Ellora's Sun

Chapter Six

Despite how exhausted she was, Adelaide slept terribly. She had more nightmares, dreaming about the two men they left unconscious in her apartment finding them, or other cryptic dreams about the key.
She had one nightmare where she was lost in these dark woods, which were full of trees so tall that reached so far into the sky she couldn't see the tops. She was running through the rows, screaming out for James, for help, for anyone. The trees scratched her arms and legs as she ran, but no one answered her calls. Adelaide kept running, sure that she would get out eventually, but her surroundings never changed.

The dark edges of the forest started to creep closer, and she heard whispers in the darkness. As hard as she tried to run away and as hard as she yelled for help, nothing worked, and she felt it creeping up on her. The whispers got louder and burned in her ears, and Adelaide had no where else to turn. The darkness crept up on every side. She finally fell to the forest floor and let out one more cry for help, letting out every fear in her body, hoping someone would hear her as the darkness closed around her.

"Hey, hey, it's okay."

Someone was shaking her awake, and she was snapped out of the forest. Adelaide blinked her eyes open, and her breath quickened when she couldn't see anything in front of her. Once her eyes adjusted, she realized it was just dark in the car.

"You okay?" Christoph asked her quietly from the driver's side. Adelaide pushed herself up in the seat, rubbing her eyes, "You were talking in your sleep. Sounded like it might have been a nightmare."

"Sorry." Adelaide apologized, offering an embarrassed smile. She glanced in the back seat and saw James stretched across the bench, fast asleep on his backpack.

"Don't be, you didn't do anything wrong," Christoph told her, glancing away from the wheel to send her a smile, "What were you dreaming about?"

"I don't know..." Adelaide half-lied, "I've been having the worst dreams since I found this stupid key."

"That makes sense." Christoph replied with a shrug. She raised an eyebrow. it didn't make any sense to her.

"It does?"

"Magic is something that witches spend whole years of their lives learning to control. As a kid, a witch's power is small, undeveloped. They have to learn to use it as it grows, and it's pretty common to have some 'magic growing pains'. Some people have nightmares and strange dreams, while others set things on fire every time they throw a tantrum. I myself was a big fan of random teleportation as a kid. Scared my parents half to death most of the time. "

Adelaide had a hard time picturing Christoph as a little kid. She tried to picture a scrawny, little kid with brown wavy hair teleporting around a living room. It seemed like something out of a fairy tale she read James when they were little.

"You, on the other hand, never had any training. You've been thrown right in the deep end, and your magic is far more powerful than anything I've ever seen. So you're getting all the growing pains in right now, hence the dreams, the car alarms, and the exploding coffee shop." Christoph explained, giving her a sideways look when he mentioned the coffee shop. Adelaide offered him an apologetic smile.

"Sorry about that...I guess you were right about all this. I should've listened to you," Adelaide glanced back at James again, fast asleep in the back seat. She could barely make out the burn mark on his neck in the dim light of the car, "Maybe James wouldn't have gotten hurt if I had."

"You shouldn't blame yourself for what the Risolutés do," Christoph told her, his eyes fixed to the road in front of them, "I learned a long time ago not to let them win like that."

Adelaide wondered what he meant, but something about his set jaw and the look on his face told her she shouldn't pry. She realized she'd met Christoph less than twenty four hours earlier, and knew virtually nothing about him. Yet, she was now in a car with him, letting him drive them to who-knows-where.