Page 116 of Awakened Ash and Alchemy

“Is he still a non-friend?”

She paused. “He’s more than that. Which is a problem, because there are rules in his world that we’ve broken, that I don’t know how to help him.”

“Since when have you cared about rules? I seem to recall a woman who was rather gifted at testing them to suit the argument.”

“This is different. Zarek could be in trouble because of me.” Which explained why Zarek was trying to push her away earlier with his brutal was it them, or was it the Claiming speech? Trying to protect her from what they’d done.

Father Michael was quiet for a moment. “How much do you care about him, Angela?”

She opened her mouth. Closed it. Suddenly finding the cloud formations interesting. “It’s complicated.”

“That wasn’t the question.”

She stopped walking.

“You can say it. It’s your dream. The only one here who’ll judge you is yourself. Here, you have every right to voice what you can’t voice while awake. Consider the dreamscape a space free from the rules of all realms. So, say it.”

“Maybe… love?” The word came out smaller than she intended. “Fine. I said it. Happy now?”

“Immensely.” He playfully nudged her shoulder. “And I assume you haven’t told him.”

“I can’t. There are way too many complications. Besides, I don’t know if it really is love or if it’s this Claiming thing. Then we have the rules of his world, the politics, and whatever that council is—”

“If it is love, then trust that love will find a way. It always does.”

“You’re such an optimist.”

“I’m also someone who knows what it is to truly love something so pure. I understand what a rare and precious gift love is.” He bowed his head, revealing his vulnerability from the loss of that great love. “And I believe in loopholes, little one.”

“Right?” He’d say the oddest things at the oddest times, like he was talking in riddles.

“Right,” he mimicked with a smile. “So, this is your dream quest. Do you know why you’re here?”

“To stop the nightmares and to finally get some sleep.” She hesitated. “Do we have to go through the stages of the nightmare?”

“Do you remember it?”

“It starts the same, but the rest I forget.”

“Tell me what you do remember.”

“It starts—not badly.” The heat rose in her cheeks even here, inside her own dream, in a sky that was nowhere and everywhere. “It starts with Zarek and it’s—Father, it’s a bit—”

“Oh,” he said, with the diplomatic composure of someone who listened to spiritual confessions for a living. “I see.”

“Right. So… Can I ask you something while we’re here?” She needed to change the subject.

“Of course.”

“Who is my father?”

The question surprised her.

She hadn’t thought about it for a decade; more, maybe. Yet, with all that had been going on lately, it may have been playing in her subconscious. She knew her mother was normal, so her magick had to come from her father’s side. “Did my mother say anything to you?”

Father Michael looked at her for a long moment with an expression she couldn’t quite read.

“I think,” he said gently, “you already know the answer to that.” But before she could press for more, he asked, “Tell me, what turns this dream of yours into a nightmare?”