Page 33 of Sleep No More

Then I was in the strange room with the man I was supposed to believe I had voluntarily married, and he was looking at me with grave green eyes full of adoration, and telling me, over and over, that I needed to remember what I’d told him, the last thing I’d told him.

“I don’t remember anything!” I yelled, sitting bolt upright in the bed and blinking at the watery light shining through the window. It was thin and faded, afternoon trending toward evening, and my head didn’t hurt nearly as much as it had before I’d gone to lie down.

I stretched, trying to ignore the smell of blood clinging to my unwashed hands. It didn’t matter what happened next, not really, because Mother was going to lock me away for a decade after this was over, unless Etienne was hiding a secret Bannick along with his secret human wife and changeling daughter.

Someone rapped lightly on the bedroom door. I looked toward it, blinking. No one had ever knocked before coming into a room containing only me; there was no need. A changeling couldn’t bar a pureblood from entry if we wanted to, and why would we be stopping another member of the staff?

“Are you all right in there?” asked Bridget, voice muffled by the wood.

“I’m fine,” I said, and stood, heading for the door. Opening it seemed like right thing to do under the circumstances. I didn’t want to worry her in her own home.

Bridget was waiting in the hall just outside the room, a mug of something steaming in one hand.

“Etienne said you don’t drink coffee, so I’ve brought you some hot cocoa,” she said, offering me the mug. “It’s just the thing after bad dreams. How’s your head?”

“Better,” I said, taking the mug. It was: the pounding had receded to a dull throb. I could almost ignore the pain if I wasn’t actively thinking about it. I still didn’t think doing more magic would be a good idea—especially not more blood magic—but I’d probably survive an attempt. Surreptitiously, I glanced at my hand. Father’s illusion had shifted my skin tone and shortened my fingers, and his magic still clung to me, meaning this was the afternoon of the day when I’d passed out. Dawn hadn’t reached us yet.

“You still look human, if that’s what you’re checking for.” I glanced at Bridget, more startled by the wistful note in her tone than by her words. She shrugged, smiling slightly. “Drink your cocoa. And you can’t blame me for wanting to see the Fair Folk when I have the opportunity. My mum was very much of the old way of thinking—‘the faeries aren’t real, and we want them to stay that way, so we’re not going to do a thing that might offend them, ever.’ She met Etienne the last time she came to the States, and he and I had a good laugh afterward over how rude she’d been to him. Didn’t think he was good enough for her only daughter, the genius folklore professor. If she’d known he was of the fae, she might have died on the spot out of fear.”

“You tell stories about us?”

“They really have kept you sheltered, haven’t they, child? Oh, it feels odd calling you that—you’re well older than my daughter, and despite the way you look, I’d wager good money that you’re older than I am to boot. Come on. Etienne and Chelsea are waiting for us.”

She beckoned for me to follow her down the hall. I did, taking my first sip of the cocoa as I walked. It was thick, rich, and good, with little marshmallows floating on top. It was also the first thing I’d had to eat or drink since losing all that blood, and it was hard not to start gulping. Only the fact that it was hot enough to scald kept me from doing exactly that, and I was still sipping almost politely when we stepped out of the hall into a small, brightly lit kitchen.

A round table covered in a black cloth patterned with festive pumpkins occupied the middle of the room. Two people were seated there. One, Etienne, I knew quite well, and even better now that he was no longer wearing the disguise that made him look like a human. The other was a teenage girl in a shirt like Bridget’s, hair black-brown and cut to cover her ears, glasses covering eyes that I could still tell had an unusual—for mortals—coppery sheen. Chelsea.

It wasn’t the first time I’d met another changeling, but it was the first time I’d encountered one in the wild, as it were, and it was difficult not to look away as a wave of sudden shyness overtook me. What would she think of me, when she’d been raised to think she was as good as either of her parents? That she had a right to choose Faerie, and force it to accept her as an equal?

“Um, hi?” said Chelsea, sounding equally shy, and I realized that if she was the first free-range changeling I’d ever met, I might be the first changeling, period, she’d ever been introduced to. “I’m Chelsea? You must be October?”

“Yeah,” I said, looking down at my cocoa. “I must be. I mean, I am. I mean, that’s what my parents named me. We have a thing for calendar names in my family, and I guess they wanted me to feel included.”

“A charitable way of looking on an uncharitable act,” said Etienne dryly.

Bridget smacked him on the shoulder as she took the seat next to his. “Hush, you. The girls are sizing each other up, and it’s important we give them the chance to do that before you start being shitty for no reason.”

“I assure you, I have every reason,” said Etienne, voice going stiff.

“Da-ad,” said Chelsea. “You said you were going to ask October for her help. Don’t embarrass me in front of her.”

“My apologies, my heart,” said Etienne, and put a hand over his own heart as he smiled at her. Any fear I had left that this was some sort of trick or trap died with that smile, because I recognized it. I knew that look almost painfully well. It was the way my own father looked at me, or at August, when my mother wasn’t there to remind him that his sweetest smiles belonged to her above all others.

“I’m not embarrassed,” I said. “And I don’t feel like you’re embarrassing. It’s okay. Your . . . dad . . . says you don’t want to be a changeling anymore?”

“I fall asleep during the day,” said Chelsea. “Oh, and I’m up all night, whether I want to be or not. Morning classes are a form of torture.”

“For adults, too,” muttered Bridget.

Chelsea ignored her. “I can’t date. There’s no way I could keep an illusion up all the time around a human partner—and would they really be a partner if I was hiding something that huge about myself? I can’t go to the doctor. Dad used to have to pay this weird independent healer under the table when I got sick, so someone could actually make me better without us getting caught. Oh, and there’s the part where if anyone ever finds me, Dad gets arrested for treason, Mom gets executed and no one gets in trouble for it, because fae don’t think it’s murder when you kill a human, and if I’m lucky, they kill me, too.”

This was a bleaker response than I’d expected. I took another slow swallow of cocoa before asking, hesitantly, “What happens if you’re unlucky?”

“They brainwash and break me until I’m one of their happy, grateful little servants, honored to be asked to work for my betters, unable to recognize how much I’m being taken advantage of.” Chelsea stopped, eyes widening, as she appeared to realize what she’d just said—and more, who she’d said it to. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—you’re not—I’m going to be quiet now.”

“You meant it,” I said. “That’s all right. I know what I am.” I finished my cocoa, looking for a tray to put the mug down on.

Bridget caught the way I was scanning my surroundings, and said, “The sink’s dirty, dear.”