"What note?" Selena asks, confusion etching her features.

"The note you left for me at the heart of the lake..." I trail off, seeing nothing but confusion from both of them.

"You didn't leave it." The realization shakes me, causing my heart to race.

"Jess, I haven't been able to reach you since you got to the palace," she says, letting the gravity of her words sink in. Selena and Luca exchange worried glances before she steps closer.

"If not you then who?" I whisper as a sense of dread washes over me.

"Shhh," Selena coos, locking her blue eyes on mine. She brushes her fingertips across my temples and memories begin to flash before my eyes.

My life at the palace plays out like a movie, fast forwarding and jumping over different parts going slowly over others like my encounter with the witch. She slows my exchange with Ryker at the barbeque too, watching with a sense of grief.

"What is it?" I ask, picking up on her sorrow as she watches him.

"This doesn't make sense," she mumbles, as she frowns.

Next she jumps to the time Derek was guiding me through meditation on the roof. Ember stirs, paying extra attention as the missing part plays out in front of us.

After Mira healed me, all I could remember was starting the meditation routine with Derek then waking up with a blistering headache and bloody nose.

Now I watch, seeing my perspective as the outside world melts away and energy signatures take its place, everyone with their own hue. I see myself sift through the layers, dealing with the familiar blue white brightness of the Guardians before peeling away layer after layer as I reach for the darkness.

My stomach drops as I catch movement in the blackness. A shadow that swallows the light moves against the black, hiding just out of sight.

"Didn't see that coming..." the shadowy figure with silvery eyes confesses in a voice that sends shivers down my spine.

Selena replays the events over and over again, eyes glued to me. "What is it?" she asks, freezing the moment in place right between when he spoke to me and before the blinding white light.

"I-I don't know..." I trail off, taking a tentative step forward. The shadowy figure is intimidating from a distance, up close he's downright terrifying.

His features remain steeped in shadows but he's tall, easily as tall as Chris but nowhere near as powerfully built as him. Judging by the stoop in his shoulders, he's old with a willowy build and yet he screams danger. The cold emptiness of his amber flaked, silver eyes is bone chilling and the energy rolling off of him is nothing but hate, anger and malice.

Ember growls from within, her fur on end clearly equally uneasy.

"Who is he?" I whisper, reaching out before recoiling from his toxic aura.

"Who is who?" Luca asks, circling around and following my steps. His keen gold eyes scan but focus on nothing, like he sees right through the shadow.

"Jess, there's no one there," Selena adds, watching me closely. "Or... maybe it's more accurate to say, we can't see anyone... But there's a blindspot."

Luca stops beside me, following my gaze before slowly reaching out where I recoiled from. As if in slow motion, my heart beat hammers the closer he gets to touching the shadowman.

"Don't!" I shout, stopping him mere inches from touching the sinister figure. My heart stops as I swear the shadowman's silver gaze flickers from looking ahead to locked on me beside him.

Luca pauses, more interested in my reaction than the man in front of me. "This is your memory Jess, a projection... nothing's there," he says, waving his hand through the Shadowman, breaking him into swirling black mist.

Instinct has me jumping back and dragging Luca with me but my eyes remain locked on the swirling mist, no longer frozen in place. Selena and Luca's bewildered looks tell me that they still can't see it, only fueling my panic.

I must be fucking crazy!

But what if I'm not!?

"Fuck," I hiss, shoving Luca to the ground and jumping back, just as a smokey tendril reaches out for us. Every fiber of my being screams at me not to let it touch us.

"What's happening?!" Selena asks, panic pitching her voice higher as her wide eyes flicker between me and where I look.

"We can't see it because this is your scape!" Luca curses, scrambling back to his feet, facing the unseen threat. "Jess needs to control it!"

"Take us somewhere else," Selena agrees, catching on.

I close my eyes and reach out, flexing the dreamscape around us and shaping it into something familiar, my farm. The cricket chorus and scent of hay fields greets me as I focus on forming it completely.

"Watch out!" Luca yells, crashing into me before I can open my eyes and see what's happening. My palms hit the lush grass and we roll out, scrambling to our feet and facing the swirling smokey mass. The hulking first Alpha radiates power and strength as he squares off in front of me, ready to take on the threat now that it's no longer hidden.

I spring back, my heart hammering as another smoky tendril lashes out at us. Just short of contact, brilliant white light sears through it, incinerating the smoke before slowly receding back to Selena.

"What was that!?" I snap glaring at where the Shadowman was.

"What indeed!" Luca growls, turning to check on me. "Are you okay?"

"Another day in paradise," I scoff. "Is it gone?" My gaze rakes over our surroundings, looking for any trace of the smoky menace.

"For now," she replies, bending to inspect the grass where it was. "Though I suspect it will be back... I wasn't able to kill it, just knock it out."

"Couldn't you have hit it harder?!" I groan.

"No, out of the dreamscape... I don't know how it snuck in here but it doesn't belong," she mumbles thoughtfully. "There are very few that should be able to get in here on their own..."

"Then how did he... it... whatever that thing is? And why couldn't you see him?!" I ask, feeling my panic rise once again.

"That's the question, now isn't it," Luca agrees, standing protectively by Selena.

She rises and walks over to me once more and lays a hand on my temple, sifting my memories once more. The encounter plays once more in slow motion, his voice echoing in my mind, grating on my senses.

"Who is he?" I ask once more as she pauses the memory and studies him with a mix of shock and awe.

"I don't know... but I imagine he is involved in whatever keeps the palace from my view," Selena says, pulling her hand from my temple.

"There's something rotten there," I saw with a shudder. When I first got there, the whole place felt off. Though I just assumed it was culture shock, but it's not.

There's something fundamentally wrong there, like how bad rogues have an oily feel, there's a tarnish to the place.

"I have no doubt you will get to the bottom of it," Luca replies with a dry chuckle.

"The last time I dug around I found that," I say gesturing to where the shadowman was. "It tried to boil my brain!" I can't hold back my wince at the memory of blinding pain as he did something. Thankfully Mira was able to heal the damage, but the look on her face warned it was not light.

"He was able to hurt you because you let him," Selena dismisses. "You are in control of the dreamscape, only I have higher dominion here..."

"I let him?" I ask, scrunching up my face.

"You made all of this, your mind shapes and controls it. You have the ability to pull people in and push them out. Whoever he is, he's using a back door to sneak around and was hiding in your memory," Selena explains.

"So, if it's not real-"

"Everything here is real," Selena warns. "That's why you need to remember who you are and what you can do."

"Fear and panic can cost you dearly, maybe even your life, or someone you love," Luca adds gravely.

I take a couple deep breaths to calm my racing heart and replay her words.

Everything is real here and he can only hurt me if I let him...

"How did I let him?" I blurt out, furrowing my brows.

"Let is a strong word," Luca admits, looking at Selena. "You are powerful here, more powerful than even I am... But you have to fully embrace it... Entities like him will undermine, intimidate, and manipulate, that's where his strength comes from."

"And how did he get here and in my memory!?" My stomach knots from thinking that a piece of him could still be floating around in there somewhere.

"I'm afraid I don't know," she whispers, rubbing her chin thoughtfully. "But he won't be able to get back into your mind unless you let him again. The blinding light and pain, that was him leaving a piece of himself behind... a piece that is gone forever but the main entity remains."

"This is Guardian territory," Luca muses.

"They've been looking, they can't find him," I reply.

"Find him and I think everything will unravel," Selena offers, shifting her blue gaze to mine.

I nod knowing she's right. I felt like he was an important point before remembering the full exchange, now I know he is. His toxic energy carries the same taint I feel all over the palace and that's no coincidence.

Selena takes my hand in hers, giving it a light reassuring squeeze as she offers me a sad smile. "Be careful Jess," she warns. "When it comes to fighting shadows, things are never what they seem."

"Great," I groan. My body begins to feel heavy as I feel her push me out of the dreamscape and back into regular dreams for the rest my body so desperately needs.

-----

Sun streams through the window, heating my skin as Chris sleeps soundly beneath me. The fuzzy content fog of a good night's sleep still hangs onto my mind as I stretch my weary muscles, wanting nothing more than a long hot shower.

"Stay," Chris grumbles, his voice gravelly from sleep as he refuses to open his eyes. I laugh at his childish pout, usually I'm the one wanting to sleep in but right now my grumbling stomach is firmly demanding breakfast!

"But breakfast," I whine, running my hand over his chest and lightly raking my nails down it. Chris immediately tightens his arms around me and lets out a low growl.

"Keep doing that and I'll be eating a different breakfast," he warns, locking his darkening gaze on mine.

"Raincheck?" I murmur, batting my lashes at him.

"With interest," he grumbles, giving me a quick kiss before unwrapping his arms and letting me up. Not having any supplies here, I brush my teeth with my finger and use the mouthwash before trying to tame my hair to be presentable in my sweatpants and hoodie.

Not my finest look, but also not my worst...

Stepping out into the living room and kitchen, I see Mack and Ryker chatting and smiling together as they make breakfast while Derek broods at the table, watching the two like a hawk. How easily the two get along tells me there's more there than a professional relationship and the way Derek's glaring daggers at him leads me to think past romance.

"'Bout time you two got up," Derek grumbles though the corner of his mouth tugs up into a smirk. "Never thought I'd see the day my brother would sleep in till ten."

"For a bed half the size I needed, I slept better than I have since I got here," Chris admits as he pours himself coffee. "I had no idea I hadn't been sleeping with shit 'till that mini coma." With a chuckle to himself, he takes the plates Ryker offers and sets them down in front of us before sitting next to me.

"And you Princess?" Derek asks over his cup. Something about the way he's studying me piques my curiosity.

"I slept fi-" the word dies on my lips as last night's events replay burning the image of the shadowman in my mind. I look up to see all eyes on me.

"What is it?" Derek asks, his expression guarded.

"We've got a problem..."