Page 25 of Sleep No More

“I . . . I grew up here,” I said, feeling obscurely like I needed to justify myself to her. “This is the only world I’ve ever known.”

“Your blood knows otherwise. You should have known. Somehow, I don’t know how, but somehow . . . you should have known.” Her voice cracked, sounding for all the world like any child who’d been let down by the adults she trusted to take care of her.

“What can we do?” asked Li Qin, stepping toward her. “How can I help?”

“I need my mother,” said April. “I want you to be my mother, but you’re not, not right now, not with the memories of this world and not our own. I want my mother. I need her. Can you make her be here?”

“I might have a way,” I said, desperate to make her stop sounding so achingly, heartbreakingly lost. I pulled the phone Melly had given me out of my pocket, pressing the button to light up the screen. There was a single name there: ETIENNE. I pressed the button again to select it, and felt obscurely like I’d just solved a difficult riddle as I raised the phone to my ear.

It rang. Again and again it rang, until I was on the verge of giving up. Then there was a click, and Sir Etienne’s voice was saying, “Hello? October? Are you already finished in Dreamer’s Glass?”

“Not quite,” I said. “Would it be entirely inappropriate of me to ask you for a favor?”

“. . . yes,” he said, after a moment’s hesitation. “But it would also be surprising enough that I’ll allow it, if only for the sake of finding out what you’re up to.”

“Does your range of travel extend so far as Briarholme?”

The hesitation this time was much, much longer before he said, “I’ve made the jump before. It isn’t the easiest thing to do, or the most pleasant, but it isn’t outside my capabilities.”

“Excellent. Could you please go and inform the Countess January that Duchess Li Qin Zhou would like to see her and, assuming she consents, bring her back to Dreamer’s Glass?”

“And what do I get for performing this complicated and difficult task on your behalf, changeling?”

The word, while emphasized, was neither as sharp or as cruel as it could have been. I wondered, for an instant, when I’d started hearing the difference. “You mentioned a daughter before. You seemed to think I could help you with something regarding her. I can’t promise I’ll be able to help you. If you will do this for me, I can promise to hear you out.”

“Tell whomever you have called that I will cover for you as necessary, if help is possible,” said Li Qin.

“The Duchess Zhou has offered to cover for me, so if I am able to aid you, we won’t need to worry as much about getting caught.”

Silence answered me, and for a moment, I was afraid I’d pushed the matter too far, that he’d decided it was too dangerous to listen to me. Then, in a voice gone distant and cold, he said, “I will be there, with the Countess, as quickly as I can.”

The line went dead.

I lowered the phone to find Li Qin and April both watching me expectantly.

“Who was that?” asked Li Qin.

“Sir Etienne of Shadowed Hills,” I said. “He’s Tuatha de Dannan. He brought me here, and was enjoined to collect me again when I was finished. The phone was provided to make it possible for me to contact him. Shadowed Hills is a very modern Duchy, really.”

Expectancy turned into flat disbelief. I decided to ignore it as I put the phone back in my pocket.

“He’s going to travel to Briarholme to see whether he can convince Countess January to come here,” I said.

“And his daughter?” asked Li Qin.

“I have no idea. He’s never married, and to the best of my understanding he has no children in the mortal world. But he asked me about a daughter before, and it seemed like a reasonable way to convince him to do as I had asked.”

“Even traveling as the Tuatha do, it will be some time before he can return,” said Li Qin. “April, are you able to move around the knowe?”

“At home, we had installed signal boosters to guarantee I could move at will throughout the knowe and certain areas outside,” said April. “Without those, my range is limited, but I can travel perhaps two hundred yards from this point.”

“That encompasses the kitchens,” said Li Qin. “Do you eat?”

“I can, although it does little to sustain me,” said April. Then, almost shyly: “I like carrots.”

“Very well, then. I think Avebury made carrot cake last night, and there should still be some remaining.” She offered April her hand. April took it, clinging like she’d just found some sort of impossible lifeline, and Li Qin beckoned for me to follow them.

She led April back through the room of junk and salvage, me tagging along behind, and we emerged into the room where I had first arrived. From there, we proceeded along a hallway, passing several closed doors, to an open doorway through which the sounds of kitchen work in progress drifted.