Nastya tried her best to look like she knew what she was doing to avoid adding fuel to the fire of terror emanating from the group of teenagers before her. She managed to separate hysterical Adam from shell-shocked Dylan for long enough to stuff them both into hot baths and get their scratches looked at by Anita. It wasn't in the housekeeper's job description, but needs must, and she was never going to refuse Nastya's requests. She put away another mental tally to reward that behaviour in the next paycheck.
The main sources of her headache were back in the living room now, Adam clinging like an octopus to Dylan's shoulders while Dylan was staring blankly at the wooden table. At least the six-foot-tall emotional bombshell wasn't weeping and sat quietly apart from an occasional sniffle.
She looked over the table, hoping that the rest of the crap she had on her plate could be delayed at least until after tonight. Whatever was going on between Ian and Nikolai seemed to have resolved itself without her intervention. Or at least they weren't about to go for each other's throats anymore. She would take the win, regardless. Jesse was the last to join them, drying her long auburn hair and feeling at home in one of Nastya's fluffy bathrobes as she sauntered over, a piece of toast she managed to sneak from somewhere between her teeth.
Jesse Ashford was honestly a pleasant surprise in the shitshow that was today. At first she appeared as hysterical a mess as Adam, during her breakdown at the shed that she and Nikolai accidentally overheard. However, throughout the last few hours, she was calm, efficient and followed Nastya's orders to the letter, not bothering with unnecessary questions.
It felt natural in some way. Nastya frantically moved the chess pieces to keep things running, and Jesse was the all-dependable rook: flawless defence and terrifying offence when the path was clear. Their eyes met for a brief moment, a flicker of camaraderie amongst the chaos. Nastya felt her anxiety recede into the background and straightened out.
"Well, then. We can safely assume this is more serious than we thought."
She heard Jesse cough, trying to hide her laughter, as Adam glared back at her with red eyes.
"Dylan almost died, and you're cracking jokes!"
"That was not a joke, but a statement of fact. Now, are you going to calm down and listen, or will I have to make you?"
He piped down then, clutching at Dylan's drooping shoulders. Nastya sighed and continued.
"You have sleepwalked twice in a row in a short period of time. I assume that is unusual for you?"
Dylan nodded weakly in response.
"I do not know the circumstances of the first time it happened, but today it should have been unlikely, considering the precautions I have taken." She sounded a lot more confident than she really was. But telling this poor boy that she was also flying by the seat of her pants wasn't helpful.
At their curious looks, she continued. "To be precise, I had lined the windowsills and door to this room with salt, which is a general protective ward against any unwanted entity coming in or out of the circle. There was a bowl of purified water and a silver cross under your bed, Dylan, which is the Slavic version of a dreamcatcher, if you will. Any entity that would have reached your sleeping mind from beyond and somehow bypassed the salt circle would be trapped there. And to be triple sure, I also fed us all mugwort tea."
At their concerned looks, she sighed. "It's not poison, you idiots. It helps to remain lucid in your dreams, giving you more agency and awareness in case it did manage to get through the first two wards. Which begs the question: how exactly did it take over you today, Dylan? What did you see in your dream to make you walk a mile out into the woods and find a creek to almost drown yourself in?"
She felt a little bad at seeing the poor boy wince at her accusatory tone, but the abject fear of the unknown had always made her ruthless. If Dylan kept lying to her, her hands were tied. She expected Dylan's Knight to burrow a hole through her for the tone she was extremely liberal with, but Adam was as invested in the answer as she was. Dylan shrank slightly under the scrutiny.
"I… I didn't see anything. At least nothing out of the ordinary."
"Did you not feel like you were aware that you were dreaming? Mugwort should have…"
"I don't dream."
The silence was so loud that she swore she could hear her own heartbeat race through her blood vessels.
"Come again."
"I don't dream." Dylan looked confused at the stunned looks he was getting from them all. "I close my eyes when I go to bed. I see pitch darkness, and then I wake up. That's it."
"Come on, mate." Jesse apparently finished her toast and got her voice back. "Everyone has those nights, but you must have had a dream at some point. Or even a nightmare."
"No, I didn't." He was getting irritated. That was good; it meant he was hiding something. "I never do. Even the doctors were baffled. They said that the whole point of the pills was to prevent me from having dreams and just wouldn't believe me when I told them I don't freaking dream in the first place!" He ran his fingers through his hair with frustration and shot a guilty sidelong glance at Adam.
"Even today, I…I took some of my old medication. To see if it would work."
Nastya was doubtful that this was a medical issue, considering her personal experience of the unnatural forces moving beneath the surface of this town. She understood that people not familiar with this side of the universe would automatically dismiss it, but after paying dearly for not heeding the warnings her patron sent her way before, she learned the hard way to shut up and pay attention.
Adam's face morphed from confusion to guilty recognition. His quiet "Dylan… I…" followed by "You were right. I took them when I went home. No, don't blame yourself. I was a stubborn asshole." from Dylan was catalogued in her brain as boy drama, and she swiftly moved the conversation along to the actual important bit that was overlooked.
"So you are telling me that in your entire sixteen years of life you have never had any sort of a dream?"
"Yeah. That's correct. Not when I normally sleep or when I sleepwalk."
"Describe it to me."
"What?"
Like pulling damn teeth.
"Describe the "pitch darkness" in detail, please."
He looked baffled but obeyed. "I close my eyes, and there is nothing all around me. A void of sorts. No sounds, no smells, no light. I just exist in it for a while before I wake up in the morning. Sometimes it's brief, sometimes it feels like eternity. I forget most of it in the morning. That's it."
There was hesitation in his tone on the last bit. She could feel it in her bones, as could Nikolai, who looked at her pointedly. Stupid boy wasn't telling her everything.
Sensing their disbelief, he furrowed his brows and thought hard. Suddenly, his face paled.
"Actually…" Did he have any look other than guilty? "There is more… I think."
"Erm… I don't think I am alone in the darkness. There is… something… there with me, but I can't see, hear, smell or feel it. I just know it's there somewhere. Like a hunch."
She felt cold shivers run up her spine. This was bad. Really fucking bad.
"Let me guess. When you sleepwalk, this something feels closer than usual?"
The weak nod sealed it. She gripped the table so hard she felt her knuckles crack. This wasn't random spiritual or demonic possession. It wasn't sudden or opportunistic. Her paltry folk magic wasn't going to do shit to this level of connection Dylan had established with the entity. She had to give it credit for being this clever. Making him think he wasn't dreaming, when in reality his mind travelled to its realm every time he closed his eyes and knew nothing of it. Slowly but surely establishing a connection, a doorway. Dylan Ward's mind had been reaching out to another realm since he was a child and gazing into the void for sixteen years.
And the void gazed back.