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It began with a flare of sorts.
In her mind, an awakening burst out of the depths of her thoughts, and even in sleep, Sophie knew it was not a welcome thing. She was distantly aware of her stomach churning, of instincts roaring at her to move, to run, to even hide, but Sophie stayed. Her eyes wouldn't flicker open, and she remained caught in the webs of her nightmare as if chains were holding her down.
It was a feeling she knew all too well by now. The moment when sleep twisted into a darker thing, when the quiet of the night gave a way to the same relentless terror that had been finding her again and again for months on end.
Shadows crept into the crevices of her mind, painfully familiar voices taunted her from corners she never knew existed, panic bubbled in her chest and seemed to tear open something new and entirely unwelcome in her, and Sophie couldn't breathe. She couldn't breathe.
A stifling weight seemed to press onto her chest, locking her limbs in place as the voices inched closer and closer until she could feel their breaths on her skin, their burning palms on her arms, the shield breaking and the world beginning to flood into itself while a roar echoed in her mind, shaking the entire scope of her thoughts.
The other glimpses of moments, she couldn't place, not while paralyzed in terror, but the roar she somehow could. It was the Gorgodon— the same creature she and her friends had fought in Nightfall, the same one that had guarded her parents' bruised bodies from Sophie behind a towering flame.
She knew it wasn't its fault. It was Vespera's, or Lady Gisela's. But the fear she felt at the sound of its roar didn't feel any less real, no matter whose fault it was.
Sophie tried to open her mouth, tried to scream for help, but the bodies closing in on her were suffocating, and the Gorgodon's roar drowned out any sound she made. She clawed desperately at the crowd, trying her best to ignore the flashes of faces she saw (Brant, Fintan, Vespera), but her hands kept meeting air, and with each pointless grasp Sophie felt herself slipping further and further back until she tumbled too far backwards, slipping on the air beneath her and falling.
And falling, and falling.
Her stomach swooshed as her body fell weightlessly into a cavern of her mind, memories flashing into sight around her. Pieces of who she was, all the terrible things Sophie had experienced, streaked beside her as she sank further and further down until—
Sophie's eyes burst open, her back arching off her mattress before sinking in just as suddenly. She was already panting, gasping for air in the cold silence of her bedroom. She was trembling, too, the echoes of cruel laughter still ringing somewhere deep in her mind.
The ceiling of her bedroom in Havenfield loomed above her, star-shaped crystals dangling from the ceiling on shimmering cords, yet it took several long seconds for her breathing to slow enough to remember where she actually was. The shadows in the corners of the room seemed thicker than usual, stretching toward her bed like fingers that hadn’t quite finished reaching.
For a moment, Sophie simply lay there, clutching the blanket beneath her fingers as her pulse hammered painfully in her ears.
Sophie knew this moment too— the quiet aftermath, when the nightmare ended but the fear lingered, clinging stubbornly to her thoughts long after she’d woken. It had become an all too familiar pattern of her nights.
She didn't want to move, felt as though if she moved even a finger, the invisible eyes of the Neverseen who were surely watching from the darkness of her room would emerge, and then they would take her. It was illogical, Sophie knew. The type of thing a child fearing monsters under their bed would come up with, but if it didn't feel true, Sophie didn't know what it was.
Sophie squeezed her eyes shut, trying to force her memories away, but the tight knot of panic in her chest refused to loosen. Her limbs still trembled faintly, the aftershock of adrenaline leaving her feeling hollow and exhausted all at once.
Too many nights had ended like this lately— waking in the dark with her heart racing, the voices of the Neverseen still tangled in her thoughts. It was a never-ending pattern, exhausting Sophie to no end, and it made her feel like. . .
. . . like she didn’t want to be here.
Before the thought had fully formed, she was already transmitting to Sandor, even though he was only outside her door. Sophie didn’t think she could speak, much less shout out to him.
Sandor?
His response came immediately, a sharp thing layered with something like fear and concern.
Miss Foster?
He slammed through her door within seconds. Sophie could feel the rush of his thoughts as he burst into her bedroom, scanning every shadow, every possible hiding place, sword drawn fiercely until it finally melted into confusion.
Because there were no intruders, no hidden members of the Neverseen.
Just her, sitting upright in her massive bed, clutching Ella to her chest as she’d done so many nights before.
Sandor’s shoulders slowly sank as he sheathed his sword, though the tension didn’t entirely leave his posture. “A nightmare,” he said quietly, more observation than question.
Sophie swallowed, fiddling with Ella’s fluffy ears before nodding.
The silence that followed seemed almost tangible. Even though she wasn't looking up, she could feel Sandor's attention directed straight to her, making her flush. Nightmares had always been normal for Sophie, ever since the Neverseen had kidnapped her from the caves of Havenfield and had tortured her on and off for days on end when she was twelve. And yet, they'd never attacked her so frequently before.
There was not a single night when screams didn't ring in her ears. Sophie couldn't even daydream without her mind eventually straying to thoughts of her human parents' battered bodies, to Ro's uncontrollably spasming figure on the ground after Lady Gisela had shot her with soporidine.
Every waking hour of her life was spent reliving the long chain of disasters that seemed determined to follow her every place she went, and Sophie was sick of it.
Sandor rubbed a hand across the back of his neck, clearly still trying to shake the surge of battle-ready adrenaline. “Would you like me to check the house again?” he asked gently.
Sophie hesitated, hands tightening in Ella's fur before apologetically releasing her grip. She knew Havenfield was safe. She knew the security measures her bodyguard had put in place were more than enough to protect her, Edaline, and Grady.
But the lingering echo of that nightmare still clung stubbornly to the edges of her thoughts.
And there was somewhere else she could go.
“Could we…” She swallowed, finally forcing her voice to cooperate. “Could we go to the Shores of Solace?”
Sandor studied her for a long moment, and Sophie braced herself for the lecture she knew he’d been building toward lately. It wasn’t exactly a secret that she’d developed a habit of appearing at Keefe’s house whenever the nightmares got particularly bad.
Ever since they'd started dating a few short months ago, something had awoken in Sophie. It was like her brain subconsciously recognized that Keefe was the safest place to be.
Safer than her own room.
Safer than Havenfield.
Safer than logic.
And now, especially since she was undoubtedly welcome in his house (by Keefe, not his father), she had not been able to turn it off. Sleeping had become a million times harder, and with every new horror they'd experienced, the nightmares took the opportunity to rise up in a way Sophie hadn't experienced for years.
Somehow, dating Keefe was both the best thing to ever happen to her and the worst thing, at least when it came to her sleep schedule.
Sophie knew Edaline and Grady didn't think it was healthy, and although Ro would open Keefe's bedroom door with a smirk each time Sophie knocked, the pinch of worry in the ogre's brow wasn't exactly invisible. Sophie wasn't blind either— she knew that this was quickly becoming a form of codependency, but she'd already lost so many things in her life.
At the very least, she could have him.
“Please, Sandor?” Sophie breathed, the coil of panic and nausea in her stomach twisting.
He looked away for a long moment, long enough for Sophie to open her mouth to ask one more time, before he sighed, grip on his sword tightening.
“. . . Just this one time,” Sandor murmured reluctantly.
Sophie closed her eyes for a brief moment, feeling the emotions shiver their way out of her body with his agreement. She let her eyes blink open soon after, not willing to let her guard down even in Sandor's presence, but as she got up and began to pad her way out of her bedroom, Sophie focused on shedding that incessant fear from her body.
It wouldn't be helping anyone by going to her Empath boyfriend’s house, still wrecked with panic. She could, at the very least, try to rid herself of some excess emotions, for Keefe’s sake.
It felt strange, walking up to the Leapmaster without Sandor protesting angrily behind her. That had become a pattern in the last few weeks— every time she went to Keefe's house to sleep, he would do nothing but argue (although he never actually stopped her from going. Maybe he was just happy she was getting sleep somehow and keeping up the protective-bodyguard facade for Grady— though Sophie didn't think Sandor could act that good), which was also a pattern. Her leaping to Keefe's house in the cover of night, that is.
Sophie forced herself not to think about it too hard, to not recall just how many nights she had crawled into Keefe's bed in the last few months as the shimmering light carried her and Sandor away into a feathery breeze, carrying them all the way to Keefe.
As she and Sandor faded back into physicality on the sandy cobble in front of Lord Cassius’s beach home, the first thing that Sophie recognized was how painfully early it was.
She hadn't realized it before, but the sun was already beginning to climb its way up the horizon, streaking golden light onto the waters, which Sophie could see behind the house through gaps between the oak trees surrounding the home. Bright yellow-green leaves were swaying in the wind, and between the sound of the waves crashing against the shore and the mother-of-pearl house itself, Sophie almost faltered at the sight.
It was genuinely unfair how beautiful the Shores of Solace were— or rather, the Shores of Solitude. Possibly even the Waves of Wimpiness. Both of which were currently tied for first place on the ever-growing list of alternative names Ro and Keefe had proudly created for Lord Cassius’s beach house. A place he had so generously kept hidden from his own son for sixteen years.
Honestly, Sophie was tempted to agree with all their name-calling for once.
If anyone deserved a little mockery, it was Lord Cassius. Which was precisely why she felt no guilt whatsoever about waltzing into his house unannounced at sunrise, still in her alicorn pajamas, clutching Ella to her chest as she trailed up the pathway to the house, passing by bushes of flowers she recognized to be blue hydrangeas, along with those she couldn't put a name to.
Sandor followed quietly behind her, taking the same steps they had done for the last couple of days, or rather, weeks. Sophie had lost track of how many times she'd stumbled into the Shores of Solace after they had saved Atlantis. That was one thing she had some guilt for, not for Lord Cassius's sake, but Keefe's. He was probably going to get annoyed with her at some point, Sophie realized as she slipped beneath arches of mother-of-pearl stone. If he had been coming into her room at Havenfield like this (not that he would be able to without Grady mesmerizing him off the nearby cliffs), Sophie— well, she wouldn't be mad, she'd probably enjoy it just as much as she did coming into his bedroom if not more, but there would be some sort of annoyance there, right?
And yet, Keefe had never once complained about it. If anything, he seemed almost ridiculously pleased whenever she appeared at his house before sunrise.
Sophie chewed on her lips, squinting as early morning light cast golden rays of sunshine off the gleaming walls and straight into her sleep-heavy eyes. There would be no turning back, she decided. If Keefe chose to turn her away at the door, she'd go back to Havenfield with no questions asked, but. . . if he hadn't said anything by now, she would just continue with their routine. And hope to everything good in the universe that she would be allowed to actually get some sleep, even if this was the last time she would be able to. Well, at least until she and Keefe grew up and got a house of their own, then they would be able to sleep in the same bed every day.
. . . And on that note, which Sophie quickly and physically shook off, she allowed the sound of distantly crying seagulls to flood her brain (ignoring their similarity to the Gorgodon's roar, at least in terms of volume). She was almost to Keefe's bedroom, Sophie realized as she passed by a familiar set of arched windows, giving her the perfect view of the sandy beach and rising sun above turquoise waves. The sky was painted in shades of light pink and orange, a stark contrast to the black colour of the shoreline.
Sophie hated that someone like Lord Cassius got to wake up to this each morning, but she found her own peace in the thought of her boyfriend getting to experience it, too. After all his years spent in Candleshade, with its cold silence and empty, endless halls, he deserved sandy beaches and slow mornings.
He was probably still asleep, all tangled in his sheets with the golden morning light hitting his tussled curls. With that in mind, she quickened her pace, picturing a groggy Keefe Sencen curled up in his sheets, with the perfect spot on his bed just waiting for her to curl up into by his side.
There would be a warm space for her beside him. There always was, giving the perfect opportunity for soft, slow mornings curled up in her boyfriend's sheets with his arms around her and his steady breathing lulling her off to sleep.
By the time she reached the hallway his bedroom was in, Sophie was on a one track mindset, aiming only to find Keefe and let him put her to sleep. She approached his bedroom door like it was muscle memory, before faltering. His door was left ajar, and she knew that as long as he lived under Lord Cassius's roof, he would never keep his door anything but locked.
Sophie froze in her tracks. What if he was taken from his room? If the Neverseen had her boyfriend again—
She choked in a breath, then tentatively nudged the door at first, before slamming it open with such force it banged against the wall. Forcing her legs to move, she walked into his room, finding his bed, empty, sheets haphazardly lain both across his bed and somehow on the floor.
The nightmare rushed back with brutal clarity, memories of screams and burns echoing in her head so loudly they almost drowned out Sandor's words.
Almost.
"Miss Foster," he said, stood just behind her in the doorway, his expression thoughtful rather than alarmed as he glanced toward the large open doors near the end of the hallway.
“Your boyfriend appears to be outside.”
Sophie blinked, once, then twice, before pushing past Sandor to make her way over to one of the large windows overlooking the outside patio. Her eyes glazed past the beach, the sunrise, all the other beautiful things until they finally settled on a head of blond hair, strands sticking out in every direction in that same bedhead style she'd come to discover Keefe had, at least in the early mornings.
There he was.
Her heart did a weird thing in her chest, simultaneously flipping and calming all at once. It should have been scary, the hold Keefe had on her. With just a glimpse of him, every fear she had, all the worries and anxious thoughts seemed to melt away like they had never existed in the first place.
Instead, Sophie just felt all encompassingly content. Safe, for once.
She made her way down the hall, through the open door, and onto the patio, letting the cool, salty air of the coastline greet her. Keefe sat on the wide porch swing facing the ocean, one leg stretched out while the other lazily nudged the swing into a slow, rhythmic motion. His elbow rested on one of the ropes at the side of him as he watched the sunrise, wind tugging gently at his hair. Ro was there, too, leaning against a white pillar and looking entirely unsurprised to see her— whether that be because her senses already detected her or due to her habit of leaping to the Shores of Solace, Sophie wasn't sure.
Ro smirked. "Hey, bedhead, guess who's here?"
"Uh, I do not have bedhead— Foster!"
Keefe straightened in his seat on the porch swing, brightening the moment his eyes settled on her. Sophie had to smile at the sight of him curled up in his pajamas, sheet wrapped around his shoulders like a very cozy looking cape.
"Hi," she murmured, entwining her hands in front of herself awkwardly as she made her way across the golden-lit floorboards to sit with Keefe, his legs sliding away to make room for her.
His face was lit up with a grin so bright it might have rivaled the sunrise in front of them. "Look who it is,” Keefe said, leaning back slightly on the swing. “Either I’m still dreaming, or my favorite girl just broke into my house again.”
Sophie huffed a small laugh as she slid onto the swing beside him, heart swelling at his words. His favourite girl. “Your dad deserves it."
Keefe snorted. “Wow. Starting the morning off with insults aimed at Daddy Dearest. I’m proud of you, Foster.”
She rolled her eyes, leaning into the back of the seat. His leg continued to sway them, a swinging motion that almost reminded her of the way he would rock them both back and forth in his arms. It was a close thing, but nothing would match the real version.
Sophie exhaled a slow breath, closing her eyes and focusing on the sun on her skin, Keefe by her side, and their bodyguards stood off somewhere behind them, giving them some privacy (Sandor hated it, but Ro would refuse to let him just stand there and watch them be all "couple-y." Her words, not Sophie's).
Keefe's gaze focused on her, mellowing slightly as he studied her expression. "Another nightmare?" he asked gently, although they both knew it wasn't really a question that needed answering. These days, it was only ever nightmares.
She nodded, shivering in spite of the warm beach air tickling her skin, reaching for his hand without a second thought. Keefe gripped onto her, locking their fingers together, a steady, stable thing. The emotions running their course through her body slowed at his touch, but then Sophie paused, frowning at him.
"Doesn't holding my hand make this a lot worse for you?" she asked. "With my. . . emotions and all."
Keefe raised his brows, huffing before tugging her closer to him, as if trying to defy her words. "We've talked about this, Foster. I like a challenge."
Sophie blushed, memories of the day he had first said those words flooding her head. That would be one way to help rid her of thinking of nightmares. She pushed his shoulder, grumbling at his responding laughter. "Shut up, already."
He cocked his head. "Y'know, I'm half-tempted to say 'make me,' but I do have to admit that there's a time and place and all. . ."
She laughed, playfully pulling away from him and grinning when Keefe tugged her in closer nearly immediately. He let go of her hand then, setting his arm around her shoulders instead and replacing that hand with his other, keeping their hands entwined on his thigh.
The spark in his eye softened. "You wanna talk about it?" he offered, hand around her shoulder absentmindedly twirling her blonde curls.
"Not really," she sighed, leaning into his chest.
It was quiet for a long while after, just Keefe rocking them back and forth on the swing and her head on his chest listening to his heartbeat. He was safe. Alive.
They both were.
She and Keefe sat silently, just watching the sunrise until the shades of pink and yellow faded away, leaving only a wide expanse of blue in its wake. The sun still wasn't too high up, sitting low and casting light over the tide, making each passing wave shimmer like something out of dreams. Eventually, the world around them began to wake— thankfully excluding Lord Cassius— and they watched as a hermit crab crawled out to scuttle along the shore. The seagulls still cried, and she felt Keefe snickering into her hair as a group of them settled on the shoreline before squawking away in fear at the sound of the argument Sandor and Ro were having, somewhere behind them in the house. Sophie could only make out bits and pieces, but knowing the pair her and Keefe's bodyguard made, it was probably over something stupid, again.
"They're getting worse," she suddenly murmured. "The nightmares."
He pressed a soft kiss to her hairline, then let out a long breath, watching the waves roll across the beach below them. “Yeah. That tends to happen when a bunch of evil masterminds are actively trying to ruin your life.”
Sophie's brows furrowed, looking up slightly to raise her brows at him. "That's not very comforting."
"Hey, I'm doing my best here."
She knocked her head lightly against his shoulder.
“Sandor’s worried,” she told him, voice quiet as to not disturb their peace.
Keefe made a face. “Only Sandor?”
“Grady keeps suggesting I try healthier ways of coping.”
He hummed. “That sounds suspiciously like a ‘stop sneaking into your boyfriend’s house in the middle of the night’ speech.”
“Maybe.”
Keefe grinned faintly. “Rude.”
Somehow, Sophie was able to feel the tension physically leave her body, a weight that she hadn't entirely realized she was carrying. Her face relaxed as she breathed in the scent of salt and sea breeze.
"What were you doing awake already?" she asked.
The question had been knawing at her for a while. Keefe was notoriously terrible at waking up early, which meant that the odds of her finding him not tangled up somewhere in his sheets, hair sticking up in every direction and half-buried under a pile of blankets was always a very low thing.
His fingers, drumming a steady rhythm on her shoulder, skipped a beat. "You probably don't want to hear it."
"Probably," Sophie agreed. "Tell me anyway."
Keefe craned his head back, groaning. "Ro was giving me yet another lecture about emotional independence.”
"She still convinced that we're dangerously codependent?”
"Don't remind me," he grumbled.
Sophie laughed quietly, the sound soft in the morning air. They probably— no, definitely were, but they didn't need other people telling them about it. She and Keefe had been through. . . so much. Neither of them needed any reminders of how all their stuff was reflecting onto their personal lives. No one, not her parents or either of their bodyguards could tell them what they both already realized about their relationship. They were choosing to live with it, and that was their decision to make.
Keefe glanced down at her with a small smile. “You okay now?”
She nodded, though a yawn escaping her mouth betrayed how exhausted she still felt. Sophie couldn't be blamed, not when the sun felt so good on her skin, and it was still so early in the morning, and she was in Keefe's arms, and the sound of Ro and Sandor arguing was somehow acting as less of a hinderance and more like white noise.
That last part was probably due to growing up with Amy Foster as her little sister, who left zero room for any extra sleeping in with the way she lit up every single room she was in. Sophie would never admit it, but she missed it, though not as much as she used to now that she and Amy had talked, and she knew that the Imparter sitting on her nightstand was an instant portal to her sister's face.
Keefe chuckled at the sound of her yawn.
“Whoa there,” he said. “That sounded like someone who hasn’t slept.”
“I tried," Sophie protested, as weak of an argument it was.
He snickered. “Sure you did.”
Another yawn got away from her before she could stop it.
Keefe shifted slightly so she could lean more comfortably against him, his arm tightening gently around her shoulders.
“You can sleep,” he murmured.
“Out here?” Sophie questioned. She would never care what Lord Cassius thought about her, Keefe, or their relationship, but there would always be a voice in the back of her head that sounded oddly like a mix of her human mom and Edaline, reminding her of manners.
“Best view in the house,” he said, gesturing to the beach in front of them. “Plus, I’ll protect you from the terrifying seagull menaces.”
Sophie smiled faintly against his shoulder, already digging her head into his chest to grow more comfortable.
“You’re very brave.”
“I know,” Keefe hummed, pulling his arm tighter around her and curling his sheet around both of their bodies.
Her eyes drifted closed almost immediately, an impossible thing in any other place.
For the first time since the nightmare— no, since the last time she had been curled up in Keefe's arms— the lingering panic fully faded from her thoughts, leaving only a warm, fuzzy feeling of peace and nothingness left.
The steady rhythm of the swing, the warmth of the rising sun, and the quiet presence of Keefe beside her blended into a kind of peaceful haze she hadn’t felt all night. Had almost forgotten, although she had been with him, sleeping in his bed, only two nights prior. Sophie may be addicted.
Somewhere above her, Keefe rested his head lightly against hers, and she somehow knew he was smiling.
“Hey, Foster?” he whispered.
Sophie made an answering hum in response, it almost being swallowed by yet another yawn.
“You know you can come here whenever you need to, right?”
His voice was shy, almost. Her mind flooded back to the memories she'd seen in his head back when he was in the Neverseen, and more recently, when they were still dealing with Lady Gisela's Nightfall. That little boy, the one left at a fountain in Atlantis, the one with the cautious eyes and the bright mind that was constantly forced to become less around his parents. Keefe's voice reminded her of him.
She didn’t open her eyes, let her emotions speak for her instead, allowed the love to flood his and her emotions.
“I know.”
The swing creaked gently as it rocked, the ocean stretching endlessly before them.
And within minutes, Sophie was asleep. Not long after, Keefe's head fell against hers, and they were both lulled to sleep set in each other's arms.