Page 101 of Sleep No More

We were standing in front of the door. I shifted a bit to the side, making sure he couldn’t brush past us.

“You’re worthless, both of you,” he said, and he sounded so reasonable, so convinced, that I could almost have believed him. He started toward us. “Out of the way.”

“No,” I said.

“No?”

“No.”

He kept moving forward, and as he reached for the door, I grabbed hold of his arm, not letting go as he tried to shake me off. August did the same on the other side of him, our hands still connected as we held him down.

The room twisted again, becoming a bedroom, dark and windowless, and all too modern. The furnishings were mortal, chrome and silk, and a picture of Oleander sat beside the bed. Simon was several feet away, adjusting the cuffs of his shirt, hair brushed and oiled into perfection, clothing clearly tailored to fit him. He looked at us with such withering disdain that I almost took a step back, away from him.

“August,” he said. “Returned from your little ‘adventure,’ are you? Of course, I wasn’t surprised when you disappeared. You were always too stupid to survive something like that on your own. My lady told me how she convinced you that you could do it, and oh, how we laughed at the thought of your foolishness. We laughed and laughed—and October! I wondered if you would seek me out so I could send you back to the water where you belong. If you must walk among your betters, best you do it in a gown of scales.”

He began to move his hands in an intricate pattern, and I all but threw myself across the room to catch him. “First the bird who tries to fly, and then the snake who seeks to strike,” I said. “You can spit as much poison as you like, we’re not letting you leave this room. We love you, Simon. Patrick and Dianda love you, and I’m sorry, but I’m too afraid of your wife to let a little thing like the Summer Queen put me on her bad side. We’re not letting go.”

The room twisted again, and he was shirtless and panting, a knife in each hand as he glared at us. Then he lunged, clearly aiming for our throats. I grabbed his arm and pulled it down, forcing him to stab me in the shoulder instead. It hurt, but it wouldn’t do any real damage, and as I twisted my body away from him, I took the knife with me. He snarled and slashed at August, who danced back in bewilderment.

“Give it up, Simon,” I snapped, pulling the knife out. “You know stabbing us doesn’t do anything worth writing home about. Having unbreakable daughters makes physical violence a little pointless.”

August caught his second knife in her arm and pirouetted away, pulling it out of his hands. We exchanged a look, nodded, and jumped on top of him, forcing him to the ground and pinning him in place.

We were still there when the room shifted again and we were back on the hillside, white light all around us, on top of Simon. He blinked up at us, face pale, and said, “I don’t know why I— I’m so sorry—”

And then he caught fire, blazing up like a brand beneath us. I screamed, tightening my arms against the urge to recoil. August almost let go. I grabbed her arm at the last moment, yanking her down into the inferno.

The last time this had happened in my presence, I’d been the one burning, and it had been easy to overlook how hard it is to hold on to something that’s literally trying to melt the flesh from your hands and arms. No wonder Janet lost the baby. She was only mortal, after all. Her body couldn’t take the strain.

I held on as tightly as I could, and just as I was reaching the limits of my endurance, the flames blew out and Simon was sprawled in the grass beneath us, once more bipedal, and himself.

And stark-ass naked, which was a little horrifying under the circumstances. August and I both recoiled, finally letting go, and I spared a glance for her. She was charred and broken, skin split to show red, raw flesh beneath, and even as I watched, she was healing, skin smoothing out and knitting back together.

“Simon?” I asked.

“October,” he croaked.

I didn’t have a cloak to wrap around him, and so I shrugged out of my jacket and eased it around his shoulders, lifting him into a sitting position. He sagged against me. I twisted to look toward the others, craning my neck for a glimpse of Quentin.

Raysel saw me looking and said, swallowing hard, “Quentin’s okay. Dean and the Luidaeg, they have him.”

I nodded and turned my attention back to Simon. I could feel my own skin knitting back together, like ants running across my body, tissue repairing itself at an incredible rate. August, who looked almost fully recovered, was clinging to Simon and sobbing. The white light blazed all around us.

And on the other side of it, someone was screaming.

I let go of Simon when I realized that, standing slowly and turning to face the sound. Titania was still mounted on her horse, hands wrapped around the pommel as she bent forward and howled in fruitless fury. She wasn’t saying anything, just shrieking.

Finally, she sat upright and pointed at the circle with one shaking finger.

“You have made an enemy of me on this day, and you will live to regret it,” she said.

The sky above her company was lighting up in cascading rainbows, like the Summerlands had looked at the aurora borealis and decided to show those mortal light shows what real dramatics looked like. Slowly, Titania took the reins of her horse in her hands and turned its head to the west, then resumed her ride. The others rode after her. The lights got brighter and brighter, until they were almost blinding, then flared with silent iridescence and disappeared, leaving only darkness and stars behind.

“She’ll be back,” said the Luidaeg wearily, stepping up behind me. “She always comes back. But we’ll have time.”

That was all she had time for before August and Garm wailed and collapsed. A moment later, Dean shouted, “Luidaeg? Luidaeg?! Quentin fainted!”

The Luidaeg smiled. “We win,” she said, and crumpled, motionless, to the ground.