Page 6 of Sleep No More

“Romantic love is not required to live a full and happy life, my seedlings,” Father had told us, watching carefully to be sure we took his message to heart, “but if you cannot love one who loves you truly in return, find friends, find companions, find people who will tell you the truths you cannot carry and unveil the lies you cannot see. Most of all, cleave to each other, for you will be the only sure support you have in all this world.”

“Why isn’t Uncle joyful, then, when he has you?” It had been August who was bold enough to ask, August who had looked up at him with wide, trusting eyes.

Still, Father had offered his answer to both of us. He was always so careful in that regard, to be sure no further walls were built between us than the unbreachable wall of our blood.

“He thought to court your mother once,” he’d said, solemn. “He came before her as a hero, and reminded her that her father prized heroes over scholars, that he would be the better match for her affections. And she refused him. Three times he asked, as was his right, and three times she answered no, and then she married his worthless baby brother in his stead. He loves me, but he has never quite forgiven me for winning a greater treasure than all his heroics have done.”

In that moment, I had been grateful that my status as a changeling meant I would never be expected to fall in love or marry. If such things could come between sisters, then they were not meant for me.

On we walked, into the snow and the cold, as the sky above us darkened, the sunlight chased aside by our uncle’s preference for an endless night. The open fields and briars gave way to trees, close-packed and towering, creating a dense forest that swallowed all light. It wasn’t threatening, but it wasn’t welcoming, either.

Pixies flitted through the trees, wings chiming in soothing, subdued tones, and I flashed them a grateful smile. I have always been fond of pixies. Like me, they belong to Faerie and are held apart from it at the same time, never quite included, never able to step away. Changelings and pixies are both considered pests in certain circles, ones which I would do well to continue to avoid.

Eventually, the well-loved shape of the great manor came into view ahead of us. It seemed smaller than it actually was, so hemmed-in with trees that the structure scarce had space to breathe. When I dreamt of Shadowed Hills, I always dreamt it surrounded by gardens and carefully cultivated fields, open, green, and growing. Not closed in and oppressed as it was now.

August squeezed my hand and broke into a run, dragging me in her wake, and for a moment, I forgot to be tired or hungry or discontent, preoccupied with the need to keep hold of my sister’s hand as we wove between the trees. She didn’t care if my human heritage made me slower and clumsier than she was. She only cared that we were sisters, and I was there for her to pull onward, to adventure.

Our running came to an end, as it always must, when we burst out of the trees and were met with a detachment of our uncle’s knights, Sir Etienne at their front. He was dressed in full armor for the patrol, sword ready in his hand, and he looked us over with no warmth in his eyes or his expression.

Sir Etienne, like many among the pureblooded, frowned upon the existence of changelings. We were weak and lessened, we brought no brightness into Faerie; our presence was tolerated only because Titania ordered it, and because we could be forced into performing the tasks that true fae would prefer not to perform. August would have been acceptable if she had kept me at arm’s length, as was right and proper. Her refusal to do so when we were younger meant she was little better than I was, and worthy of his scorn.

“What do we have here?” he asked.

“We’ve come to help with the cleanup from the Moving Day party,” said August. Injecting a sneer into her voice, she continued, “Or she has, anyway. I’ve come to steal leftover cake and sip cordials with my peers as we watch the changelings clean the ballroom.”

It had been my idea for August to seem less enamored of my company when in the presence of our uncle’s knights. She hated playacting as if their prejudices carried any weight with her, but if it kept them from eyeing us with suspicion, it was worth the slinging of a few sharp words.

“You know Uncle Sylvester has given us free passage of his lands,” she continued. “You’ve no more right to turn us aside than you have to order our mother to do your bidding. Will you let us pass?”

Etienne hesitated, his pride clearly stung by her facile dismissal. Then he straightened, and looked to his detachment. “We have better things to do than worry about some ill-mannered maids,” he said. “See to it that you make no mischief, for we are very close to Moving Day.”

“We’ll be good,” said August, and grabbed my hand again as he turned and marched the other knights away into the wood.

She kept her word to one degree: she swallowed her giggles until they were out of sight, and that was good enough for me.

“Come on, we’ll miss the cake,” she said, and squeezed my hand again, and broke back into a run, me running alongside.

THREE

THE REMAINS OF THE previous night’s celebration were spread out across the grand balcony like the aftermath of a very cheerful, bloodless battle. Untied pennant strings waved listlessly in the breeze, and garlands of wilted roses slumped down the sides of columns, drooping toward the cobbled ground. Various servants, mostly household fae and changelings, picked through the remains, collecting the specific items they had been tasked to retrieve.

August released my hand as we reached the stairs, charging gleefully ahead on her endless search for leftover cake and other treats. Father fed us well, when he was present, but his work for the Rose all too often kept him away, and Mother had yet to truly internalize the idea that children—even adult ones—needed to eat if they were to live. Of course August had never been taught to cook: Mother insisted it was beneath her and there was no point when one day she’d have a household to see to her comfort in all things, and while I had been taught, I had no talent for it.

If August’s eventual household consisted only of the two of us, we would both starve. An egg I fried was equally likely to become a piece of charcoaled leather or a puddle of uncooked slime, and while I could knead dough that someone else had made, the less said about my actual baking, the better. As the youngest of three, Father knew how to cook; even when his parents were alive, there had been concern that he wouldn’t be able to establish a household without a proper title or estate to bring to the arrangement, and so he had been allowed to learn skills that most purebloods would never even consider. That knowledge had served him very well, once he married our mother; her sensitivity to the balance and burdens of the blood meant she couldn’t stand the company of changelings before I was born, and that she won’t be sorry to see me go.

As a Firstborn, she could doubtless have found a pureblood from one of the lesser noble families or farming communities who would be willing to serve as her handmaid, but she had chosen to do her duty and bring me into our world instead. I would have resented her for that—who wants to be born out of obligation, and solely to serve someone else?—but my existence meant August would never have to be alone.

She got night terrors at times, my sister, who was the bolder of us in almost all ways. She clawed at the walls and cried, and only my presence soothed her. How could I wish myself away and leave August in the care of some faceless handmaid? I could no more begrudge my mother for bearing me than I could begrudge the sun for tearing down illusions. Faerie creates only what she needs, and for August’s sake, Faerie needed me.

At times, after watching Mother try and fail to feed us or herself when Father was away with the Rose, I had wondered somewhat spitefully if her choosing him over his brother hadn’t been based purely on the fact that Father was an alchemist, and alchemy is a kind of cooking. At least by choosing Father, she could ensure herself a life of hot food with or without the servants employed by most noble households.

Then I had pushed the thought aside and punished myself for it for three days, denying myself desserts or walks in the garden. A good daughter wouldn’t think such things of her mother. A good daughter would be grateful for the gift of her existence, and would know her place.

Right now, my place was among the household staff gathering the party’s debris like they were collecting apples fallen from a tree. I slid myself into their number, finding a broom and beginning to sweep up the remains of what seemed to have been an entire pile of plates before it had been carelessly allowed to shatter on the ground.

The nearest servant, a Hob changeling named Kerry, smiled wearily at me as I started sweeping. “Wasn’t sure they’d let you out of the house, being this close to Moving Day and all.”

“Why shouldn’t they?” I asked.