Mindee Arnett - The Nightmare Dilemma

As always, thanks to God and his Son.

Thanks also: to my rock star editor, Whitney Ross, for your love and support of these characters and this story, and for making it better with your magical insight. To the team at Tor Teen for your ongoing support—Lisa Davis, my production editor; Amy Saxon, assistant editor; Seth Lerner, the art director; Jane Liddle, the copy editor; Sally Feller, my publicist; and John Morrone, the proofreader. And a huge standing ovation to Tom Doherty and Kathleen Doherty—you are the best.

This book would not exist without the enthusiasm and support from my agent, Suzie Townsend. Thank you for everything you do, which I know is more than I will ever realize. Same goes for the entire crew of New Leaf Literary and Media who have helped me turn my hobby into a career—Joanna Volpe, Kathleen Ortiz, Pouya Shahbazian, Danielle Barthel, and Jaida Temperly.

To the Usual Suspects of Awesome, my critique partners and beta readers: Amanda Sharritt, Lori M. Lee, Cat York, Sarah Goldberg, Kathy Bradey, Farrah Penn, Mallory Hayes, and Jason Sharritt.

To all the readers, librarians, bloggers, and book enthusiasts for giving stories like this and writers like me purpose.

And finally to my family, who puts up with the long hours and crazy up-and-down days. You make the magic possible.

The mermaid was lying on the hospital bed, looking distinctly un-mermaidish. And not just because she was in her human form. Britney Shell looked more like a zombie with her skin the color of cigar ash and ghoulish lines of black stitches across her forehead, cheeks, and neck.

I turned to face the only other person in the room, the woman who’d summoned me out of my dorm in the middle of the night to the school’s infirmary for a reason I was sure I didn’t want to know. Lady Elaine stood near the foot of the bed, her pale, cloudy eyes fixed on Britney. She was an old woman, and tiny, hardly bigger than a kid. But that didn’t make her any less intimidating. As a chief advisor to the Magi Senate, her presence at Arkwell Academy meant trouble.

“What happened to her?” I said.

A grimace crossed Lady Elaine’s thin face, turning the wrinkles into deep crevices. “We don’t know. That’s why you’re here. To help us find out.”

“Me? What can I do?”

“You’re a Nightmare.”

I frowned. Not because this was an insult or anything. It was true. I am a Nightmare, or at least a half one. My mom’s a full Nightmare, but my dad’s an ordinary human. Not that you can tell by looking at me. For the most part, Nightmares look like ordinaries, but we’re magical beings who feed on human dreams.

“You want me to dream-feed on her?”

“Precisely,” Lady Elaine said, clanking her teeth.

I didn’t know why I was surprised. There wasn’t any other reason a person as important as Lady Elaine would want someone like me here. Britney and I were friends, but given the number of magickind police officers waiting out in the hallway, I didn’t think this was a bedside vigil.

I shifted my weight from one foot to the other. “How’s that supposed to help? Dream-feeding doesn’t heal people, right? I mean, if it does, then calling my kind Nightmares is like false advertisement.”

Lady Elaine scowled. “Now’s not the time for cheek, Destiny Everhart.”

“It’s Dusty,” I mumbled, looking back at Britney. Guilt made my skin prickle. Lady Elaine was right. Now wasn’t the time for smart-ass remarks, but I couldn’t help it. Seeing Britney like this freaked me out, an event that never failed to make my mouth run away with me.

Lady Elaine let out an exaggerated sigh. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched her turn and sit down in a chair on the other side of the bed. Like everything else in the room, the chair was the mottled gray color of cinder blocks. Lady Elaine’s feet dangled two inches above the ground. “You’re here because you might be able to identify Britney’s attacker by what you see in her dream.”

More confused than ever, I swung toward her. It wasn’t the first time I’d been asked to identify a bad guy through someone’s dream. A few months ago I discovered I was a dream-seer, that I could see the future in certain dreams. But …

“I thought my dream-seer skills only work in Eli’s dreams.”

Lady Elaine waved a hand at me. “I’m not asking you to predict the future but to read the past.”

“Huh?”

She sighed again, clearly at the end of her patience. Not that this was anything new. She crossed one leg over the other, feet swinging. “Whoever attacked Britney did so less than an hour ago. And as far as we can tell, she’s been in a constant dream-state ever since. If she saw the person, there’s a good chance his image has left a residue on her dream.”

“A residue?”

“Yes, a magical residue,” said Lady Elaine. “She was hit by a powerful curse. One we haven’t been able to identify yet. But all magic leaves traces of the person who wielded it, and only a very few magickind would be skilled enough to remove those traces.”

I considered the idea, pushing back strands of my curly red hair that had escaped my haphazard ponytail. “So it’s kind of like a fingerprint or DNA.”

Lady Elaine gave me a blank stare.

I crossed my arms, wishing I’d worn something more substantial than a hoodie, hastily donned over my pink-and-red-striped pajamas. The mid-April rain outside tapped against the windowpane, putting a damp chill in the air. “You know, like forensic science stuff. How ordinary cops figure out who the bad guy is.”

Lady Elaine’s stare deepened toward incredulity.

I couldn’t figure out what her deal was. Most magickind were junkies for ordinary pop culture. “Don’t you watch TV?”

She looked taken aback by the question, but recovered quickly. “Not those kinds of shows.”

I raised an eyebrow, wondering what kinds of shows she did watch.

“But I suppose your interpretation is correct,” said Lady Elaine. “It is something like magical DNA.”

Which made me the scientist in this scenario. What a joke.

Still, I didn’t protest as I turned my gaze back to Britney. If she’d been hit by a curse, then it was my fault. I might not have done the actual cursing, but I’d played a big part in making it possible for magickind to use combative spells whenever they wanted. It used to be that such magic was prohibited by The Will, a massive spell designed to keep magickind in line. But I inadvertently helped destroy The Will a couple of months ago. At least I’d been fighting an evil warlock at the time, one with Hitlerish ideas about world domination.

Small comfort now.

And no comfort at all to Britney. She looked miserable, her expression pained even in sleep. Her eyelids quivered as her eyes pulsed back and forth beneath them.

Even though I knew I was responsible, I didn’t want to dream-feed on her. What if I messed up? I might miss something important.

I cleared my throat. “Isn’t there some other Nightmare better qualified?”

“No,” Lady Elaine said, a pointed edge to her voice. “Well, yes, there are certainly others more qualified, but none available tonight. Someone else was supposed to be here, but they’ve been delayed, Bethany Grey is still imprisoned, and your mother is still out of town. Which leaves only you.”

I swallowed hard, my stomach twisting into a knot. The pathetically small number of Nightmares in existence wasn’t something I wanted to think about right now. This attack on Britney was just another in a string of magickind-on-magickind violence that had been happening since The Will broke. The same kind of violence responsible for my lack of Nightmare relatives.