“No, you clearly didnotthink. If you had managed to keep Sebastien in the Dream, which you very nearly did…” She dragged in a breath, closing her eyes as if reaching for calm. “If you had a bit more skill—and if I hadn’t interfered when I did—you would have succeeded. You would have stranded Sebastien’s mind, his immaterial self, in the Dream forever. Do you understand what I’m telling you? Just like you did to Nina. Or he might have become a ghost, like Oneira.”
Thorn, feeling sicker than ever, thought maybe she did. “I didn’t mean to—”
“You never do,” Rose snapped. “And that’s only the part I witnessed, I don’t know what all you did to him before I arrived. You’re lucky I got here when I did. As it is, I’m going to have to go to Sebastien immediately and make sure his mind doesn’t need healing from your ham-handed tinkering.”
“What would have happened if I’d stranded him in the Dream?” she made herself ask. “Nina went through the portal physically, but Sebastien didn’t. He was only dreaming and—”
“Onlydreaming.” Rose firmed her lips, her disdain and contempt for Thorn’s ignorance clear. “You’re like a child playing with fire not even understanding that it can burn everything down. The part of Sebastien that makes him who he is, the living self, would stay in the Dream and his physical shell, his body would gradually decompose.”
Thorn flinched in horror. “But… we, you, could put him back in his body.”
She shook her head grimly. “I don’t have that skill. I don’t know that even Oneira could restore someone once lost in the Dream to their physical bodies. It wouldn’t matter, though, because there wouldn’t be any point to it. We’re not meant to live in the Dream. Just as looking at the Dream with our conscious minds erodes our sanity, being entirely in the Dream with no connection to the waking world…” She stopped, seeming unable to continue, then leveled her dark gaze on Thorn’s own horrified one. “Sebastien would have ceased to exist as a distinct entity. He’d have become an irrevocable part of the fabric of the dream, an echo of himself, at best. It would be even worse than death.”
“I didn’t know,” Thorn whispered, fully aghast at what she’d nearly done.
“I know,” Rose replied wearily. She took in Thorn’s Dream garb. “Like I said, it’s not your fault that you haven’t been taught as you should have been, but itisyour fault that you are not listening to advice. You’re reacting emotionally and with careless disregard for the repercussions, complicated by the fact that you’re so very powerful. You don’t know how much. I came here to tell you what I discovered, but it’s a conversation that will take time and now I don’t have any.”
“I don’t feel powerful,” Thorn said.
“But you are and youmustbe careful with this dabbling. I have to go. I will come back, as soon as I can. In the meanwhile, I’m begging you… please, please stay out of the Dream.”
“I didn’t mean to hurt Sebastien. I really didn’t.”
Rose smiled sadly. “I know. Even as an infant you used the Dream in a powerful way to help someone else. You mean well, Thorn. I know that. But you’re clumsy. You could cause irreparable damage to your sanity.”
“Would you care?” Thorn asked, suddenly bereft.
“Of course I care. After talking to our parents, I came here right away to tell you, to reassure you, that, well… It’s too complicated for a short conversation. The important part for this moment is that our mother did not know we both lived. She’s devastated that you’ve grown up alone, without her, and wants to know you. It was our father’s scheming that brought all of this about. There’s a lot to discuss and we’ll have to decide what we want to do about our father’s plans for us.”
“We?” Thorn questioned, further chastened. Some bleeding place deep inside turned over and stopped stinging with so much pain. Her mother hadn’t known about her. Her mother wanted to know her.
“We,” Rose said firmly. “This is about both of us and we’ll decide together.”
“Even though…” Thorn’s voice went as wobbly as her legs. She’d nearly ruined everything.
“Even though,” Rose replied on a sigh, but with firm resolve. “There is nothing right about any of this, beginning centuries ago, but continuing to heap wrong upon wrong isn’t going to correct anything.”
Thorn didn’t fully understand. “Where do we go from here?”
“I don’t know.” Rose stroked Adsila’s sleekly feathered head, seeming to take comfort in what was clearly a moment of despair. “If one extreme is to give up and go along, then the other is to fight to the bitter end. I have to find it in myself to fight because I refuse to just cave. Now Ihaveto see to Sebastien right now. He needs my help. Surely you want that?”
“Yes. Please help him. Tell him…” What? That she was sorry,again. That it was an accident,again?
“I’ll think of something,” Rose said, as the portal delineated itself in a perfectly square rectangle. Adsila winged off Rose’s shoulder and disappeared into the Dream. “I’ll come back by tomorrow. Please stay out of the Dream until then.”
Before Thorn could answer, Rose stepped through the portal and was gone.
And, with her departure, the magical lights she’d strewn about the garden all went out, leaving Thorn in the darkest of nights.
23
Rose stepped through the Dream and into Sebastien’s darkened bedchamber, Adsila shooting through and past her like an arrow in the night. She ached in every part of her, including her strained and weary heart. Which she didn’t actually possess. Ironic, as she’d always understood herself to be not all that emotional, more of a thinker than a feeler. All coolheaded, rational ambition, not one to be swayed by sentimentality. That made sense now, in light of her fundamental inhumanity. But then why did she suddenly feel like a skinned and bleeding heart, abandoned by logic, adrift in a turbulent sea? And all of that without being actually human.
Standing there, shrouded in shadows, she gazed down at Sebastien’s sleeping form. She’d taken the precaution of enchanting him into a deep and dreamless sleep before she stepped into the room, ensuring that he would be—
No, that wasn’t being honest. The measure had been for her. If he’d been awake and insane with a Dream-disturbed mind, she didn’t know what she’d have done. As it was, she still didn’t know what to do. She’d needed to give herself a moment of grace, a quiet space between her father’s astounding revelations followed by the nightmare of dealing with Thorn, so pitiable and so bloody dangerous—and before she tackled the next in this very long line of extraordinarily daunting challenges.
Thorn. The image of her mirror self, her dress reeking of the unreality of the Dream, the black monstrosity of nightmare fashion swallowing her and making her look unaccountably frail. The silver lace had been all distorted, different at every point, looking like goggling eyes here and thorny vines there.Her hair had tumbled out of the style she’d put it in, with distorted roses of an eye-searing color, another set in a straining choker around her slender throat, makeup applied in uneven, too-bright lines, with the shadows of smeared color she’d clearly tried to wipe away, like a child playing dress-up, all of it a clear attempt to imitate Rose.
