Page 37 of Sleep No More

Etienne yelled something I couldn’t understand, and then I was slamming into cold stone, and everything went black.

ELEVEN

“WHAT DO WE HAVE here?”

I didn’t recognize the voice, which sounded like two rocks being rubbed together until they somehow produced speech. That part was reassuring, at least; it meant the speaker was probably a Bridge Troll. Uncle Sylvester had a Bridge Troll in his service, a knight named Tavis, who had always been reasonably kind to me and who seemed to see tormenting changelings as beneath him. Compared to Bridge Trolls, essentially everyone in Faerie is soft and breakable, and I guess extending that careful approach to the world to cover the occasional part-human servant is easy enough.

“Looks like someone got rolled,” said another unfamiliar voice, this one in a more ordinary register.

“Someone was out after dark when she shouldn’t have been,” said a third voice. This one was lighter, higher, a little smugger—and, oddly, halfway familiar.

My head was throbbing like it had never throbbed before, just one solid, unending ache, and I was reasonably sure trying to rip away a third set of those weird pink threads would kill me. And at this point, maybe that would be a good thing—this hurt so much, I couldn’t imagine doing anything beyond continuing to lie limply on the ground.

Then a hand grabbed me by the hair, yanking me into a sitting position. I yelped. I couldn’t help myself.

“Told you she wasn’t dead,” said the third voice, sounding even smugger. The hand released my hair, and I slammed back into the ground before I could move to catch myself.

Groaning, I rolled onto my side and opened my eyes.

We were in a narrow alleyway. The ground beneath me was the same hard black stone that I’d seen outside Bridget’s house, the one the cars had been driving on, but here, there were no cars. Instead, there were looming brick buildings with strange metal scaffoldings clinging to their sides, and square metal containers that stank of filth and rotting trash. Light filtered in from either end of the alley, partially blocked by the buildings, but enough to let me see the people around me.

One loomed over the other two, topping them by easily a foot. That was the only indication that this was probably the Bridge Troll I’d heard before. A good illusion can make a giant look like a mouse, or vice versa, but it won’t actually change their sizes. Most Bridge Trolls, when they need to move in the human world, choose illusions that are at least close to their actual height, to avoid any awkward explanations.

The other two were an unfamiliar, twitchy-looking man and a woman who, even with her features softened and her clothing replaced by its mortal equivalents, I thought I recognized.

I groaned, and asked, in a weak, tattered tone, “Dame Altair?”

The woman immediately stiffened, looking around the alley like she was afraid I’d been overheard and now we were all going to be in trouble. “How do you know my name?”

“Sorry,” I slurred, closing my eyes again.

“You said it was just a changeling,” said the Bridge Troll. “Some stupid little chit we could roll for beer money and leave for dead. If she knows you, El, that means she’s a changeling with one of the noble houses, and that changes things. We can’t leave her out here knowing who you are.”

“She seems pretty drunk already. Maybe we can stick with the original plan, and she won’t remember this in the morning,” said the other man.

“How was I supposed to know one of my peers had been careless enough to lose track of their staff?” demanded the woman, shrilly, and now I definitely recognized that voice: Dame Eloise Altair, minor local noble. She was Daoine Sidhe, and had come around Shadowed Hills a few times, making broad and unsubtle propositions toward Uncle Sylvester. He shrugged them off, of course, but that didn’t stop her from trying again. And again. And again.

And apparently, she liked to attack changelings for no apparent reason beyond them being out and unprotected. That didn’t mesh well with the way she simpered and sighed in Court. She’d always been performatively nice to me and to the rest of the staff when we crossed her path. Maybe the key word there was “performance.” Maybe I was finally seeing her real and unfiltered, the way she was when she wasn’t trying to ensnare my uncle.

I wanted to tell her she’d never be welcome in Shadowed Hills after this, even though it would have meant snapping at a pureblood. Under the circumstances, I wasn’t sure that could have gotten me into any additional trouble. My head hurt too much to let me form a coherent sentence.

“It’s almost Moving Day, and the vermin have been fleeing down the coast all week,” said the Bridge Troll. “What’s one more that isn’t seen tomorrow?”

“Are you suggesting we—”

“It’s just a changeling. They vanish all the damn time. No one’s going to think it’s strange if one more goes missing.”

Rough hands scooped me off the ground, and for a moment, they seemed almost gentle.

“Look: she’s already covered in blood. That makes this easier.”

“Makes what easier?”

“Kyle? It’s your turn.”

“Can’t you just snap her neck?” asked the second man, almost petulantly.

“That doesn’t explain the blood, and you know the night-haunts will copy it over. They don’t care whether they make things harder with the local police. Now come on.”