“Is it?” he turned back, looking sad. “I’m afraid of this place.”
“Then let’s leave.”
“Can we?”
“Yes.” Now she held out a hand to him, more confident that was the correct move.
Sebastien hesitated, looking at her with a fear that ground at her heart. She’d done this to him with her doubts. “Is it safe?” he asked plaintively.
“I promise,” she answered, infusing the Dream with all herintention. He would be safe. “Take my hand and I’ll lead you from this place.”
Sebastien put his hand in hers and the Dream shimmered, reverberating as if a gong had been struck. As if to affirm the connection, Adsila crow-hopped down her arm to perch on their joined hands. In the other reality of the Dream, the goddess’s avatar shimmered with numinous power, looking like a vividly hued hole in the Dream fabric and simultaneously somehow more solid, possessing more dimensions than a single being could hold.
Heartened by what she chose to interpret as a sign of solidarity and encouragement, Rose willed Sebastien’s dream to change. She sent healing thoughts through his dream, making him strong and whole, reinforcing all of it as his invention, all imagination, none of it real, then encouraged him to take them to his safest, happiest place.
The world shimmered, then shifted, a forest resolving around them, shrouded in snow but with the sounds of early spring echoing in the woods. Birds sang in a chorus of counterpoint to the rills of melt. Nina and Nonna, crisp as if real, bounded around them. A black chicken wearing a jeweled emerald necklace pecked through the litter nearby. Sebastien sighed in relieved happiness.
And Rose withdrew, leaving him to the privacy of his dreams.
Her eyelids drooped as weariness caught up with her in a rush, sleep slamming down and demanding her full attention now that she’d solved one problem. Making herself sit up, she pried off her muddy boots with her toes, avoiding touching them, and peeled off her stockings. Standing, she wrestled off the fancy court gown, glad of the magical fastenings that made the process easier than it might have been. Yanking the pins from her hair, she shook out the mass of it, resigning herself to deal with it in the morning, along with the dregs of whatever makeup remained. It was more important to stay with Sebastien.
Ruthlessly, she removed all her jewelry, even—after a moment’s hesitation—the rose choker she never took off. For the first time she saw it for what it was, that first gift from the man who called himself her father. What difference between a choker and a collar? From the moment she’d manifested as an oneiromancer, Clotaire had tried to control her.
“Rose?” Sebastien stirred, levering up onto one elbow, raking back his dream-tousled hair, and blinking blearily at her. “You were gone all day. I didn’t know what to think.”
She realized that, for the first time in their relationship, he hadn’t said he missed her. “I’m sorry,” she said, meaning it to cover so many things.
He gazed at her for a long, solemn moment. “Did you go see Thorn?”
How well he knew her. He didn’t even need to ask how or what she knew. “Yes. And my parents. She is my twin sister. Lily. The one I thought had died.”
He nodded, unsurprised. “We should talk.”
“In the morning?” she asked. “I’m so very tired.”
“Of course.”
Clad in her shift, she crawled under the covers he lifted for her and nestled against him, savoring his human warmth.
24
Sebastien awoke with the bitter taste of nightmares in the back of his mouth. Rose slept beside him, curled up tightly like a cat. He had to take a moment, to be sure it was her and not Thorn. The rose pendant always at the hollow of her throat was missing. But there it was, on the bedside table, the black velvet ribbon winding through the pile of glittering roses like a snake. She also bore the dregs of makeup here and there, in the usual places it lingered when she was too impatient to wash it all off, as she often was.
Also, now that he knew to look—and how he cursed his careless assumptions from before—the aspects of Rose’s personality that shaped her face lingered even in repose, distinguishing her. Though she and Thorn were twins and the same age, Rose seemed not exactly older, but more refined. Her face bore the stamp of her strong personality, a sense of honed character and strong-minded direction.
He almost couldn’t define it except in comparison to Thorn’s artless wistfulness. Where they possessed the same full lower lip, Thorn’s trembled with fervent emotion while Rose’s firmed with wry determination. The arch of Thorn’s brows held an aspect of eternal uncertainty, a sweet wrinkle of pensiveness in them, where Rose’s formed elegant wings, like a raptor about to take flight.
At the moment, though, even dead asleep, Rose looked tired. She’d sounded so weary the night before when she came to him. It didn’t surprise him in the least that she’d sussed out what happened and that she’d been able to so easily find Thorn. He supposed it didn’t surprise him, either, that she’d simply gone tomeet Thorn. Hedidworry what Rose might have said to Thorn, especially about the loss of Nina.
Where is Nina?Nonna asked, pushing her muzzle under his hand, as if she’d heard his thought.
Away,he answered, not sure how else to explain it to the dog.
When will she come back?Nonna asked.
I don’t know.
With a soft grunt of unhappiness, Nonna went back to lie on her rug, leaving Sebastien to his thoughts.
