Page 95 of Sleep No More

“So no one knows,” I concluded. “Swell. Is there a reason Titania’s not making new spaces?”

“She’s always been more about refinement than creation,” said the Luidaeg. “Mom did most of the intentional creation, back when it was the going thing. And what Mom didn’t make, Dad had a tendency to cobble together, to make sure everything kept working properly.”

“If Titania didn’t create, what did she add to Faerie?”

“She bore many of the First, and her children were by and large successful, if only because they were so good at killing off the competition,” said the Luidaeg bluntly. “And they shaped Faerie in her image. Mom could build a bench. Titania would decorate it, turn it into something people would fight and die to protect. Creation isn’t the only worthwhile pursuit, and right now, we should be glad of that, because if she were more inclined to make her own things instead of repurposing what belongs to others, we’d be in even more trouble than we already are.”

Simon was ahead of us, reaching for a door that looked simpler than most of those we’d passed, plain, sanded wood with a pattern of briars carved around the edges. He paused with his hand on the knob, looking back over his shoulder.

“If she was able to recover anything of the grounds, they should be here,” he said. “If not . . .”

“The grounds were in the Summerlands, and even as the knowe collapsed, they should have been stable enough to remain,” said the Luidaeg, in what was probably meant to be a reassuring tone. “Go ahead.”

Simon nodded and opened the door.

On the other side was a wide stretch of green, wisps of fog dancing around the edges, but no more than would have been expected on a chilly morning. There was no visible sun, only an endless expanse of watercolor gray, clouds blocking out most of the sky. Light still filtered through, watery and pale, but warmer than moonlight would have been. Simon stepped outside, and the ground held his weight. The rest of us followed close behind him.

Stepping out of the haunted house of the false Queen’s knowe was a relief greater than I could possibly have anticipated, like a weight being lifted off my shoulders. I stood straighter, taking in a deep breath of the sweet, loam-scented air.

“This way,” said Simon, and gestured for us to keep following as he set out across the green.

“Has this always been here?” I asked, hurrying to keep up.

“For as long as I’ve known the knowe,” he said. “I’m a bit surprised you’re not familiar, given the story of how you found this place.”

“I found it, I didn’t claim it,” I said. “And it’s not like I was exactly welcome to wander around and explore after I surrendered it to the Queen.”

Not that I was sorry to have given it away. I’d received a knighthood for my trouble, and that had saved my bacon more times than I could count. Without it, my life would have been very, very different. More like the life I’d just escaped from than the one I’d actually lived.

Little things really can change everything. I pulled my jacket a bit more tightly around myself, shutting out the chill, and reminded myself how much I liked the little things. Sometimes they’re all that matters.

The fog reduced our easy visibility to about twenty feet in all directions, and the low, crumbling form of the Queen’s knowe was soon swallowed up by the gray, leaving us walking through a seemingly endless meadow. I watched Simon closely. He didn’t look anxious or lost; if anything, he looked like he knew exactly where we were going.

That made one of us. The others were still flagging. The blisters on the Luidaeg’s hands stood out livid and angry against her skin, red and engorged. They looked like they would burst under the slightest pressure. Garm was lagging farther and farther behind, while Raysel and Dean had put their animosity aside enough to lean on each other, keeping their legs from giving out. Tybalt kept pace with me, expression grim, and I knew that at the slightest sign of danger, he’d be pulling me onto the Shadow Roads.

August would never forgive him for that. I wasn’t sure he cared that much about what my sister thought, but I cared.

“Who could she be using as a sacrifice?” I asked.

“Can’t be a child of Maeve, which means May’s safe,” said the Luidaeg. “She’s been around long enough that she has some Titania-descendant memories mixed up with everything else in that nightmare she calls a head, but while that gives Titania a claim, it doesn’t change who she belongs to. Jazz is protected for the same reason.”

“Raj is of Erda’s line,” said Tybalt. “Are the children of Oberon so protected?”

“No,” said the Luidaeg grimly. “He could be a candidate. So could Quentin. She wants this one to hurt you, Toby, and that means she’s going to be looking at the people you actually care about.”

“So Mom’s in the clear.” Even with four months of fresh memories clustering my mind, I couldn’t work up much affection for the woman who had borne me but never once been able to love me.

“Probably,” the Luidaeg agreed. “Taking Amandine wouldn’t hurt you enough. Neglectful parenting as a form of self-protection isn’t exactly a new one on me, but it’s one I could have happily gone another hundred years without seeing again.”

“How do we stop her?”

“There are two ways to stop a Ride. If it hasn’t started yet, and you can grab her sacrifice and spirit them away, that should do it,” she said. “They’re supposed to receive seven years of paradise before they go to the Heart. Seven years where they get anything and everything they want handed to them without argument, because they’re doomed to die, and that makes them special, at least in the short term. She’d have to tear down her whole illusion and cast it again to give someone new seven years of paradise after she’s already tricked someone into remembering things that way.”

“Which just puts us right back where we started,” objected Dean.

“Yeah, but the sacrifice would be out of immediate danger, and it wouldn’t be Halloween anymore; she’d have to keep the spell stable until Beltaine to have another shot at Riding,” said the Luidaeg. “And now the cats know what to do, and they can do it a lot faster. She can’t remove them from the equation entirely, not with the amount of Dad in them, and they’ll always get loose. Even if we have to replay this bullshit, we’d still have a chance.”

“You’re talking about my wife and child as if losing them would be a small thing,” snarled Tybalt.