Page 83 of Sleep No More

That sounded simple enough. I walked up to the door, hesitating when I saw that it was properly closed, then turned the knob and pushed it open, revealing the room I’d seen in my blood memory. Except for the teens lurking in the corners and the song on the jukebox—a word I had definitely recovered from the flashback to someone else’s life—nothing had changed. The kids turned to look at us with dull disinterest as we filed inside, none of them giving any clear reaction to our presence. It was as if they’d been instructed to look as unimpressed as possible.

One, a scrawny Daoine Sidhe changeling seated in a tattered easy chair next to the generator, sniffed the air and then glared. It was remarkable mostly because it was the only reaction our arrival had gotten from any of the residents. “Purebloods,” he spat, shoving violently purple hair out of his eyes with one hand. “You have no business here.”

“Kid, I have business anywhere I want to go, and she’s not a pureblood,” said the Luidaeg, indicating me as she spoke. “We’re here to see the boss.”

The teen stood, still glaring at us. “What if the boss isn’t here to see you?”

“Oh, he will be,” said the Luidaeg. She smiled, and while her face hadn’t changed, there was nothing human about her teeth, not anymore. They were a jagged nightmare of points and edges, combining all the worst aspects of a shark and a viperfish. I was at least supposedly on her side, and that smile made me want to run out of the room.

“See, if he has you on front-room duty, he trusts you to watch out for his interests and his place,” she said. “He believes you have the sense to recognize a threat. And that includes recognizing one of the Firstborn when we walk through the door. Get me Devin. Right now.”

The kid looked around at the other lurking teens, and shrank into himself as he saw no support there. “Stay here,” he mumbled, and made for a door at the back of the room, vanishing deeper into the building.

“That wasn’t very nice,” chided Ginevra, looking around with interest. “Glad to see some things haven’t changed.”

“This place sure hasn’t,” said the Luidaeg.

“Its existence is a change for me,” said Ginevra. “This was all before my time. It burned to the ground while I was still living in Portland.”

“Arson is a real good way of making sure a closed door stays closed,” agreed the Luidaeg, as the door at the back opened again, and the teen stepped back out, followed by the man from my vision.

Like all the kids who apparently worked for him, he was a changeling, easy in his mortal clothes like he had never worn anything else in his life, perfectly suited to and comfortable in his surroundings. His hair was a dark gold without the blood tinting it red, and he was strikingly handsome in a way that made my breath catch.

He said something to the teen, who nodded and returned to his former post, looking far more relaxed now that he wasn’t being asked to do things for the purebloods in the room. This done, the man walked calmly toward us. He didn’t hurry: we weren’t worth that. He also didn’t dawdle. We might not have earned his urgency, but he had the sense not to give us his disdain.

The Luidaeg looked at him serenely. “She did an excellent job of recreating you,” she said. “If I didn’t know . . . Well, that’s a matter for later. We come claiming sanctuary.”

“Home is a place for the runaways and the castoffs of the Courts,” said Devin, voice mild. “But only one of you qualifies for the kind of help we have to give. We’ll take her.” He indicated me. “The rest of you can take your trouble somewhere else. This isn’t the place for it.”

“All we need is—”

“A place to hide? Yeah, we hear that about once a season, from someone who’s managed to get on the wrong side of the Queen. The streets are buzzing with the news that a changeling from Shadowed Hills broke the Law and disappeared. Seems to me you’ve got her, and you want us to shelter you all while you wait for the problem to blow over. Well, guess what? It’s not going to blow over. Murder is one of those things that tend to linger in the air for a while. Can’t just wish it away and hope things will go back to normal. We can hide the changeling. The rest of you should run.”

I fingered one of the blood gems in my pocket, wondering how dense the web of pink lines around him was going to be when I finally got the chance to check. And I was pretty sure that was where this was going, from the way he was challenging the Luidaeg. I hoped the real Devin, whoever he’d been, had more common sense than that. Defying the Firstborn is never a path to a long and healthy existence.

The Luidaeg snorted. “I am the sea witch, shadow on the tides and monster at the bottom of the sleeping sea,” she said. “I don’t run. I’m the thing people run from.”

“Yet here you are, asking me for sanctuary.”

“Because you’re the only one here to offer it.”

Devin crossed his arms. “What can you give me?”

The Luidaeg scowled.

The two of them seemed likely to keep going for a while, and so I drifted away, moving toward the Daoine boy with the purple hair. He eyed me mistrustfully.

“Hello,” I said. “I’m October.”

“Good for you. Parents couldn’t afford a name book, had to use a calendar?”

“I’m named after my aunt.”

“How kind of them, to make sure you’d never be able to outrun them. My parents did that, too. Gave me a bullshit name no real person would ever use for themselves.” He looked briefly disgusted. “I left that behind when I split. You can call me Carl.”

“Carl?”

“Yeah. A good honest real-people name that real people use without wincing. You should try it.”