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Press here, Valerian’s LEGO text informs me as he touches a button on the right cheek of his mask.
I do the same, and the scent of the air coming into the mask changes, becoming more sterile. It must be getting filtered.
Valerian takes out a sleep grenade.
Interesting.
Gliding through the plants like a jaguar, he stops next to a door and quietly opens it before tossing the grenade inside.
Touch her to make a connection, he orders a few seconds later. If she wasn’t asleep, she should be now.
Doing my best not to make any sounds, I slink into the room and examine the sleeping dryad inside.
Based on her reputation, I figured Erato had to be older, but I didn’t realize she was downright ancient. Her green hair is almost entirely gray, and the green skin of her face looks like weathered tree bark.
Watching her eyelids, I frown.
What are you waiting for? Valerian asks.
I point at her lids, then at the eyeholes of my mask as I rapidly move my eyes to explain what I need.
So we’re just going to stand here until she starts dreaming?
Since I don’t know how to pantomime “I don’t want to risk going homicidally crazy,” I pointedly shrug.
With a barely audible sigh, he crosses his arms over his broad chest and closes his eyes.
Ignoring his pouting, I switch my attention to Erato’s eyelids.
Nothing.
I bring up my VR display and set a timer for the length of time it typically takes for the gas to leave a large person’s system. If this small woman doesn’t go into REM sleep by the time the alarm rings, I’ll have to risk dealing with the subdream. Hopefully I won’t have to, though. The last time, with my mom, was brutal.
Feeling like the worst cat burglar in the history of thievery, I open Leal’s journal in my VR view and look for something interesting to read. I still haven’t found anything by the time the VR alarm rings, so I close the journal.
And that’s when I realize something odd is happening in the room.
All the plants around us seem to be coming alive and moving with an eerie purpose.
She’s in REM sleep, Valerian informs me.
I glance at her eyelids. She is indeed, and she must be dreaming about something that makes her agitate the plants.
I carefully approach her bed and extend my hand. Before my fingers touch her leathery skin, I remember the power I recently learned about—touchless dreamwalking—and decide to try it.
Keeping my hand extended, I will myself to go into Erato’s dream.
Nothing happens.
I strain so hard a vein pops in my forehead.
Still nada.
The way the plants move grows spookier.
What’s the holdup? Valerian asks. Make the connection, and let’s get out. You’ll do the actual dreamwalking once we’re safely away.
Fine. Maybe now isn’t a good time for experimentation.
I touch the dryad’s green forehead and go in the regular way, popping in and out of the dream palace before Pom has a chance to say hi.
Task accomplished, I nod at Valerian and pull my hand away. “Let’s go,” I say quietly—which is when the dryad’s eyes open and the plants around us coil for a strike like an army of snakes.
Chapter Nine
Puck. I cast a frantic glance at Valerian. Why isn’t he conjuring up some illusions to save us?
I made us invisible to her senses, he says, reading the panic on my face. But her plants are aware of us somehow, and I don’t know how to fool them.
Plants with senses? I guess that makes sense. How else are they able to lean toward light or grow roots downward into the soil instead of in some random direction?
“Is someone here?” The dryad sits up, and the plants move with greater purpose, tendrils and branches reaching out like arms.
Grasping my hand, Valerian begins to tiptoe out of the room.
The dryad leaps naked out of the bed, grabs a knife, and starts slicing at the air.
Valerian drags me out of the bedroom.
Midway through the living room, a strangle vine snakes from the ceiling and wraps around my neck. Gasping, I flail my limbs as it pulls me up. Valerian rips at the vine, but all this does is slightly loosen its grip so I suffocate slower.
“Whoever you are, you’re not leaving here alive!” Erato shouts, running out of the bedroom. Her gaze is still blindly sweeping the room, not noticing us thanks to Valerian’s powers.
Suddenly, she looks directly at me.
Puck.
Knife ready, she lunges at me. The blade slices an inch above my head, cleaving the vine holding me.
As I fall into Valerian’s arms, I understand what happened. He made Erato see whatever she needed to see in order to strike where she did—and to accidentally free me from the vine.
He must still be showing her whatever it is because she growls in anger and leaps to the center of the room as Valerian lowers me to my feet.
