Page 96 of Sleep No More

The Luidaeg turned on him. “I never said that was the only option here, or the best one. But it is one way to stop a Ride, and there’s the possibility it could weaken Titania just long enough to give us time to try to find my mother or father, or to come up with another way to break the spell.”

“And if it doesn’t work out that way?” The thought of going back into the deep waters of Titania’s enchantment turned my stomach. I’d already missed four months with my family. Four months of understanding and nurturing my pregnancy. My bloodline, which the baby shared at least in part, recovered quickly enough from any sort of damage that I didn’t expect the neglect to be an issue, but that wasn’t what worried me the most. “Even if we stop the Ride now, Titania controls the spell. She’s going to remember everything that’s happened. There’s nothing to keep her from changing the rules, making it so the cats are seen as a deadly threat instead of a defeated enemy, or putting me somewhere Tybalt won’t be able to find me. Like Dean said, we’d be right back where we started.”

“Or much worse,” Tybalt said. “As soon as you give birth, there’s nothing to stop her from taking our child. And by the time the next Ride comes . . .”

He didn’t finish, but he didn’t need to.

“Then there’s no other choice,” I said, looking around at the others. No one else spoke. “We have to break the Ride.” I turned back to the Luidaeg. “How do we do it?”

I glanced to the side quickly. “If we stop her sacrifice and she recasts the spell before we can stop her, it’s going to hurt,” I said. “But it’s the sort of hurt we can recover from, while her pulling this off sounds like the sort of thing we don’t recover from. We don’t give her time to start the Ride. If we can intervene early, we do it.”

The Luidaeg snorted. “Great, glad we’ve got that settled, then,” she said, clearly ready to be getting on with things “Once the Ride begins, you break it by pulling the rider down and holding them as tightly as you can while she tries to use them against you. I don’t know if she’ll go the classic transformations route or what—Mom’s Ride is the only one that was ever successfully broken. She’s more likely to use illusions as a weapon than actual physical change.”

“Either way, this is going to suck, and either way, we grab that rider and we end this,” I said, grimly.

Tybalt caught my arm. I turned to look at him, blinking.

“There is no ‘we,’” he said, voice rough. “Your grandmother was pregnant when she interceded with Maeve’s Ride, and she lost the baby for her efforts. You will be staying back, and allowing us to break this ritual.”

“She may not be able to stay back,” said the Luidaeg. “Remember when I took you to break my brother’s Ride? You had to have a connection to the rider in order to be allowed to intercede. Depending on who she has, October’s help may be necessary.”

“I certainly hope not,” said Tybalt sharply.

The vague outline of a building was appearing ahead of us, blurred by the fog but clearly more sound than the knowe itself. We kept walking, and it resolved into a long, low stable complex flanked by a barn and a riding ring.

About two dozen horses milled in the ring, already prepared for their riders. Titania had managed to find replacements, but the Ride had yet to begin.

I looked around at the small group of my injured, overwhelmed allies and nodded, once, before starting toward the ring. If the horses were there, Titania’s company would be nearby, preparing for their grand attempt at remaking the world on a permanent basis.

We had been so busy determining who the sacrifice couldn’t be that I felt as if we’d neglected to properly review who it could be, and I was terrified of finding some unbearable surprise when I rounded the ring and looked into the open barn doors.

Instead, what I found was Titania and her guard, dressed to Ride, adjusting their clothing as they finished their preparations. She looked up and smiled, sweet as anything.

“Oh, good,” she said. “The guests of honor have arrived.”

Tybalt’s hand closed on my shoulder, fingers digging in almost painfully. “Don’t trust her,” he hissed, mouth close to my lips. “Something here is not as it seems.”

“What?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he responded. “It takes a moment to shake off an illusion when skillfully cast. I can’t be sure what part of this is false.”

“Reality is just a mirror throwing back one way that things might be,” said Titania, and stepped to the side, giving me a better view of her company.

I didn’t recognize most of the figures behind her. They were fae, all of them, and strange and glorious in their forms and faces, beautiful beyond description, almost painful for me to look at directly. Then the crowd eddied, and I saw one face I knew.

Mother’s cheeks flushed red as she turned away to adjust the ties on her silken gown, eyes cast down at the knots so she could avoid facing me. I blinked, and stared.

“Mom?”

She wasn’t, not anymore—not since the divorce—but I didn’t know what else to call her, and after the last four months, the word came easy to my lips. I couldn’t look away, just like she couldn’t quite look at me.

“Mother!” August sounded like I felt, confusion and despair in her voice as she flung herself toward the company. “What are you doing here? Don’t you know what she’s intending to do? We can’t be a part of this! Mother, say you understand!”

“I do, sweet girl,” said Amandine, finally looking up as the daughter she had actually wanted called out for her. Her cheeks were still red, and she still didn’t face me. “I’m helping to guarantee a world where we can both be happy, and together, always. She’s promised me you won’t remember this when it’s all over. No one’s going to remember this except for your worthless sister, and she’s not going to be able to speak of it, to anyone.”

I frowned. Quentin wasn’t among the people preparing to Ride. “We’re here for your sacrifice, Titania,” I called. “It’s over.”

“Yes, you’re here to bring my sacrifice,” she said, agreeably. “I appreciate it greatly, because it’s not over. It’s never over before I say it is.”