The Nightmare Dilemma

8 Conductor

That night, I headed to my dream session with Eli, dreading it more than I had in months. The school day had ended with no sign of him, but he’d sent me an e-mail a few hours after dinner saying he was finally back.

Can you come to our session early? he’d written. We’ve got lots to talk about.

He had a gift for understatement.

I took the direct route to his dorm room, through the commons. The rain had finally stopped, but the air remained damp and chilly. The wet surfaces of slanting roofs, archways, and parapets of the dark stone buildings that comprised Arkwell’s medieval-esque campus glistened in the pale sliver of moon overhead.

By the time I reached Flint Hall my shoes were sodden and my hair twice as poufy from frizz. I climbed the stairs to Eli’s floor trying not to squeak with each step. When I walked in, the living area of the dorm Eli shared with Lance was empty. I glanced around, surprised by Eli’s absence.

I cleared my throat. “Anybody here?”

Eli stepped through the doorway of the thin divider that separated the sleeping quarters from the living area. He was shirtless. I stared, openmouthed, unable to help myself. He wasn’t just shirtless, he was wet. Droplets of water glistened on his chest that was hard with muscle and absolutely perfect, even with the three scars that ran diagonally from his shoulder to his rib cage. The scars, like the one on Selene’s face, were still pink with newness, the wounds suffered in our fight with Marrow. On the left side of his chest perched a black scorpion tattoo.

I forced my gaze up, a warmth that had nothing to do with my brisk walk across campus heating my body. Eli’s black hair stuck up at odd angles, wet and sexy as hell. I wanted to brush it out with my fingers.

Finally, I dropped my gaze to his face. Eli had frozen, too, and was looking at me looking at him. Something vibrated in the air between us. The sweet, tingly memory of that one kiss overwhelmed my senses as if it had happened a moment ago instead of weeks.

A slow, mischievous grin stretched across Eli’s lips and the intense feeling broke. I let out the breath I’d been holding and felt my body relax. I could handle the playful Eli a lot better than the smoldering, serious one of a moment before—that version of Eli scared me. In all the right ways.

“Sorry,” he said. “But I had to squeeze in a quick shower. I was smelling a little funky.”

At the word smell, I took a deep inhale and immediately regretted it as my thoughts went fuzzy from the impact of his soapy, masculine scent. Nobody should smell that good.

I closed my eyes and shook my head, forcing my mind to focus. “Why’d you wait so long to take one?” I said, once I felt marginally in control again. I opened my eyes and dared another look at him. It proved to be bad timing as he was in the process of threading his arms through a T-shirt and pulling it over his head. The muscles in his arms and chest moved in alarming ways, all sinewy and popping.

He caught me staring again as his head emerged from the top of the shirt. I dropped my gaze from his bright, knowing eyes, my skin reddening from head to toe.

“I didn’t mean to wait so long,” said Eli. “But I had a dozen things come up when I got back and just now had a chance.” He turned and sat down on the nearby sofa. “Anyway. It’s no big deal, right? I mean, you don’t seem worried about it.”

Even though I knew he was only teasing, my temper flared. It had been a long couple of months of suggestive looks and tentative touches as we danced around what had happened and what this thing was between us. “No, what I’m worried about,” I said as I shoved my hand into my front pocket and withdrew Britney’s note, “is this.”

I stepped toward the sofa and chucked it at him. The action didn’t work as well as I planned, the lightweight paper floating toward him rather than dive-bombing. Irritated even more at my failure for good dramatic effect, I gave the note a hard shove with my mind magic. It smacked Eli in the face.

Whoops.

“Ouch.” He grabbed the note and shot me a glare. “You really need to work on your aim.”

“You need to work on your reflexes.”

He stared at me, his expression turning toward the dangerous side, like a panther contemplating a good chase. Then he shrugged and examined the note, pulling it open. “What is this?” His eyes moved across the message, then he flipped it over and read the Dream Team addressee. He raised his gaze to mine, his mouth open in confusion. “Where did you get this?”

I cringed at his choice of words. What I wanted was a clear, absolute denial, not an ambiguous response. “I don’t know. You tell me?”

To my dismay, Eli smiled. “Why are you pissed at me? Don’t get me wrong, I kind of like it, but…”

I flushed again, hating how easily he knocked me off-kilter. “I’m not pissed. I’m concerned. I’m pretty sure Britney wrote that note. Lance gave it to me at lunch, says he found it here in your dorm. Only he can’t remember when. His memory is all messed up because somebody cursed him last night. But the last person he remembers seeing is you.”

The playfulness vanished from Eli’s face. “What are you implying?”

I folded my arms over my chest and backed up, leaning against the desk that sat across from the sofa. I had to know for sure, paranoid or no. “Where were you last night between ten and eleven forty-five?”

Eli’s eyebrows rose. “You’re kidding, right?”

I shook my head.

He stood and took two steps toward me, close enough that I had to lean my head back to keep my eyes fixed on his face. “I was right here. In this dorm. And why the hell are you treating me like I’m Pa—”

He broke off, but I heard the rest of what he was about to say anyway. Like I’m Paul.

I swallowed, suddenly swimming in doubt. Eli’s anger came off him in waves. Why had I accused him so quickly? So tactlessly? I bit my lip, hating how crazy he made me. Or maybe I was just going crazy in general.

I exhaled, letting the air escape through my teeth slowly. “You were also in Britney’s dream.”

Eli craned his head sideways, frowning. “What?”

I brushed back strands of my red hair that had fallen in my face. “It’s true. I saw you with a wand in your hand attacking her while she tried to run away.”

“Let me get this straight.” Eli took a few steps back from me. “You think I first cursed Lance and then ran down to the library alcove and cursed Britney and then was stupid enough to leave evidence like this hanging about.” He waved the note in the air.

I winced. Spoken like that it did seem absurd and completely out of character for Eli. But it was too late to retreat now. “Something like that.”

“Oh, and I suppose you have a motive for why I would attack her, yeah?”

“No, but you’ve never been able to do magic until now and…” I trailed off, my suspicions about him weakening by the second.

Eli opened his mouth to respond then closed it. I held my breath, waiting for him to explode or, even worse, to transform into a stranger, the way that Paul had transformed right before my eyes from a caring boyfriend to a betrayer.

Finally, Eli said through gritted teeth, “I had nothing to do with what happened to Britney or Lance. I’ve never seen this note before, and I’ve never done any magic until this morning in English class.” He paused and drew an uneven breath. “And I can’t believe you’d think for a second that I might’ve done it. Dreams aren’t real, Dusty. You know that. Only my dreams have any meaning. The ones we share together.”

Another wave of guilt crashed over me, followed by remorse. He was right. And I was wrong. Even worse, I could tell I’d really hurt him. The tension in him went deeper than anger.

“I’m sorry.” I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose, unable to bear the weight of his stare. “It’s just so much has been happening. And it felt like more than coincidence. And I guess I’m just a little paranoid.” I let my hand drop and looked back at him, hoping he believed me.

He clenched his teeth. A muscle ticked in his jaw.

“If it helps, I didn’t tell Lady Elaine about seeing you.”

Eli put his hands on his hips. “Oh, yeah? And why not?”

“To protect you, and maybe because deep down I knew you didn’t have anything to do with it. And I really am sorry. I guess I’m having a hard time trusting these days.” I spoke the last sentence without really meaning it, at least not at first. But once it was out, I felt the truth behind it. I’d been denying it for months, but I was having a hard time trusting. And sleeping. And doing anything normal. I kept seeing Marrow’s face in every stranger. Kept remembering how much it had hurt to find out the truth about Paul.

Some of the hardness in Eli’s expression softened, and he stepped toward me again, vanishing the distance between us. He gripped my shoulders, his hands warm through my shirt. “It’s all right. I understand why you’ve got trust issues. But I’m nothing like him. Nothing.”

I nodded, unable to speak. He was so close I could feel his breath. All I wanted was to lean toward him, vanishing the last of the space between my mouth and his. His head tilted downward by an inch, his fingers squeezing my shoulders.

And then he turned away from me and sat down on the sofa. I drew a deep, ragged breath, my head swimming and my whole body on fire.

Eli shifted his position on the sofa a couple of times before turning his attention to the note once more. He cleared his throat. “Maybe we can use this to help us figure out what really happened. I haven’t talked to Lance at all today, but I will first thing in the morning.”

“Yeah, good idea,” I said, my voice breathless. At least the prospect of a new case would lighten Eli’s mood. “Oh, and I’m supposed to focus your dream on Britney’s attack. Lady Elaine thinks it might be connected to some of Marrow’s supporters.”

“Makes sense.” Eli slid the note into his pocket.

I considered telling him the rest of it, but decided not to. For one thing, Lady Elaine and the sheriff had sworn me to secrecy. For another, telling him about that would inevitably lead to telling him about Paul. Didn’t take a genius to guess that such a revelation wouldn’t go down too well at the moment. I figured Eli hadn’t heard about his release yet—he would’ve said something straightaway.

I pulled out the chair beneath the desk and sat down. “So tell me about your trip to Lyonshold.”

Eli arched a single eyebrow at me. “How did you know I was there?”

“Oh.” Crap. I searched for an explanation and decided a partial truth was better than a lie. “I bumped into Sheriff Brackenberry on campus today. He told me.”

“What was he doing on campus?”

I leaned forward, only now remembering. “He was interrogating Oliver Cork. I guess he was the last person to see Britney before she was attacked. They were attending some meeting about a group called the Terra Tribe. I think it’s like a student organization, but I’m not sure. Ever heard of it?”

Eli shook his head. He stood and walked to the desk, bending down next to me as he opened the drawer to retrieve a pen. I couldn’t help myself. I took another deep inhale of his clean scent. His hard shoulder brushed my arm, and I caught myself leaning in toward him. But he moved away, using the desk’s surface to write the name Terra Tribe down in the little notebook he’d started carrying around in his back pocket after we formed the Dream Team.

“I’ll research it later,” he said, returning to the sofa. He yawned. “Anyway, my trip to the capital was pretty interesting. A couple of people interviewed me about what happened, and then I spent several hours playing lab rat to a group of magickind scientists.” He screwed up his face. “More like mad scientists.”

I had a vision of a bunch of wizards poking and prodding at him with needle-tipped wands and resisted a shudder. “What’d they figure out?”

Eli brushed a hand through his hair, his calm, nonchalant expression belying the sudden excitement I sensed in him. “They think I’m a Conductor.”

“Like a train conductor?” An image of Eli dressed in a blue and white striped pair of overalls popped up in my mind, and I started to grin.

“It’s not funny.” Eli crossed his arms. “It’s kind of cool, actually.” A smile broke across his face, his excitement refusing to be contained a moment longer. “It’s really rare and not something anyone has seen since before The Will, but a Conductor is an ordinary who has the ability to channel magic from inside a contained source.”

I tilted my head, thinking it over. “What does that mean? A contained source.”

He shrugged. “All magical objects I guess. From what they’ve told me so far, stuff like wands and staffs have a magical core, kind of like a battery. You know how witchkind require an object to focus their magic?”

I nodded, envisioning my favorite analogy for this phenomenon—a witchkind’s magic was the computer and the magical object the mouse and keyboard.

“Well, it’s the core that does the focusing,” Eli went on. “Their magic flows through the core, but it doesn’t really use it. Conductors, on the other hand, channel the magic inside the core. It’s a more limited source of power, but still magic. Enough for minor spells at least.”

The scene from English class replayed in my mind. The fligere spell wasn’t very complicated, but given how hard it had struck Miss Norton, I wasn’t sure I would call it minor. And that had been only his first attempt.

“In other words,” Eli said, “I can do magic now.” I looked at him, surprised by his bubbly, kid-on-Christmas-morning tone. He was grinning in earnest, our earlier argument forgotten. “I’m supposed to pick out a wand sometime tomorrow.”

The reality of what he was saying finally dawned on me. Eli Booker, the only ordinary at Arkwell, could now do magic. All my worry about him being in Britney’s dream faded away in genuine happiness at this news. He would no longer be the outsider. No longer have to watch from the sidelines, only studying the theory of magic but never practicing it himself. He would finally be a part.

I beamed at him. “Congratulations. I’m so happy for you.”

“Thanks.” He leaned back, putting his hands behind his head. “I think this makes breaking The Will totally worth it.”

I frowned. “So The Will was set up to prevent Conductors from doing magic the same as halfkinds?” It was this reason, more than any other, why Paul had become Marrow’s follower. He was a halfkind, cut off from his magic at birth by the spell all because the Magi Senate wanted to keep the kinds from intermixing. But not anymore.

Eli dropped his hands into his lap. “Looks like it.”

“Did they say why?”

“I asked, but nobody had an answer.”

“Huh.” I thought back to the reason Marrow had given for why halfkinds had been blocked—the Magi feared them because they tended to be so powerful. I wondered if the same was true of Conductors.

Eli glanced at his watch, excitement still buzzing around him. “Then again, I don’t know how I’m ever going to fall asleep for our session without The Will to help me.”

I laughed. “I don’t blame you.”

“For real.” Another huge grin seemed to split his face in half. “Do you know any sleeping spells?”

I shook my head. “Nope. Even if I did, they wouldn’t work on you.”

“Right. Good thing, too, or we would never have beaten Marrow.”

I smiled, remembering with grim satisfaction how the spell I’d cast at Eli had ricocheted off of him and struck Marrow. It was a rare moment of brilliance for me and had only worked because, as my dream-seer partner, Eli was impervious to my magic.

He shifted sideways and laid his head on the arm of the sofa, stretching out his long, lean body, his feet dangling over the edge. “I guess I’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way.”

I nodded, but didn’t say anything, an uneasy feeling tightening in the pit of my stomach. My happiness for him was truly genuine, but now a trickle of worry began to seep in. Magic had a way of changing people. Look at what it had done to Paul. Just the hope of possessing its power had been enough to turn him from a decent person into someone willing to lie, cheat, and kill to get what he wanted.

It would change Eli, too. Inevitable, really.

And as I watched him fall asleep, his breath slowing as his chest rose and fell, I could only hope it wouldn’t change him too much. Or for the worse.