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“Familial blood always fertilized the best gardens,” Beryl said over her teacup.
I snapped out of the memory and glared at her. “You had to go and say something like that right when I was starting to think of you as my aunt.”
She gave a half shrug. “It goes both ways. Imagine the garden you could grow with my blood.”
But that wasn’t what I thought of. Instead, I was reminded of the Seelie castle. Beryl had spilled much of my blood there the day she tried to pry my heart out of my chest—that wasn’t even counting the number of other Cerri’s from split timelines that’d perished there. And yet, the domain flourished in my image.
It barely held any memory of Beryl anymore. The sleeping fae were protected by crystal cases much like the one that I’d protected myself in when she killed me. The halls were filled with my own flowers and tapestries of stories I held dear.
“I do not wish to use you for anything when my own hands have created such masterpieces already,” I said.
Beryl raised a curious brow, but I could tell that wasn’t the answer she’d wanted. She’d brought me here to twist my thoughts and taint my mind with anger and power. Beryl wanted to get in my mind and poison my thoughts. If she’d succeeded, it would have thrown me off balance. To win this fight, I needed a clear head.
I couldn’t allow her to gain a foothold. No matter what she said from here on out, I needed to keep my wits about me.
Beryl stirred her tea. “Have you ever wondered why I left half of your court asleep?”
I thought of the Seelie fae resting rather unpeacefully in their crystal beds. I’d never given their presence too much space in my mind. They were there, and they needed protecting. That was all I’d really known.
But Beryl’s smile told me that there was more to it than that. She lifted a hand and snapped her fingers. I flinched at the sudden sharp sound, but nothing happened. The dream remained the same. Even the waters of the lake were as still as ever.
An unexpected shiver raced down my spine. I looked Beryl in the eye and asked, “What did you do?”
Lips pursed in a smug smile, Beryl leaned back in her seat and lifted her teacup to her lips.
I shuddered and fought the urge to leap to my feet. There was nowhere I could go unless I woke up. Though I pinched myself, nothing happened. I couldn’t escape from Beryl’s dreamscape even though I’d painted it with my own vision.
This dream belonged tome. I wasn’t going to let her trap me here forever. I wouldn’t become one of the sleepers trapped in unending nightmares. That’s what she must have wanted. I looked down at the tea on the table and asked what she’d put in it.
“I can’t poison you in a dream. You already know that,” Beryl said with a wave of her hand.
I rocked back on my heels. She was right. I wasn’t thinking clearly. The fear of the unknown gnawed on my logical thinking. I had to suck in a deep breath and steady myself.
Feet grounded on the patio beneath me, I shoved my arcana into the dreamscape and wrenched it from Beryl’s grasp. She jerked when I took full control of the dream, but her expression never changed. Though I was truly in possession of the dream now, it seemed to matter little to her.
That meant that she still had something up her voluminous sleeves. I scowled and stared her down as if that might reveal whatever she was hiding from me.
“The halls of the Seelie castle will become quiet once more.” Beryl set down her teacup. She lifted her inhuman gaze to mine. “My fae will empty thatbarnyou call a castle of all life while we enjoy our tea. I will have them paint the walls in blood in my honor. You’ll never be able to get the stain out of the stone.”
With a dismissive shrug that went against everything I felt crackling deep inside my heart, I turned and strode away from Beryl’s table. I had to get back, but I wasn’t about to let Beryl see how much she’d shaken me. Between one step and the next, I moved in-between to…
Beryl’s table…
Upon seeing the back of her head, I reeled with confusion. Beryl glanced nonchalantly over her shoulder like someone expecting pleasant company, not the niece she was so determined to terrorize. Her lips split into a wide smile.
I licked my lips. “What did you do?”
The dream belonged to me. I’d taken it from her. There was no reason that I couldn’t just walk in-between or wake up. Yet, no matter how I tried, I found myself trapped here. I ran past Beryl and stepped in-between again, but I found myself behind her once more.
Out of sheer frustration, I lifted my foot, yanked off my shoe, and chucked it at the back of Beryl’s head. She jerked forward, surprised at the sudden impact. In a rage, Beryl flew out of her seat. On her feet, she towered over me, but I wasn’t about to be cowed by a glamour here in the dreamscape.
“I have been a master of nightmares for far longer than you have been breathing, my dear.” Beryl sneered down at me. “No matter how many times you wrest control from me, I have another layer of control wrapped around this microcosm of existence. You cannot win from inside here.”
I really hoped that the sleeping fae were still trapped in their crystal coffins. I’d made them with the hopes that the sleeping fae would be safe if Beryl ever popped in to collapse the roof on us again, but I didn’t really make an exit in them either. Unless they could use the moments in between breaths to magically move, then they would be trapped.
There was no reason for me to panic just yet. Harnessing such a specific in-between moment wasn’t easy for most fae. Even teleporting mid-fall was a little tricky. I couldn’t imagine they would be able to move so swiftly unless they were all trained assassins.
If that were the case, Beryl would have used them a long time ago. They had to be sleeper agents she’d left behind to cause the most distress at any given moment.
