The City of Two Halves

✽Chapter 6✽

Grace had another dream.

She didn't like her dreams and more often than not they were predictions of events to come. Tonight's dream started with Grace hanging in a black void from a golden string, she knew this string well, it was one of the only advanced spells she could cast. She looked around, there looked to be some confetti below her, silver she thought, covering what seemed to be the bottom of the void other than that it was all black. Her grip on the string was dissolving and she struggled to keep herself from falling but it was to no avail.

Grace fell.

She fell through the expanse of darkness towards the silver confetti, except it wasn't confetti, it was glass, Grace screamed and closed her eyes. When she opened her eyes she was in a crowd of people, they were all wearing fancy dresses and tailored suits their faces covered by masquerade masks. A man with no face and a purple mask and matching suit walked up to her, "Care for a dance?" he asked with a voice Grace could not describe.

She danced with him for some time, enough time to memorize his suit, it consisted of; a matching velvet pant and jacket combo of deep purple, black waistcoat and a peacock blue shirt and shoes to match. What caught Grace's attention was the little pink flower he had tucked into his breast pocket. She identified it as a begonia, Grace spent the rest of the dance attempting to remember what begonia symbolised.

When the dance ended all the people simply faded away and took the light with them, Grace stood in the dark before noticing a flickering light. The flickering light belonged to a hallway and she walked through it until she found a door, which opened as she approached. Inside was a sea of orange and gold flowing randomly like seafoam and water, in the centre of the room was a crushed vent which looked like someone had punched it.

Grace walked into the middle of the room and lifted the vent, there was a light coming from the bottom, an orange light. She lowered herself to the floor and jumped into the vent, it seemed to go on forever. Eventually, it started to open up and she landed in a cave with a large glowing pool of water to the left and the right an orange amulet, the orange amulet. Grace took a few steps forward to the amulet and reached out her right hand and touched it. The dream ended.

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Dorian woke up first, he felt refreshed and much happier than when he went to sleep, Grace had this effect on him. To his dismay, they weren't hugging when he awoke but Grace was facing him and seemed to have tucked herself neatly into his chest. He watched her for a while, her face didn't seem as complete without her emerald eyes, and her hair seemed to contain more shades of gold than he had initially thought, he longed to know whether she looked at small features of him as he did her.

Grace woke up 20 minutes after Dorian, he noticed her stirring and pretended to admire her star map. When Grace opened her eyes she saw Dorian admiring her star map and she felt an acute sense of pride. She looked at his features for a while, they looked softer and brighter, perhaps it was the lighting, but she hadn't a clue. he turned his face to look at her, and she was sure now that he looked brighter, they maintained eye contact for a while before she was distracted by a blue wren sitting on her window sill "You lose," he exclaims "I win," she smiles.

They lay with each other for a little while longer, "Are you okay?" Grace whispers,

"Yeah, why?"

"You seemed a little shaken last night is all,"

"Just worried about Cerena,"

"Yeah, I figured," a pause, then she says,

"You know you can talk to me about anything right?"

"Of course,"

Her hand found its way into his and she gave it a comforting squeeze when they exited her room and found Cerena reading on the couch. Dorian sits beside Cerena, and Grace surveys the pantry. "Hmm, french toast?" triumphant noises follow from Dorian and 'With lots of salt please' noises from Cerena. 10 minutes later they are all seated at the island, Grace found some sushi seaweed that now tops Cerena's french toast, Dorian's is topped with some carefully cut berries and Grace has a diabetes-inducing amount of maple syrup and cream atop. They eat silently.

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