Page 69 of Sleep No More

As I’d expected, neither of my new companions lit up pink: whatever else they might say, Raysel and Dean were telling the truth when they said they hadn’t been enchanted by Titania. The Luidaeg was still carrying the tightly woven spell I had seen beneath the tree.

I turned sightlessly toward the fire, continuing to look into the empty, unseen space where magic hung in shimmering strands. All the people there had traces of pink dancing over their skins, little revisions to make them a part of Titania’s revised reality. None were as dense as the webs I’d removed from January or Chelsea: apparently, the residents of Blind Michael’s lands hadn’t needed as much revision to accept this world.

All save Blind Michael himself, who was a mass of strands so dense he was almost a solid slice of pink, and the woman next to him, who was only slightly less ensnared. They were so brilliantly bright that I missed Grianne at first, until she moved slightly and I saw there was one more person wrapped in pink threads, although hers were more like the ones I’d seen on everyone else.

I gasped and opened my eyes as the blood ran out. “Blind Michael and his consort are both very deep in this enchantment,” I said.

“That makes sense,” said the Luidaeg.

I frowned at her. “But so are you.”

She blinked, eyebrows raising. “I am?”

“When I saw you in the tree, there was the transformation on top of you, and another enchantment deeper down. Same caster, but not the same spell.”

For a moment, she looked alarmed. “You didn’t touch the second spell, did you?”

I shook my head, and she relaxed. “Good. A long, long time ago, Titania bound me in a bunch of exciting ways I hate but that mean I can’t tell all of you to fuck off with your petty little problems, I’m going to take a nap at the bottom of the sea now. Which is something I really, truly want to do. But you’re not getting out of this bullshit without me, so no matter what else you do, Toby, you do not break that spell. Do you understand?”

I blinked. “I do.”

“Now what are we going to do about it?”

“Ginevra said we were looking for you because we needed access to your ‘stronger blood.’” I looked at her expectantly. “Can you bleed for me?”

“Lots of fae can borrow magic through blood,” she said, leaning over to take the thorn. “That’s what I’m planning to do with Acacia’s magic. But the Dóchas Sidhe are only ones I’ve met who can borrow magic’s strength and use it as their own, with no need to rely on the gifts of the one who gave them the blood to begin with. It’s a strange gift on its own. Taken in concert with the rest of what your line can do, I have to wonder if it’s not intended to make things like this more possible.”

She cupped her left hand and drove the thorn into the center of her palm without flinching. When she pulled it back out, red-black blood filled her hand, pooling in the hollow she had created. Bowing her head, she took a deep breath and closed her hand.

When she opened it again, the blood was gone. Instead, her palm was filled with a scattering of grape-sized garnets, deep red and gleaming in the distant firelight. She held them out to me.

“Here,” she said. “I’ve pulled as much of the memory out of them as I can, so you shouldn’t get any bad backlash, but I don’t recommend more than one of these at a time. You’ve had stronger at this point; you may not remember the first time I bled for you right now, but the concerns I had then don’t apply anymore. So when you do remember, please also remember this: I did nothing that would hurt you.”

I held my hands under hers. She tipped the garnets into them.

“Good to know,” I said. “I’ve been asking people for permission before I remove this spell, because it hurts, and it changes their minds. It seems . . . wrong to change someone’s mind without asking first. But if that’s not your brother . . .”

“It’s not,” said the Luidaeg, expression going cold. “You can ask Acacia, but I will not leave an imposter in my brother’s place. You will not ask him.”

“I can live with that,” I said. I glanced toward the fire. “I can’t do it from here.”

“Follow me,” she said, and began to stride toward Blind Michael, moving fast and steady.

I followed.

She stopped in front of him, next to a disheartened-looking Ginevra, and glared up at him. “You,” she said, voice tight, “are not my brother.”

“Of course I am, little Annie,” said Blind Michael, leaning forward and focusing on her. His eyes were milky white and never quite fixed on her face, darting back and forth even as he gave her the whole of his attention.

“My brother died at the hands of my youngest niece,” said the Luidaeg. “Neither I nor she needs ask leave of thee to free you from what’s been done. His name and honor are in the balance here.”

She glanced back at me, clearly waiting for me to move. I did, stepping forward to join her, and popped the first of the garnets into my mouth at the same time. It dissolved on my tongue, leaving behind the taste of marshwater and the feeling of wind rolling across the moors, something that should have been impossible to define with such easy precision. As when I’d been swallowing my own blood, power swept through me, intoxicating and heady. But if my power had been a river, this was a flood, a natural disaster distilled into a single mouthful, and it threatened to take my breath away.

Flickers of memory teased at the edges of my vision, absent the shell I’d seen around the memories of the enchanted, and I brushed them aside as I seized the magic itself, then reached for the spell wrapped around Michael. It was easier to grab hold of it when I was like this, easier to find an opening that would let me work my way into the weave and start breaking things. Threads snapped as the cold started working its way up and into my hands.

It was easier. It also hurt more. I screamed, and Michael howled, and the Luidaeg and Ginevra were holding me up as they both hissed at Michael’s people, who were suddenly very interested in advancing on our position. I kept pulling, harder and harder. This was such a dense enchantment compared to the others, and was so tightly knotted that if I lost my grip, I would never be able to get it back again.

His howl became a roar of absolute fury, and something slammed into my leg, something sharp and piercing. I felt it go straight through the meat of my thigh. My knee threatened to buckle and dump me to the ground, but then Ginevra was there, keeping me from falling as I continued to pull.