Page 82 of Sleep No More

The air hummed with a dozen conflicting scents as everyone else called their magic and wrapped themselves in the illusions they’d need to pass unseen among the mortals. I grimaced. Father had shown me the way of it, but I’d never actually done it on my own before; the thought of doing it now was daunting. And I didn’t have any choice.

The blood garnets in my pocket were a sweet temptation, offering strength beyond what I could manage on my own. Too much strength, really, for such a small task. It would be a waste of the Luidaeg’s gift, and a betrayal of my own magic, simple as it was. Instead, I pinned the inside of my cheek between my teeth and bit down until pain lanced through me and blood filled my mouth, coppery and sweet.

This time, I wasn’t fast enough to shove the memory away.

I am standing in a large, square room littered with ancient furniture, upholstery torn and stained with unknown fluids. A scavenged generator buzzes in one corner, powering two refrigerators, an antique jukebox, and the overhead lights. Harsh, angry music blares from the jukebox speakers, making my sternum vibrate with the beat. The air smells like smoke, vomit, stale beer, and too many people trying to live in too little space.

Changelings lurk around the edges of the room, more than I’ve ever seen in one place before, making no effort to hide or downplay themselves. One girl has hedgehog spines for hair; another has feathers, white as snow and standing up in all directions. A boy with tusks like a boar watches me mistrustfully as the man in front of me looks me up and down, a small smile on perfect lips.

His eyes are purple, irises patterned with the outline of flower petals, and he fascinates and terrifies me. He looks at me like he knows exactly what I’m worth on the open market, and he can’t wait to offer me there.

“October,” he says, in a voice like rum and honey. “So glad you came to join us at last. I always knew you’d see the light eventually. We’ve been waiting.”

The memory shattered there, leaving me confused and a little dizzy, the taste of blood lingering on my tongue. I swallowed and grabbed for the air, gathering ribbons of magic out of the nothingness around me. Weaving them into the image Father had shown me, I cast them over myself and pulled them tight, trying to hide myself behind a veil of borrowed humanity.

It fought me, but in the end, with the blood in my mouth, I was stronger than the spell was stubborn, and the illusion fell into place. I shook the last of the gathered magic from my fingers like I was shaking away cobwebs, stood up a little straighter, and stepped forward into Chelsea’s circle and out the other side.

The air in the alley was cool and smelled like decay, as well as the various other unpleasant smells I was coming to associate with the human world—car exhaust and a faint, omnipresent hint of burning. I wondered what it must be like for the mortals, to live in a place that smelled like it was on fire all the time.

Chelsea closed her hands. The circle vanished.

“I kept that open for a while,” she said, without heat or blame. “Someone might be able to follow us, if they get to the tower before my magic fully dissipates.”

“So we get moving,” said the Luidaeg. She looked around at our little group, finally focusing on me, Raysel, and Grianne. “The three of you have the least experience in this kind of city. Stay close, don’t talk to anyone, and save your questions until we’re safely at our destination. Even things you might think of as innocuous are suspect right now and could attract attention. We don’t want to attract attention. Attention is bad. And we’re going to get enough of it just from the way Toby and Grianne are dressed.”

“Says the woman wearing a dress literally made of dead leaves,” muttered Ginevra.

I blinked, looking down at my bloodstained kirtle. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t know how to disguise clothes.”

Grianne, who was wearing a human face and her normal livery, simply shrugged. I realized with a start that I couldn’t see her Merry Dancers. Their absence made the always-stoic Candela look virtually emotionless, like she’d been disconnected from her own face. It was unnerving.

Everyone looked weird, really, except Chelsea, who’d seemed human when I met her, and the Luidaeg, who wore humanity like a comfortable chemise. She huffed in annoyance and announced, “It would be inconvenient if you got me caught, which makes this selfish as hell,” before waving her hand vaguely in my direction.

There was a rush of cold, like a wave had broken over me while somehow leaving me entirely dry. I looked down.

My kirtle had been replaced by more of those strange blue trousers and a T-shirt advertising some sort of festival in the park in bold yellow letters against a green background. I glanced back up, blinking. Grianne was dressed similarly.

The Luidaeg shrugged. “Come on. We need to get to Devin,” she said, and stepped out of the alley, making further conversation impossible.

We followed, a small gaggle of visibly uncomfortable people moving down the street in the mortal world, cars blasting by us only a few feet away, humans walking past in both directions. They didn’t swerve as they approached our group, just pushed on through like we weren’t even there, and none of them gave us a second look.

It was disorienting and disconcerting and borderline exhilarating. I was used to being ignored because I wasn’t worth noticing, by purebloods who made sure I knew they weren’t acknowledging me, but were always aware of my position. This simple social invisibility was strange enough to appeal. I wasn’t sure that would last if it kept happening, but for the moment, it was a nice distraction from how absolutely alien everything around us was.

We turned down a smaller street, this one lined with buildings that looked like they were in the final stages of disrepair before they were pronounced no longer habitable and razed to the ground by whoever was in charge of maintaining human cities.

The Luidaeg led us to the worst of the lot, a squat, filthy rectangle with wood covering the windows and graffiti scrawled all across the front. It was wedged between a building promising rooms for the night and a taller building with a sign in the window promising discretion and skilled massage. A simple brass sign hung above the door.

HOME: WHERE YOU STOP.

The sign seemed to pulse with the power of the misdirection spells that had been worked over and into the metal, lending a palpable tint to the air. I sniffed, marking it for Coblynau work, and nodded. It was a clever way of keeping humans away.

The Luidaeg jerked her chin toward the sign. “Deflects anyone with less than a quarter fae blood elsewhere. Also makes it pretty uncomfortable for anyone with no human blood in their veins to get too close. So congrats. You’re the only one here who doesn’t feel like they have spiders in their shirt right now.”

I blinked and glanced over my shoulder at the others. They were squirming, clearly uncomfortable, but not running away.

I was so unaccustomed to things being kinder to changelings than they were to purebloods that I didn’t know how to respond to that, just turned and looked back at the Luidaeg, waiting for her to tell us what to do next.

She looked annoyed. “I’m not used to you having no self-determination,” she grumbled, and gestured toward the door. “Well? This is where you let us in.”