CHAPTER X

Dreams

I took my time in the shower, working out all the knots and tangles in my hair, savouring the steaming droplets falling onto my back in absolute bliss. I immediately felt the difference the second I reluctantly turned off the water and stepped out, fumbling desperately for a towel to wrap around my now shivering body. Once I found it, I folded it around me like a cloak and went to search through the clothes Emma had given me. In the pile was a pair of pants, socks, black skinny jeans, a plain grey tank top and a dark blue hooded jacket. Obviously she couldn't lend me a bra, which I wouldn't have wanted anyway, but other than that we were -thankfully- the same size. When I deemed myself dry enough, I dropped the damp towel and quickly dressed in the clothes before moving to the mirror. Just before I had gotten into the shower, Emma had knocked on the door again. When I had wrapped the towel around myself and opened the door, she shoved an eyeliner pencil and mascara in my hands, muttering something along the lines of "You're going to need your war paint" then turned and left. Now the eyeliner and co sat on the sink before the mirror. Looking into my reflection, noticing the change in my look, I worked on my hair before anything else. If I was at home, I would leave it down but here, knowing my luck, I wasn't going to risk the frizz. So I pulled it back into a high pony tail, much like last night, with a few stubborn strands hanging around my neck and face. After donning my habitual eyeliner and mascara, I picked up my old, dirty clothes and exited the room.

I found the bedroom I knew to be Emma's empty with not even a note left.Figures. But she surely doesn't expect me to find my way back in this place by myself, does she? I sighed to myself, seeing I had no other option and walked back to the hall outside the room, finding it by no means familiar, and started walking back the way I thought we had come. After traipsing through hall after hall, each one unfamiliar as the last, I admitted to myself that I was lost. But what could I do about it? Nothing. So I continued walking through the unknown building, hoping to see something familiar.

What felt to be hours later, still hopelessly lost, I stumbled upon a door that had been left ajar and -my curiosity getting the best of me- peeked in. Once my eyes had taken in what lay beyond the door, my feet began to take me further inside, all of their own accord. My jaw dropped as my eyes looked all around me, thinking that I had found my heaven. All around me, soaring high into the arched ceiling, filling shelf after shelf, were books. Beautiful, ancient tombs, classics still in their original copies, frozen in time. Mesmerised, I moved forward, my arms dropping the pile of clothes absent-mindedly onto a nearby table, towards a bookcase further to the right hand side of the room, beside a gorgeous window seat that looked fit to belong in a Jane Austen novel. I gasped in awe as my hand brushed upon the stacked books, and a familiar title catching my eye, pulled out one. In my hands now was an old, beautifully reserved copy of Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities. Breathlessly I brushed my hand over the cover, delight filling my eyes and carefully opened the book. As I opened it, my eyes flickered inquisitively. Seeing a passage handwritten in beautiful script, covering the first page. In any other case, I would have scorned at the vision of a person destroying the sacred copy of a beautiful book such as this, but the words caught me. Written in handwriting much like my own, I was just able to read the flowing script, my attention encompassed by the words bound with love. I couldn't make it all out, but what I read was:

"- to imagine that, isn't it – a heart ringing – but when you touch me that is what it is like: as if my heart is ringing in my chest and the sound shivers down my veins and splinters my bones with joy.

Why have I written these words in this book? Because of you. You taught me to love this book where I had - When I read it for the second t-

-at last I am free, and I- tell you, without fear of danger to you, all that I feel in my heart.

You are not the last dream of my soul.

You are the first dream, the only dream I ever was unable to stop myself from dreaming. You are the first dream of my soul, and from that dream I hope will come all other dreams, a lifetime's worth.

With hope at least-"

The last words, a name, was illegible to my eyes. Though I stood, transfixed, there for how much time I knew not. My body, my mind captured by the true, honest words of the heart. My own heart beat slowly as the feeling of love encompassed through the script travelled from the letters and into my veins, thrumming through my body. Tingling at my skin and filling an emptiness inside me with the breathless, raw emotion of love. It beat through my fingertips. Breathed with me. And I was lost to the world around me, in those words.

"Who are you?"

The sound of someone's voice ripped me from my trance with shock that suddenly pierced through my veins, beating with my frantic heart and chasing away the feeling of love until it was a distant memory. The unexpected shock of the voice had startled me enough to lose all sense of balance and I tumbled disgracefully to the wood flooring, the book clumsily falling from my grasp. My eyes wildly searched for the source of the voice, finally coming to rest on a boy who stood looking inquisitively down at me from the library's other entrance at the end of the room, opposite to the one I had entered from. He was young, younger than Julian and probably about my age. His eyes were an unusual and fascinating shade of grey, veiled by long dark eyelashes the same shade of black as his short, dark hair and was fairly skinny. Now, he continued to look down at me, his head aloft and angled slightly to the side in a display of curiosity which made me feel like an animal on display at the zoo, as he began to walk slowly towards me and repeated his question.

"Who are you?"

I opened my mouth to reply but found my body still paralysed from shock. The unknown situation had my heart beating furiously in my throat like a drum and anxiety rose up from my stomach to swim around my head, wreaking havoc in my thoughts and brain. I knew I needed to reply, I would only make it worse if it didn't. I felt in the moment trapped in my own body, helpless to reply. To do anything. But, fortunately, there was one thing even my anxiety couldn't beat. Even from a young age, there was one thing I was told I possessed, that I held in my possession, to call at my will.

"You have a strong will, November"

I can't drive away the emotions, but I can take back control of my body.

In the time it had taken me to resolve the abounding issues stored up inside my head, the boy had moved to stand across from me, keeping a respectful distance, and looked at me now with more than curiosity, but rather that he didn't quite know what to make of me. I realised that I had probably been laid here looking like a idiot scared out of her wits for at least three minutes. Just reply already, damnit.

"I- er- November" I manage to choke and stammer out, passably understandable.

He looked confused at my words.

"No, not the month. What's your name?" he made particular efforts in enunciating the last word whilst looking at me as if I were stupid. Suddenly I felt insulted.

"My name is November"

"But, that's the month" he uttered the words with a tone of disbelief, like I didn't understand what I was saying.

"Excuse me?" I was really starting to feel offence.Is this guy serious?

"You're name, it's the month. The first of November" he said.

"I know. I'm not stupid. I was named that because it's my birthday" the realisation shocked me a little a new. How could I have forgotten my eighteenth birthday?

"November..." the boy muttered under his breath, looking as if he was working out some mathematical problem, "Birthday... today, is your birthday?"

"Yes" I reply, the surprise I had felt when I realised it was my birthday ringing through my voice. Noticing I was still sat uncomfortably on the floor, I stood up. Dusting off my loaned clothes. As I did this, the boy seemed to notice something.

"Your clothes... why are you wearing Emma's clothes?"

"She, er... she leant them to me"

"Why?"

"Because mine were ruined" I reply. Was is this, twenty questions?

"Why were they ruined?" he asked, again. I roll my eyes.

"A demon" I say, which he deems an acceptable enough reason and drops the interrogation. I decide to turn the tables and ask, "What's your name?"

"I'm Tiberius"

"Like the Roman emperor" I remember from my Latin lessons.

"Yes" he says and it's his turn to be surprised, like he didn't expect me to know that.

The conversation drops and silence hangs in the air in its place. I could tell that he was a Shadowhunter from the runes peeking from the cuffs of his quarter length turquoise shirt and remember that Tiberius is one of Julian's younger brothers. Twins. I wonder where the others are. Seeing there was nothing to keep me there, but not wanting to me rude, I hesitate to leave. Instead, walking to where my own clothes were heaped on top of the table, pretending I had something to do. Just as I reach the pile, I feel a buzzing vibration in my pocket and then sound of music echoes through the lofted room. My ringtone.

With a glance to Tiberius, who was looking around the ceiling as if inspecting the space for the sound, I answer.

"Hello?" I say, not remember what name popped up on the screen.

"November" a familiar voice huffs in a sigh of relief. Darcy, "Where have you been? Where did you go? You disappeared on me last night and I couldn't find you. I was left with a drunk Octavia and you know what's that like. After you ran off Katelyn and Caleb came into the kitchen apparently having heard all of it and started having a full on domestic on Octavia. Which, although I thoroughly enjoyed, was embarrassing and I was worried about you. Then Alexander comes back and tells us he's taking you home and-"

"Darcy!" I cut her off before she can continue, wondering how she managed to get all of that out without passing out from oxygen deficiency. I hestiate to speak, clueless as what to tell her. From the moment I left her up until now my life has been crazy and definitely unexplainable. Just what am I going to tell her? The truth? God, no. At least not now, and definitely not over the phone. There's a big chance she'll think I'm crazy, or deluded, or something. For now, I'll tell her as close to the truth as I can, "Geez, give me a chance. It's all okay, I'm fine. Just, after was Octavia did..."

"I know. Thebitch. You must have beendevastated. I understand why you ran off but tell me something, or at least let me know you're okay!"

"Isn't that what I'm doing now?" I try to make amends, though I hear her sigh in reply through the phone.

"It's fine. You were distressed so I'll let you off this once"

"Thank you" I sigh, grateful at her understanding.

"But I won't forgive you until you tell me where you are"

Damn, she caught me off guard and I don't know what to say. What do I tell her?

"Erm... at home. Where else would I be?" I say, trying to brush it off.

"No you're not, I'm at your house"

Shit.

"Erm... er" I stammer down the line, utterly oblivious as what to say now.

"Where are you November Highriver?" she presses.

"I'm...er. I'm at... Ekai- Alexander's" I think up an excuse just in time. That's plausible, right?

"You're at Alexander's? Right now?" she replies doubtfully, obviously suspicious.

"Yeah, he- he brought me back to his last night"

"And why is that?"

"Because I was... I was in too much of a state to direct him to my house and his was closer"

"Uh-huh" she mutters, still sounding suspicious of my impromptu explanation, "And just why didn't you tell me that in the first place?"

"I was embarrassed"

That's nearly the truth.

"Well, I want to see you. It's your birthday after all. When are you coming back?"

Suddenly she was giving me an option. An option I hadn't up until now considered. Running.

I could leave all of this behind and live out as I always had. The line ran silent as she waited for my answer. She didn't know she had just presented me with a major life decision that I needed to answer within the next minute.

This life. What happened. Isn't this what I'd always wanted? Always dreamed of?

If I stay here, find out what's so different about me, wouldn't I be living my dream... finally living in my world of fiction? But just what would that life hold...

An image of the demon flashed behind my eyes, the burning pain of the rune, the pain and confusion welling up inside me like a dam.

It would be so easy, so simple. Leave. Do what I'd always intended. Finish school... university...

I had always thought it would never be enough. I had always thought I would leap at the chance of a life like this, and never look back. But right now, I didn't think I wasn't ready to give it all up. To take a risk of the life of fiction, the life I wanted.

Was I ready... or not?

"Actually Darcy" I begin, the weight of my whole life balancing in the unsteady tremor of my voice, "Can you come and pick me up?"

My mind wandered as our conversation continued. Meaningless words travel from my mouth down the line. Where I was, how far away it is... but I wasn't paying attention. I was taking in my surroundings, committing everything I saw to memory. My gaze coming to rest on the boy as I mutter goodbye to Darcy.

"Tiberius" I say, my voice dazed and airy, "Could you show me the way out?"

He nodded and began to walk towards to door I had entered from, gesturing for me to follow. I pick up my clothes, stuff my phone in my pocket and walk.