Page 97 of Sleep No More

She smiled, venomous as a snake, and snapped her fingers.

Vines burst from the ground and wrapped around our legs, holding us in place—all of us were suddenly tied down, even August, still reaching for Amandine. Her expression was pure confusion. Amandine sighed and smiled, reaching out to run her fingertips down August’s cheek.

“Dear child,” she said. “I would destroy Faerie to have you home again. Fortunately, I don’t have to. Thanks to the Summer Queen, I can save it, instead.”

I frowned, suddenly suspicious. “Are you the sacrifice?” I demanded.

Amandine shot me a sour look. “Child, no,” she said. “My lady decided, in her glory and her wisdom, that whoever rode today should do so with nothing they could lose in this world. Someone it would hurt you to lose. I suggested the cat, but she refused; said it might taint the sacrifice.”

Tybalt strained against the vines at her implied threat, trying to move closer to me. When he failed, he began to make a low snarling noise deep in the back of his throat, rising and falling in a vicious harmony of promised pain. I reached back to take his hand, holding tightly.

“Nor would I harm my sweetest girl.” She touched August’s cheek again, not seeming to notice when August tried to shy away, expression turning disgusted. “You were such a good child before you fell in with poor company,” she said. “That won’t happen again. We’re making a perfect world. No more cats. No more cowards. No more changelings.”

I stiffened as her meaning finally became clear. “You can’t,” I said.

“But child.” Amandine looked at me, eyes wide and guileless. “I already have.”

She kept smiling as Titania and her company vanished, leaving Amandine alone.

I turned my head, heart sinking as I realized what I was going to see. The riding ring was empty, horses gone.

So was Simon.

TWENTY-FIVE

FOR A MOMENT, I was frozen, shock sweeping over me and knocking the breath out of my body. “Luidaeg,” I said, voice barely above a whisper. “You said she couldn’t hurt my family. You promised me.”

“I also said that the Heart might give Titania a loophole where that binding was concerned,” she said, genuine regret in her voice. “Now that you’re no longer under her spell, can you honestly say you still consider him family?”

My mouth worked silently. I remembered a lifetime of him loving me; I also remembered a lifetime of believing he was the monster waiting in the shadows to catch and destroy me. Finally, I found the answer. “I can. I can.”

I whirled to face Amandine, barely noticing the way the vines rubbed against my skin. “You give him back! He’s my father, and you have no right to touch him!”

“I haven’t laid a finger on him, nor will I, but I have every right,” she said, voice poisonously sweet. “He was my husband. What he isn’t—and never has been—is your father. He wasn’t your father when this began, and he won’t be your father as he dies.”

“How dare you? He loved you!”

“He left me,” she said, as if that were the only thing that had ever mattered, or ever could. “No one leaves me.”

“I did,” I said. “August did.”

“And now we all are,” said the Luidaeg. She moved one hand through the air in a slashing gesture, and the vines dropped away, withered and dry before they hit the ground. “Toby, the key.”

I dug the Summer Roads Key out of my pocket and slapped it into her charred hand. One of her blisters broke, fluid and small, wriggling creatures seeping from the wound. She didn’t seem to notice.

“August, quick,” I snapped, as the Luidaeg thrust the key into the air, where it hung, trapped by nothingness. My sister looked at Amandine for a moment longer, heartbreak in her eyes, before she turned and ran to me, all but throwing herself into my arms.

I closed them around her, even as Tybalt moved to stand beside me, glaring at Amandine with everything he had. “C’mon, Aug,” I said. “Let’s go rescue our father. Oh, and Amandine? We made the right call in the divorce. I hope when you stop your dancing, you do it entirely alone and finally able to understand why.”

I turned away from her, arms still around August, to where the Luidaeg had pulled open a doorway in the open air.

“You can’t stop this,” called Amandine. “You can’t save him.”

“Watch us,” I said, and pulled August with me as I stepped through the door into the dark.

We only fell a few feet before we landed on the path. This time, I didn’t lose my balance. Tybalt dropped down a few moments later, Dean and Raysel close behind, followed by the Luidaeg and Garm. Once we were all through, the door above us slammed, and the Luidaeg pushed through the rest of us, throwing balls of witch light overhead as she walked. They illuminated more of the tangled, thorn-draped forest than I’d seen on previous visits, making it brutally clear just how much of this space had been designed to be impassable. We would stay on the path or pay the price.

We stayed on the path.