“What the…” Isolde breathed, kneeling down and waving her hand over the glass. “Oh God, you don’t think…?”

“No way,” Rae said decisively. “Aldith said this was linked to Liadain, it’s got to be some sort of nightmare.”

Yes, yes, Aislinn knew plenty of people who were so scared of white paint they’d have nightmares where their entire houses were covered with it.

“This isn’t a nightmare, idiot,” Isolde groaned.

“Yeah, I agree,” Aislinn said.

“Oh, you’re only saying that because it’s your twin we’re talking about,” Rae spat.

“Neivraith bleed white.”

They’d still not been taught about the demons that managed to be worse than any nightmare — even when Liadain was involved — and Aislinn had spent far more time than was probably healthy doing research of her own. Through it, she’d learnt that neivraith bled white, which was definitely an interesting feature, and that they were extremely difficult to kill. The idea that someone who had no formal training could slaughter several of them (it had to be several, for this amount of blood) was crazy to think about, but it was the only idea that was even slightly plausible.

And sure, a part of her, a very small part, wanted to prove that Liadain was good, the truth wasn’t looking to be to her liking. The rumours that Liadain was working alongside the neivraith as a sort of ‘frenemy’ of the monsters startled her more than she liked to admit — particularly because they were spread by Aldith herself and Aislinn knew that they were a total fabrication because there were visible signs of an alliance with neivraith — but Aislinn couldn’t help but admit that some of the things she’d heard were truthful, and the power to exacerbate nightmares definitely wasn’t a good one…

“Rae, Aislinn has every right to be on her twin’s side,” Isolde said, straightening up. “Now, where to next, Ash?”

“Don’t call me that… uh…” She sighed. “I don’t know.”

“Of all the useless things!” Rae snapped, kicking a broken chair leg. It was sent skidding across the floor and hit the wall with a too-loud thud.

A floorboard creaked upstairs.