Dead and Dusted, Lily Webb [epub read online books .txt] 📗

night for more than a week. I’d always woken up before the avalanche got me, though, so even though I’d bolted upright in bed gasping for breath more times than I could count, I’d never screamed — until now. But it was still just a dream, and apparently a pretty common one according to the research I’d done online, so it probably wasn’t anything to worry about.

“I’d argue more than a little,” Thorn said, and I shot him a frown.

“It doesn’t matter. We’ve got bigger things to deal with right now than a silly dream of mine, remember?” I asked, pointing a betraying shaky finger at the whiteboard he’d abandoned at the front of the room.

As the list of names Thorn had scrawled on its surface reminded, by this time tomorrow, Kindred Spirits would be full of prominent guests who were coming for a weekend of business — including the mayor of Starfall Valley and the CEO of Starforce Technologies, the biggest and most powerful company in town — a lucrative business retreat that Thorn had arranged as Kindred Spirits’ new PR manager. The last thing I wanted was to sabotage it for him and the inn.

“Call me crazy, Selena, but you’re much more important to me than all of them combined,” Thorn said, deepening my embarrassment. “If you’re falling asleep in the middle of the day like this, it just proves you’re working yourself too hard.”

“No, I’m not!” I shot back, though it was as far from true as possible. In the two days since Thorn had told us he’d convinced some of the biggest names in town to spend a weekend with us, I’d barely stopped working long enough to catch my breath.

In fact, one of the most common meanings of avalanche dreams I’d found online was that the dreamer might subconsciously feel buried under responsibility and stress, so maybe Thorn had a point.

I didn’t blame any of them for being worried, but they didn’t need to babysit me, either — a fact none of them seemed able to accept thanks to me passing out from pushing my magical powers a bit too far a few weeks prior. Since then, no one around me seemed unable to believe that I was really, truly fine when I said I was.

“I think he might be on to something, Selena,” Jadis argued. “You’re so wound up that you haven’t slept through the night all week.”

“Way to sell me out,” I grumbled, feeling increasingly defensive. “I just want everything to go well this weekend! Is that such a crime?”

“We all do, so no, it’s not a crime at all,” Thorn said, “but not getting enough sleep definitely is. If you can’t stay awake when all the guests get here, then what’s the point of all that work?”

“We’re just worried about you, Selena, that’s all,” Jadis said, attempting to comfort me, so I let her.

“I think a break sounds like a wonderful idea,” my aunt Blair chimed in as she spun around from the table in front of us where she sat next to her wife, my aunt Kiki. Blair flashed me a warm smile. “Lilith knows we’re all more than a little stressed out about this weekend, right, Kiki?”

Aunt Kiki blew a raspberry as she faced me, making her electric-blue curls flutter around her face. “That doesn’t even begin to describe the feeling. It’s still hard to believe we’re about to host two of the most powerful people in all of Starfall Valley.”

“I still can’t believe you’ve never met either of them,” I said. For over twenty years, Blair and Kiki had run Kindred Spirits all on their own and turned the inn into a bit of a landmark. Then again, I didn’t know how often high-powered CEOs and government officials needed to spend a few nights at a bed-and-breakfast.

“Oh, we’ve seen them around here and there, and we’ve talked to Mayor Nash before. He actually wanted to host a campaign event here back when he was running for office, but the campaign ran out of money,” Blair said.

“I forgot about that,” Kiki laughed. “Seems like a lifetime ago — almost as long as when I went to the Starcrest Institute with Leland Marth.”

“Whoa, what? You never told us that!” Thorn said, his eyes wide.

Kiki shrugged. “Why would I? I didn’t know him. Leland was a couple of classes under me, so we never crossed paths.”

“Okay, but still. Do you think he remembers you? Does he have a good opinion of you?”

“I’m not sure it matters after all this time,” Blair answered for Kiki. “Anyway, I think we’ve spent more than enough time talking about Mr. Marth today. Come on, Selena, I’d like to talk to you alone for a moment,” Blair said as she stood and hovered over me expectantly until I did the same. Without another choice, I scrambled out of my chair and followed her out of the reception room into the east wing of the inn.

“Meet back here in ten minutes or so? We still have some details to go over!” Thorn called after us.

“Sounds good,” Blair answered and wrapped an arm around my shoulder to usher me away. We walked in silence to the foyer where a cozy fire burned in a grate at the center, spilling light and shadow around the room. Blair led me to the office door behind the front desk and waited until we were safely alone inside to speak. “So, tell me about this dream,” she said as she sat down on the corner of a small desk at the back of the room, her black robes swishing around her feet as she kicked them absently through the air.

“It’s nothing, really,” I said and joined her on the desk. Blair’s eyes raked over me, and I stared at the floor.

“When is anything that happens to you ‘nothing,’ love?” she asked and nudged my shoulder with hers. She smiled, her eyes twinkling, and I couldn’t resist.

“Okay, fine, it’s probably not nothing,” I sighed.