Page 88 of Sleep No More

They lowered their dart guns, apparently out of ammunition, and drew short swords as they advanced. The Luidaeg looked across the room to Grianne, mouthing the word “Go.” The Candela nodded and stepped into the air, vanishing as the men advanced on the two of us.

Ginevra was still occupied with keeping the Baobhan Sith at bay, the two of them ripping and tearing at one another. Three more guards came through the front door, weapons already drawn, just as the Baobhan Sith sank her teeth into the side of Ginevra’s throat and bore her, limply, to the ground.

The Luidaeg stepped in front of me. “If we’re ever going to get out of this, we need them to take you alive,” she said, voice low and tight. “At this point, I think we let them arrest you.”

“Can’t you do something terrifying and sea-witchy?” I demanded.

“Too many children of Titania,” she said. “My hands are tied.”

I stared at her. What was the point of following one of Faerie’s greatest monsters if she couldn’t even protect me from people who wanted to take me to my own execution?

She shrugged, an expression of profound misery on her face, and we stood there, not resisting, as the Queen’s men closed in on us.

I didn’t really believe any of this was happening until they snapped the rosewood-and-rowan cuffs around my wrists and jerked me roughly forward. One of them grinned at me, a mean little smile.

“Cheer up, changeling,” he said. “It’s not every day vermin like you gets to go before the Queen.”

Oh, hooray.

TWENTY-THREE

THEY CAPTURED DEAN AND Raysel easily, and pried the Baobhan Sith off Ginevra before they cuffed her as well, slapping a sloppy bandage over the bleeding wound in her throat. Two more guards collected Etienne and Chelsea. They left the teens tied up where we’d put them, and didn’t bother with Andrew. I didn’t point him out. If I was going to be taken, we might as well try to minimize collateral damage.

Then one of them turned to the other and said, “The Queen wants this place burned.”

“Hey!” I protested, digging my heels into the floor to stop him from pulling me any farther. He looked at me, disinterested and disdainful. “You can’t do that! There are people inside!”

“Changeling runaways,” he said, dismissively. “The Law doesn’t say anything about them.”

“Changelings are still people,” I argued. “We still feel pain! They’re alive, and even if they’re runaways, somebody, somewhere, loves them! Someone wonders what happened to them!”

Trying to use someone else’s affection for those kids as a justification for keeping them alive felt dirty in a way I couldn’t define and had never felt before. People were people. It shouldn’t matter whether someone loved us or not. We had a right to exist, and to not be burned alive for the crime of being born.

“The little boy on the couch isn’t a changeling,” said the Luidaeg, speaking for the first time since they’d clapped the cuffs on her. “He’s Firstborn. A son of Titania.”

The men exchanged a worried look. “You’re lying,” one accused.

“If you’re smart enough to use the fact that I can’t hurt you against me, you know who I am, and you know I can’t lie,” she said, wearily. “I was bound by your own highest authority to speak only the truth, and I tell you that child was born of Titania. He won’t die if you burn the place—only silver and iron together can kill one of the Firstborn—but he’ll suffer and scar, and when he recovers, he’ll remember. Do you want to be remembered by one of Titania’s sons as the man who ordered him set ablaze? It seems like a bad personal choice to me, but hey, I’m just the sea witch. You’re going to do what you want.”

They exchanged another look, then pushed us roughly toward the door. The rest of the guards were waiting just outside. The one who had been tasked to carry Ginevra caught hold of my arm with his free hand, dragging me with him as the other two went back to start collecting kids.

For a moment, I was afraid they’d stop with Andrew, but then they began pulling the tied-up teens out of their seats, and I understood that they were actually going to get everyone out of the building before they lit the matches. I stopped resisting, as did the Luidaeg, and the two guards pulled us the rest of the way outside.

There were two unfamiliar Tuatha waiting there, along with several more guards. They really had sent a full force to recover us.

It wouldn’t have been enough, if the Luidaeg had been able to fight. I knew that, and from the way she was refusing to meet my eyes, so did she. But they kept pulling us onward, toward a circle that had opened in the air—in broad daylight, where any passing mortal could have seen it—and shoved us through, into a whole new reality.

We were in the middle of a vast, fog-choked ballroom. The stuff covered and obscured the floor, wrapping around the tall filigreed pillars that jutted upward into the darkness, covering me to the knees. The trousers and shirt the Luidaeg had magicked for me were gone, replaced by a charcoal gown too long to walk in easily and too fine for me to wear outside the tower. Thankfully, my leather jacket was still there. The cuffs were gone, apparently no longer considered necessary now that we were in the proverbial lion’s den. Somehow that wasn’t at all reassuring.

The Luidaeg was beside me in the fog, her own clothes likewise replaced, in her case by a gown that appeared to have been woven out of coastal kelp. The leaves shone translucent green and dripping, wrapped around her to form bodice and skirt. She scowled at the room around us, shifting to stand closer to me.

The guards who’d taken us captive were gone, as was the rest of our company: we were, for all appearances, alone.

“Where are we?” I asked. Then, with more urgency: “Where are Raysel and Dean?”

“Whatever Titania was able to salvage of the false Queen’s knowe, and they’re probably elsewhere in the same place, I’d wager,” she said, voice disdainful. “This whole place collapsed in on itself when Arden retook her throne, and I haven’t seen any evidence that Titania’s actually been recreating spaces. To make her false Home, all she needed was the sign, which I know didn’t burn, and the empty lot where the building used to stand. So we’re in the Summerlands equivalent of an empty lot right now. It’s creepy and it’s predatory and I don’t like it.”

“No one said you had to like anything, dear sister,” said the woman who stepped out from behind the nearest pillar, looking at us with a sneer on her perfect face. I shrank down inside my dress, trying to keep her attention from landing on me. To no avail: her eyes raked over the both of us, taking our measure and finding us more than wanting.