Page 50 of Sleep No More

“Now I know you’re spinning stories,” he said. “My home is with my family, and none of them are waterlogged residents of a lost world.”

Rolling her eyes, Ginevra turned back to me. “We spoke to Etienne,” she said. “You know you can prove what we’re saying is true. You know you have the capability.”

“I do,” I admitted. I didn’t want to. Part of me wanted to see the world she kept talking about, where I could fall in love and get married and not be defined by my limitations. Even more of me wanted her to disappear and leave me alone, taking all her uncomfortable questions and unanswerable contradictions with her. I knew the world. I understood the world. Why would I choose a reality where I was married to a man who clearly hated me and people threw my father into the sea?

But I didn’t want to live in a world that wasn’t real. I wanted things to be real. Slowly, I stepped out from behind my sister and extended one arm toward Ginevra, holding out my hand like I was preparing to touch the point of a spindle.

“I lost my knife in the alley,” I said. “You’ll have to prick my finger.”

“Toby!” said August, shocked. “You can’t do blood magic!”

“I’m not, not really,” I said. “I just need to look for something, and blood makes it easier.”

“Let her be, August,” said Father, putting a hand on her shoulder to keep her from stepping in front of me again. “I don’t like it either, but your sister has passed her majority, and if she wants this, we shouldn’t interfere.”

I didn’t want this. I didn’t want any of this. I wanted to find a way to go back to the tower, to the moment when August had suggested going to Shadowed Hills to search for crumbs. If I’d just insisted I was too tired to go out, that I wasn’t hungry, all this might have been avoided. There would have been no question of whether or not the world was real, and I wouldn’t be a wanted criminal hiding on the Golden Shore, facing a woman from a descendant line that no longer existed who wanted me to save her version of Faerie. I didn’t want this at all.

Ginevra nodded before extending her hand to meet mine, a claw growing from the tip of her index finger. It slid smoothly out of her flesh, following a channel that had been concealed until it opened, and I was fascinated enough by watching it happen that I almost missed the moment when she tapped the tip of her claw to my own index finger. The pain was immediate and sharp, like being pricked with a pin.

“Ow!” I exclaimed involuntarily, and stuck my finger in my mouth, closing my eyes. The taste of blood exploded over my tongue, bright and coppery-sharp. There was a heavy tang to it, the remnants of the iron that still lingered in my system. Swallowing, I reached.

Webs of iridescent pink thread sprang into view around Garm and Grianne but not around Ginevra; looking at her, I saw only the delicate lavender pulse of her own magic. I turned my head slowly, not entirely sure what I was hoping to see. The same pink webs gleamed around my father and sister; the ones around Father were the thickest I’d seen so far, completely blocking all traces of his own magic. There was no glimmer of pink from the wall, where Tybalt stood.

So these strangers were telling the truth in at least one sense: whatever spell had been cast on the rest of us wasn’t touching the cats. But what did that—

Flesh struck flesh with a meaty thud, and Ginevra yelped before hissing, a horrifyingly bestial sound. The smell of someone else’s blood filled my nose, red and coppery and underscored with traces of unfamiliar river lupine and limoncello. I opened my eyes.

Tybalt was no longer on the other side of the room. Instead, he was in front of me, having crossed the distance between us with horrifying speed. He had one hand wrapped tight around Ginevra’s throat, and his other knotted in her hair, jerking her head back. She was pulling at the hand on her throat with both of her own hands, frantic to break his grip, and there were thin scratches down the side of her face. Garm and Grianne were staring in horror at the scene, not moving.

“Stop it!” I shouted. I felt, rather than heard, August take a step back and away. I wasn’t sure she’d ever heard me raise my voice that way before. I didn’t look. I was too busy glowering at Tybalt.

He glanced at me, and for a bare instant, he wasn’t glaring like he wanted me to die on the floor. His whole face softened, eyes going wide with surprise, and I realized his pupils had expanded to swallow his irises almost entirely, reducing them to thin rings of green around the black. Then he blinked, and the expression of blazing fury returned.

“She hurt you,” he said, coldly.

“I asked her to!”

“I did not give her consent to hurt you.” He gave Ginevra a shake, like he thought she might not have received the message. She scrabbled at his hand one more time, then went limp, submitting to his superior position.

“You don’t get to give people consent to hurt me,” I said. “No one gets to give people consent to hurt me except for me. Not you, not my family, not the damned Queen of the Mists, not even Fair Titania. No one.”

“Yet here you stand, willing to remain wrapped up in an enchantment that denies you your identity, your history, your true family—everything you’ve worked so hard to build.” He gave Ginevra another shake, then dropped her to the floor, where she clutched her throat, gasping. “I knew the spell was tangled tight around you. I still expected you to fight.”

“I’m not a fighter,” I said. “It’s not fair to ask me to be.”

“No,” he snarled. “I suppose it’s not.” He shot Ginevra a dismissive look, shifting it to me before he spat, “But I still hoped you would.” He turned on his heel and stalked away again, back to the far side of the room. This time, he kept going when he reached the wall, striding into the shadow cast by one of the heavy velvet curtains and disappearing with the faintest whiff of musk and pennyroyal.

I glanced in surprise at the jacket I was wearing. The leather had smelled of pennyroyal when I first put it on. Did that mean it had been his? But how would he have been able to get into Shadowed Hills to leave it for me?

Father stepped forward to offer Ginevra his hand, helping her off the floor. She nodded gratefully, producing a handkerchief from inside her shirt and using it to dab at the scratches on her cheek.

“Please forgive him,” she said, to the rest of us. “He’s been on edge since this whole thing began. We all have. The Court of Cats is in chaos, and each of us has lost something very dear. He just lost something dearer than most.”

The memory of the wedding I’d seen in my blood—our wedding—flashed through me. I refused to dwell on it. I didn’t know this man. I didn’t love this man. I wasn’t going to love him. He was terrifying. He glared at me for the crime of existing in his presence, he attacked people without warning or provocation, and he acted like this was all somehow my fault. How could I possibly love someone like that?

If restoring their world meant I had to be with him, I was even more sure I didn’t want to help them do it.

I made a noncommittal noise, which Ginevra seemed to take as some sort of agreement, because she relaxed, just a little, before she asked, “What did you see?”