CHAPTER 136 When Sleep Opens Doors

CHAPTER 136 When Sleep Opens Doors
Evie

I tried not to let the disappointment show.

Master Sengal’s voice had been gentle when he told me Agatha could not be disturbed—not yet, not while the mountain still slept and the monks were turning inward for the night. He spoke as if the darkness itself had rules, as if time bowed to poetry instead of urgency. And perhaps, here in Bwasho, it did.

But I felt it anyway. Sharp and aching.

If I could heal my mother… then it was possible—possible—that I could heal Agatha too.

I didn’t want to upset Master Sengal. He had the cadence of a poet and the weight of a fortune teller, and when he spoke, it felt less like refusal and more like inevitability. Still, my heart rebelled.

After our meal, I learned what Sybil had truly given up.

She hadn’t just been a girl who fell in love with a wolf.

She had been a diplomat. A bridge.

Sybil Morrigan had stood between witches and shapeshifters when humans hunted both, negotiating treaties that were never fair but were survivable. She ensured protection, balance, a fragile coexistence that demanded constant sacrifice. And when she chose Marcus—when she chose love—she forfeited authority she had spent a lifetime building.

She paid for peace with herself.

Knowing that… it made my chest ache in a way I couldn’t articulate. I felt sorry for her. And selfishly, I felt sorry for myself too—because her legacy now lived in my veins, heavy and unrelenting.

The thought clung to me as we were led to our quarters, the stone corridors glowing faintly with firelight and something older beneath it. Nepal was wrapped in deep night now, the kind that pressed close to the skin. Somewhere across the world, in Wyoming, the afternoon sun was already stretching its fingers over familiar land. The contrast felt cruel.

As if the universe itself were reminding me how far I was from everything I loved—and everything I might yet fail to save.

By the time I reached the narrow bed carved into stone, exhaustion claimed me completely. The climb. The cold. The revelations. And ultimately, sleep deprivation.

My body gave up the moment my head touched the pillow.

Sleep took me whole.

\-----

Sunlight.

That was the first thing I noticed.

Warm. Golden. Bright enough to make the shadows of the ruins shiver across the uneven stone. The sun hung high, spilling across the landscape with careless brilliance, indifferent to the confusion swirling inside me.

I was standing in the heart of ruins. Gray stone walls, fractured and jagged, crumbled into centuries of history. Ivy clung stubbornly to arches that had survived storms, wars, and the slow, relentless hands of time. Moss threaded the cracks, and dust rose in tiny clouds with every step of an unseen breeze.

Voices carried across the open air. Laughter, clipped and cheerful. Footsteps on gravel. The sharp click of cameras capturing the moment.

Tourists.

I froze for a heartbeat, disoriented, letting the sounds wash over me. Confused, I drifted toward the noise, curiosity pulling me forward even as a deeper unease coiled tight in my stomach.

Eventually, I found myself among a small group clustered around a woman holding a pamphlet. Her hands moved in precise, practiced gestures, drawing attention, shaping history with her voice.

“The Dirleton Castle,” she said, smooth and confident, “a historic ruin here in East Lothian, Scotland, with a history spanning three families from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century—”

Scotland? My brow furrowed.

What the hell am I doing in Scotland?

The crowd murmured appreciatively, voices rising and falling like waves, but unease crawled up my spine. I hadn’t arrived here. There had been no sense of travel, no transition. One moment I had been asleep in Nepal, body aching, muscles exhausted, the cold still clinging to my skin; the next—I was here.

I looked down. Barefoot. My favorite pajamas, soft against my skin, like I’d been carried here without ever waking. The absurdity of it made my stomach twist.

I broke away from the group, moving toward the ruins. The deeper I went, the air changed. It thickened, shifted, and the cheerful chatter of the tourists dulled, swallowed by the stone around me. Each step felt heavier, more deliberate, as if the ruins themselves were holding their breath.

Then—
A flash of violet light.

My chest seized, my breath catching painfully. I knew that color.

The same violent, luminous violet that had torn the air apart when the three witches ambushed us at Blood Moon Territory. Portal magic. Dangerous. Ancient.

I dashed toward it, feet barely touching the uneven stones.

The courtyard opened before me, drenched in sunlight, empty—except it wasn’t.

They were there.
Three witches.
The same three who had attacked us, who had called themselves the Covenant.

The two shorter witches flanking their leader moved with fluid, effortless precision, unscarred, fully healed. Only the tallest bore a mark of the past—her throat bound in a white bandage where Maverick’s bite had pinned her down.

They walked straight through a passing group of tourists.

No one reacted.
No one saw them.

They were like triplets. Same pale skin, same long dark hair, same dresses the color of midnight. If the leader hadn’t been taller—sharper somehow—I might never have been able to tell them apart.
I watched as they reached a heavy metal gate. They passed through it, and darkness swallowed them whole.

I followed.

The moment I crossed the threshold, everything changed. The illusion shattered.

The ruins vanished.

Inside, the castle was whole.

Not just restored—alive. Furnished rooms stretched before me, walls intact, floors polished. Light hummed overhead, warm and steady—electricity. Somewhere deeper, a television murmured faintly, a thread of modern life running through the centuries.

The witches moved as if this place belonged to them.

I pressed myself against the wall, heart hammering, ears straining.

“Belladonna,” said one of the smaller witches—the one with the high, closed neckline—“how will we find Draven Blake? The coven at Kathmandu was supposed to keep him on a leash. Now that they are dead, how can we trace him? He left nothing behind. Not even a toothbrush.”

My blood ran cold.

Draven escaped the witches? And killed them?

How?

Did he have help?
Did my mother help him?

“The High Witch can invade his mind,” Belladonna replied, voice cool, precise. “But we will need to brew the Dream Infiltration potion. It must sit for a full day before it can be used."

I edged closer, straining to hear more.

Then—a painting shimmered as I passed.

Just for a second.
That was all it took.

Belladonna stopped. Her head snapped toward the light. “Someone is here,” she whispered.

She lifted her hand and murmured a spell—a revealing incantation.

I pressed myself behind a tapestry, body frozen, breath held so tightly it hurt.

The subordinate witch with the lower neckline laughed softly. “Belladonna, nothing is there. Must be one of the ghosts in the castle.”

Thank God they didn't see me.

“Ghosts?” Belladonna scoffed, voice low, dangerous. “No. Someone hides in the shadows. And when I find them…”

Her eyes gleamed.
“…they will not leave this place alive.”

Not when I can help it, I thought.

I fled—for the gates.

The metal groaned against stone as they slammed shut, and I barely slipped through before they sealed behind me.

Darkness surged, thick and alive, pressing against my skin, my hair, my lungs.

And the world twisted.

\-----

Suddenly, I was in a maze.

White walls surged up around me, smooth and endless. Narrow passages stretched in every direction, each turn bleeding into another dead end, another corridor identical to the last. The air felt thin, stale. My lungs burned as I ran, desperation clawing at my ribs with every breath.

I burst into a small room.

Another exit.
I took it—and nearly collided with someone.

A woman. Her face was familiar, shockingly so, and her red hair flared like fire against the stark white walls.

“Agatha?” I cried.

She didn’t hear me.

Her eyes were wild, frantic. She shoved at the empty air, hands skimming invisible barriers as corridors shifted around her, folding and closing like a living thing. Walls rose where none had been before, sealing paths even as she reached for them.

Arnold.
That bastard had done this.

He’d built a prison designed to suffocate her power, walls meant to confuse, to contain, to break her.

“Agatha,” I whispered, my voice shaking, tears burning behind my eyes. “I’m here. I can help you.”

She couldn’t see me.
Couldn’t hear me.
She was trapped—and I was useless.

The realization hit harder than the walls ever could.

Then the world shattered again.

\-----

I woke with a gasp.

Dawn bled softly through the narrow window of my quarters, pale and tentative. The monastery was quiet, wrapped in breath-held stillness.

My heart pounded as if I had been running for miles.

It hadn’t been just a dream. I knew that with a certainty that chilled me to the bone.

Scotland. The witches. Draven. Agatha. Every piece was in motion. And somehow, I had seen more than I was meant to.

I sat up slowly, pressing a hand to my chest, the weight of uncertainty and fear settling deep within me.

Morning had come.

And with it… the truth that sleep no longer belonged to me alone.