Page 134 of Victorious

Now Syd watched her sister dance around the kitchen, fetching candles, a knife, talking about her freshman classes as she painted on thick marshmallow plumes of frosting. She’d found an apron somewhere—Syd had no idea where, their mother surely didn’t own one—before remembering, none of it was real.

Dammit. She kept forgetting that.

This dream—if it was a dream—pressed down on her, smothering her doubt and fear, even the knowledge she was dreaming. It didn’t help that it was so believable. The counter felt solid under her hands. The cake smelled sweet and chocolatey. And unlike an ordinary dream, she couldn’t seem to wake up.

She rubbed the scar on her left arm, where Eli had first shot her, and reminded herself of what she’d seen, in the cracks of the illusion. The darkened rides. The clapboard shack.

Serena hadn’t saved her, whisked her to another world, even another place. She’d brought her to the amusement park. The one a mile down the road from the motel.

“We need to go,” she said, as her sister continued frosting.

“Why?” she asked, unbothered but amused.

“We can’t stay here,” said Syd. “It isn’t safe.”

Serena frowned. “Of course it is.”

“But what if—”

“Sydney,” said her sister sharply. She was looking up now, spatula paused over the cake. The shadow swept across her eyes again, and as it did, the light in the kitchen shifted, too, the day suddenly going from morning to late afternoon, as if the world hung suspended on nothing but her mood.

“No one can hurt us here.” It was the first time Serena had made mention of the danger lurking beyond the dream. “Believe me,” she added, and Syd wanted to—

But she didn’t.

The realization struck her like a blow to the chest. Serena’s power was her voice, her will. The moment the words Believe me left her lips, all of Sydney’s doubt and worry should have been snuffed out.

But they weren’t.

Confusion and relief both rolled through Sydney. Serena’s power had clearly been altered by her resurrection. Syd felt no compulsion to listen, to obey, the way she had once. And yet, Serena’s power wasn’t gone.

It had changed.

Somehow, in the course of bringing Serena back to life a second time, Sydney had wiped out her sister’s original ability, and replaced it with a new one. And it was related to the old one, wasn’t it? A kind of mind control, albeit on a different scale.

She studied her sister as her attention returned to the cake, sinking candles one by one into the top.

Serena was casting an illusion.

A spell that wrapped round Sydney’s senses. Made her think and feel like she was somewhere else. Somewhere pleasant. Somewhere welcome. Even now, the urge to sink into it, let the dream fold over her was hard to keep at bay.

It was a staggering power.

One that should have made her feel safer. But it didn’t.

Sydney bit her lip, the shallow pain enough to clear her mind if not her vision.

“What about my friends?” she asked, thinking about Mitch. And Dol. In the chaos, she’d left them back at the motel. Were they alive? Were they okay? “We can’t stay here. We have to find them.”

Serena sighed, and set the candles down, and rounded the counter. She placed her hands squarely on Sydney’s shoulders. Syd still had to tip her head to look her sister in the eyes. But not as far as she once did. Even growing slowly as she was, it had been almost ten years since Serena’s death.

And she was catching up.

“We don’t need them,” her sister said. “We have each other now.”

“But what if they need us?” demanded Sydney. “What if—”

“No.” Serena’s voice was firm. The word itself held no power, but the house trembled as she said it. The lights above them dimmed. The walls began to warp. The floor cracked underfoot. And a terrifying truth settled over Syd. Her sister had chosen to construct a pleasant dream, but it could easily become a nightmare.