the sea.

Behind us, the waves crash.

Pictures of Dare hang on the wall, from infant to adulthood.

She looks at them longingly.

“Can you bring him to me?”

I want to answer her, but I can’t.

My lips are frozen.

My words are ice.

I can’t melt them.

I can’t bring him.

Save me, save you.

I wake in a pool of sweat, alone.

“Finn?” I call out, desperate to feel calm, but he doesn’t answer.

There will come a day when I don’t, he’d once said. Is today that day?

The moonlight shines on my nightstand, and Sabine’s box of tea sits in the light. I grab it up and make a cup.

I have to be calm,

I have to be calm.

This must be the way.

The tea creates oblivion and I sleep for hours and hours. When I’m finally up and around the next afternoon, Sabine finds me in the library.

“Did you wear the locket to bed?” she asks.

I stare at her, annoyed.

“I dreamed about Olivia Savage. Is that what you want to hear?”

Something passes through Sabine’s eyes and I can’t read it.

“What did you dream?”

“Not much,” I have to admit. “I just saw her face. She had pictures of Dare on the wall. I could see the sea through the window. It’s like she doesn’t know where Dare is. She keeps asking for me to bring him to her.”

She nods now, satisfied. “That’s enough for now.”

Enough for what?”

But I’m afraid to ask.