Page 58 of Sleep No More

I should probably have expected her to say that. Somehow, I hadn’t. Sighing, I pulled the key loose and tucked it into my jacket pocket, shoving it all the way down to be sure it stayed safe.

Ginevra stepped into the dark.

Grianne and I followed, Grianne’s Merry Dancers lighting up the space around us so that I could see my impression of greenness had been a valid one: we were dropping into a tunnel completely lined with briars of a type I’d never seen before, deep green and bristling with hooked thorns the color of bone. I barely had time for the sight to register before I realized I was falling and squeaked, flailing my arms in an effort to find purchase that didn’t exist.

We only fell for a few seconds before we landed on soft, spongy ground. My feet promptly went out from under me, trying to drop me onto my ass, and Grianne grabbed my arm before I could roll away into the dark. Her Merry Dancers slowed their bobbing and began to circle the three of us in a slow rotating pattern, casting their pale light over our surroundings.

We were standing in a clearing somewhere inside an overgrown forest. The door had slammed shut and disappeared as soon as we were through, naturally; the only way out was through. All I could see were the trees right around us, and still I knew that this wood was ancient and endless. The trees dripped with moss and unfamiliar vines, and more of those thorny briars wrapped around them in lover’s knots, making them unsafe to touch. There were paths between the trees, beaten earth somehow not choked off by the vines, narrow and winding off into the dark.

“Something lives here,” said Ginevra, voice soft and almost awed.

The air was hot and humid, making my long sleeves and my leather jacket a misery. Taking either of them off in this place would have meant the risk of losing them forever, and I wasn’t sure I could count on things lost there to fall into the Court of Cats. I looked to Ginevra.

“I used your key, I opened your door,” I said. “Now what?”

“Now we find the woman who owns the key and see if she can figure out how to fix this.”

“Right.” I looked around the endless, looming forest. “I’m sure that’s going to be nice and easy.”

“Could be a lot harder,” said Ginevra, clearly forcing herself to sound optimistic. “I can’t track by scent when I’m on two legs, so I won’t be able to talk to you for most of this. Maybe I can catch her trail.”

“Worth trying,” said Grianne. “Don’t want to stay here long.”

Ginevra nodded and was gone, replaced by the orange-and-white cat. She began prowling around the borders of the lit area, nose low to the ground, sniffing for a trail. After two circuits, she became bipedal again, turning to us in frustration.

“It’s no use,” she said. “I’ve never actually met the woman, so I don’t know what I’m sniffing for. This would have been a lot easier if Tybalt were here.”

“Why’s he not?” asked Grianne.

“He can’t stand to be around me,” I told her. “And I don’t want him to be around me, why would I want to spend time around a strange jerk who likes to glare at me because he thinks it’s fun?”

“Why is it so hard for you to believe he doesn’t hate you?” Ginevra asked, some of her frustration spilling over.

“Because he wants me to be someone I’m not,” I snapped.

“Because this isn’t—” She broke off. “I’m sorry, this isn’t helping. It’s just . . . you’re not the woman he knows, but there’s enough of you in her, or her in you, that it’s sometimes confusing to look at you, so I can imagine how he feels. Especially with you wearing that jacket.”

I looked down at the jacket, plucking at the sleeve as I composed myself. I still didn’t want to talk about any of this. Once I was sure I could keep a straight face, I looked up, blinking at her. “What about this jacket? Melly at Shadowed Hills gave it to me when we needed me to be dressed in human clothes. She said she found it in a closet, where they put human things people have left in the knowe after parties and the like. It fits pretty well, and it’s thick enough to give me some protection—which I think I need in this place.”

“Oh. It’s only that you own that jacket in our world, and Tybalt left it in Shadowed Hills for you to find after it wound up in the Court of Cats, hoping it would spark your memory. Do you feel anything when you look at it?”

I shook my head. “I feel a little too warm, right now; this is probably heavier than I should be wearing in some sort of weird skerry that you have to access with a magic key. Who owns this place, anyway?”

“This is the Thorn Road,” said Ginevra. “Before Oberon sealed the routes to deeper Faerie, there were quite a few roads that were opened by or for specific groups. The Cait Sidhe had the Shadow Roads, and the fact that they belong to us but are also used by the Candela, who Titania didn’t try to erase from existence, meant they remained stable enough in our absence for us to access them after she banished us to our Courts.” She smiled thinly. “Her ‘perfect’ world sure does have a lot of loopholes.”

“Faerie is complicated,” said Grianne dryly.

“All the old roads belonged to one descendant line or another. The Thorn Road was opened for the children of Maeve to use when they needed to flee from Titania’s descendants. You’re not Maeve’s by blood, but she’s shown a liking for you in the past, and I’m from Jibvel’s descendant line.”

“Maeve claims the Candela,” said Grianne.

“While Titania claims the Gwragen,” I said. The split between the knights made a little more sense now.

Ginevra nodded. “The Thorn Road is one of the safer old roads, if you can access it at all. You have to avoid the thorns, especially if you have bad intentions toward any of the children of Maeve—they’ll know, and they have their ways of stopping people from hunting the ones they’re supposed to be protecting.”

“Uh-huh. So what I’m hearing is that there’s no reason for Titania’s magic to be anywhere around here, right?”

“Right,” she said, slowly.