Page 32 of Sleep No More

“So to save your family, you speak of secrets that could see mine slaughtered?”

“I have kept this secret longer than you’ve been alive, and do not hold it lightly, but yes. To save my family, I would hold the knife myself.” He looked at me, unflinching. “Please.”

“I . . .” I stopped, and pressed a hand against my forehead. “My head is killing me, I have no way of leaving on my own, and she’s not even here. Is there someplace where I can go lie down for a little bit? Until you need me?”

“Of course,” said Bridget. She beckoned me toward her. “I’ll show you to the guest room. There’s clean sheets on the bed, and you can nap awhile, get your strength back before any final decisions must be made.”

“Bess—” began Etienne.

She quelled him with a look. “Can’t you see the girl’s exhausted?” she asked. “You told me these two were kept like orchids in a hothouse, never stirring farther from home than absolutely necessary, and I’ll be asking you quite a few questions on how you came to bring me one of them, even if you did it for our daughter’s sake. For right now, she needs her rest, and maybe some nice toast with jam and butter when she wakes up. All right?”

She sounded so fierce and so confident that she would get her way that it wasn’t a surprise when Etienne nodded, shoulders slumping, and said, “I’ll go start that coffee.”

“Good lad.” Bridget put an arm around my shoulders. It was the first time I’d ever been touched by a human, and I had to fight not to shy away. “Those Courts of yours hammer secrecy so hard, it’s a wonder he ever asks anyone for permission to do anything. Asking permission means showing your hand, after all, and we can’t risk people knowing we might want to accomplish something! Heaven forfend!”

She guided me out of the room and into a short hall, where she opened a door and flicked a switch on the wall. Light came on, illuminating a small room with a single window, a dresser, and a large, soft-looking bed that I immediately yearned to topple into.

The fae are nocturnal, after all. The fact that we were doing all of this during the day wasn’t making it any easier.

“I’ve been to the Court, of course.”

I shot her a startled look.

“Oh, not the one kept by his liege—there would have been too many questions if he’d appeared there with a lady-friend, even one draped in so many layers of illusion that I couldn’t even feel the shape of my own face any longer. He took me to see the Queen.”

The Queen of the Mists. A tall, beautiful figure with bone-white hair and a voice that could set the stars to dancing. She had no name, because she didn’t need one; even as few chose to refer to Fair Titania by her title, unless it was as “the Summer Queen,” or “Queen of All Faerie,” the Queen of the Mists was so entirely unique that a name would have been an unnecessary burden placed upon her narrow shoulders.

She already carried so much for our sake—translating Titania’s wishes for those of us among the lesser orders, keeping us safe from the threats posed by our neighboring kingdoms, and protecting us from the threat of the mortal world—she didn’t need to carry anything more.

Only somehow that protection had failed to extend to detecting a disguised human accompanied by one of her own. I wanted to ask about it. I also didn’t want to insult this woman whose home I was about to be sleeping in, and I had no way of knowing what would or would not offend a human. It had never seemed like a necessary thing to know before.

“It was lovely. Very archaic by our standards. I’m sure my life seems shabby and dull in comparison to all the bright colors and magical things, but I don’t know that I could trade pillars made of formless mist for pizza delivery, or people who can change your clothes with a snap of their fingers for my refrigerator. All worlds have their own sort of magic, I suppose.” Bridget stepped into the room, plumping the pillows on the bed with quick motions of her hands. “If you need to sleep, you can safely sleep here. I won’t let Etienne wake you until he absolutely has to.”

“Your hospitality is appreciated,” I said. Then I hesitated. “I would normally take my shoes off, but . . .”

“But you’re not actually wearing the ones I can see,” said Bridget. “It’s all right. I’ll forgive your lapse in etiquette just this once.” She walked back to the door. “Do you want the lights on or off?”

“Er . . . off?”

It was a gray and cloudy day, but fae eyes see better in darkness than human eyes do, and I’m fae enough to find shadows a comfort.

Bridget nodded, and paused to click off the light before she left the room, easing the door shut again behind her. For the first time since sunrise, I was alone.

Alone, and unguarded. I could have gone for the window, climbed out and tried to find my own way home, but I had no idea how large Etienne’s transport range actually was. I could have been almost anywhere, in almost anyone’s demesne. This wasn’t Shadowed Hills, that much was for sure; he would never have dared do this so close to the area where we both lived. So all I’d do by running away was break a promise and strand myself in an unfamiliar place while the hours before Moving Day ticked down toward an inevitable conclusion.

Custom would only protect me so far, and only until the clock struck midnight on Samhain night. This room, this place, this bed . . . that was the best I was likely to get.

Head pounding, I staggered to the bed and collapsed atop it, burying my face into the cool, soap-scented pillows. I wasn’t going to sleep. I was just going to close my eyes and rest until the pain had a little time to fade. I’d heard of magic-burn before. I’d never experienced it.

But I wasn’t going to sleep.

Naturally, I slept.

TEN

MY DREAMS WERE A tangled welter of images drawn from the night before, some veiled ever so lightly in red, as if even in sleep, my mind needed to keep a tally of which moments had been inspired by real things, and which by the blood memory. The family of Hamadryads came to the door, but this time, April was with them, weeping tears of tree sap as she begged me to find her mothers.

Then I was back in Dreamer’s Glass, and Li Qin was screaming at me for not being strong enough to free them both at the same time, for leaving her outside the walls of her own little family, the only one who didn’t remember or understand the bonds between them.