Call Down the Hawk (Dreamer, #1)(114)

“I can’t do it,” Hennessy croaked.

Opal made a sad noise and laid another cool thing on her throat. It felt good in the way that things only can when it was feeling very, very bad before. She could feel that whatever Opal was doing was working a little. She wasn’t going to pass out.

“I could do it,” Ronan said. “I could go to sleep at the same time as you, meet you in the dream, and manifest something right when I got there.”

No idea sounded like a good idea when you had only one shot left.

“Just ask. It’s easy,” Opal said in what was probably supposed to be a soothing tone, but, because of her small, breathy child’s voice, and her big black eyes, and her strange goat’s legs, sounded a little creepy instead. “Shield.”

And Hennessy had a shield on her chest, weighing her down. She let out a cry of distress.

“Opal,” snapped Ronan. “Away.”

The shield vanished. Hennessy gasped for a little bit, and Opal busied herself putting more cool things on Hennessy’s exposed skin.

“You were only trying to help,” Ronan said to Opal in a conciliatory way. “But it’s true, it is easy here. You only have to ask for something. Try it.”

Everything Hennessy ever asked for turned into a disaster. A cruel trick. A drowning instead of an ocean.

“Just a little thing,” Opal said in a wheedly little voice, like a mother baby-talking to a child.

“Everything I dream turns to shit,” Hennessy said.

Ronan looked at her, brows furrowed. His mouth was working like he very much disagreed but he couldn’t quite work out how to mount a counterargument. She didn’t think he could do it. He said, “Like Jordan?”

He could.

Because of course Jordan was good. Better than Hennessy. The best of all the girls. Hennessy’s best friend.

Dreamt.

Opal knelt down very low to lay her cheek beside Hennessy’s ear. She whispered sweetly, “Just a little thing.”

Hennessy closed her eyes and drew her hands over her chest. She cupped them there, thinking of the lights that had rained down earlier. So kind and perfect and innocent and fine. Hennessy hadn’t been any of those things for so long.

“Hennessy,” Ronan said, “please don’t let me be the only one.”

This was the first gap she’d ever heard in Ronan’s armor.

“Just a little thing,” Hennessy said. She opened her hands.

A tiny golden light slowly lifted from her palms. Out of the corner of one’s eye, it was just a light. But if you looked at it close enough, it burned with a tiny, almost-not-there emotion: hope.

She had done it. Ask, and ye shall receive.

Then Ronan’s phone rang.





73

Phones didn’t always work in Lindenmere. Lindenmere was a thing that both used energy—ley line energy—and oozed energy—dream energy—and that seemed to sometimes contribute to phone signal and sometimes rob from it. More often rob from it. It didn’t help that Lindenmere seemed to use time differently than the rest of the world did; a minute in Lindenmere could be two hours outside it, or two hours could be a minute. Under those conditions, it was amazing a phone call ever made it through.

But this one did.

“I’m not in the mood for a fight,” Ronan said to the phone.

“Ronan,” Declan said. “Tell me you’re in the city.”

“I’m in Lindenmere.”

The breath Declan released was a more terrible sound than Ronan had ever heard his brother make.

“Why?”

“People are coming for you,” Declan said. “To the town house. To kill you. Matthew’s not picking up his phone.”

For a second, Ronan’s brain provided no thoughts and no words, and then he said, “Where are you?”

“Stuck in traffic,” Declan said miserably. “I’m trying. No shoulder. No room. I’ve called the cops.”

Hennessy was struggling to sit up, weakly putting herself together. He could tell she’d heard Declan’s side of the conversation. Lindenmere had, too, because fat raindrops were beginning to splatter the ground, distress weeping from the turbulent sky.

Ronan asked, “How far away are you?”

“I can’t get out and run, if that’s what you’re asking,” Declan snapped. “He’s not picking up, Ronan. They might already be there. I … look, they already got … Jordan is …”

As he broke off, Ronan closed his eyes. Think. Think. He had so much power, especially standing right in Lindenmere, but all of it was useless. He couldn’t teleport himself. He couldn’t make his brother pick up his phone. He could manipulate anything he liked within Lindenmere, but nothing outside of it. Even if he was sleeping, what could he possibly do against an unknown attacker two hours to the east?

He could make baubles and gadgets. Useless. Useless.

Hennessy was staring at him. She had heard Declan say Jordan, but he didn’t have time to deal with that.

“I’ll try,” Ronan said.

“Try what?” Declan asked.

“I don’t know. I don’t know.” He hung up. He had to think—he had to— Lindenmere was whispering all around him. The trees were muttering among themselves.