Chapter Seven A Multitude of Dreams
Chapter Seven
A Multitude of Dreams
Coco and Beau return to the castle around six o’clock in the morning. Instinctively, I know they won’t be staying here any longer—there is too much to be done, too much to learn about this new threat. We’re all exhausted, however, and Lou pulls me aside after they’ve gone, pressing a small bottle into my palm. “To help you sleep.” Without another word, she turns on her heel and follows Reid to their room, where I can already hear the rustle of clothing and blankets as he prepares for bed.
My fingers curl around the bottle.
Perhaps I haven’t lied as adeptly as I thought.
Shaking my head, I follow her down the hall, turning left where she turned right and slipping into my own chamber. Farther down, Odessa’s room sits silent and empty; she insisted on finding Michal after securing the revenant—“To talk to him,” she said simply, refusing to provide further explanation. I try not to think about that conversation. I try not to think about anything at all.
The dull ache in my gums remains, as do the sharp cramps in my stomach. Perching on the edge of the bed, I study the bottle in my hand. The liquid within looks innocent enough: thin and clear, almost like water, with a faintly iridescent sheen in the candlelight. Thunder still rumbles in the distance, and I look reluctantly to the curtained window. The sun will not rise for another hour, and when it does, storm clouds will obscure its face. I roll the bottle between my fingers, limbs heavy.
This weather reminds me of Requiem. It reminds me of Michal, of Filippa and Frederic and the revenants, of everything I’ve tried so desperately to forget. And perhaps that makes me the worst sort of coward. Perhaps that makes me weak, immoral; perhaps that makes me porcelain.
Either way, I long to sleep.
Before I can reconsider, I tip the draught down my throat and close my eyes.
Diamond tights glitter on my legs as I twirl in the violet light of the ballroom. Lifting my gossamer skirt—also violet, as if sewn from clouds at dusk—I throw my head back in delighted laughter. Because the music in this ballroom is bright and lively. Because the costumes are beautiful and wanton, bizarre and terrible, some even grotesque. Because I’ve always wanted to be a ballerina, and thank goodness my mother isn’t here to chastise me, to forbid me from wearing such a short, lovely hem.
Rising to my tiptoes, I execute a perfect pirouette.
“Spectacular, darling.” Beau flashes an indulgent smile as he spins past with Coco, whose magnificent wings trail angel dust in their wake. His own body gleams silver and translucent in this place—probably because the poor dear has died. I blow him a kiss anyway, and the two of them float through the air to waltz somewhere above our heads.
In the room beyond this one, an ebony clock ticks loudly. Its pendulum swings back and forth, forth and back, again and again until the edges of my vision begin to blur. Until my mind begins to drowse. I look away from it hastily toward a couple dancing near—a very tall man with long and curling silver hair, a thin mustache, and powdered cheeks; in his arms, he holds a lovely young woman with a pert nose and golden ringlets. “Guinevere?” I blink at her in full color, at them , as the man laughs merrily and I recognize his voice. His sharp teeth.
“We came to warn you,” D’Artagnan says, twirling Guinevere past in a flurry of glitter and rot. “Beware of your sister. She cannot be trusted.”
I stare at him, incredulous. “How do you know that? Is she here?” When he doesn’t answer, simply glides past with a serene smile, I catch his arm. “Well? Have you seen her, D’Artagnan? She looks like me, except older, and—and—”
“Perverse,” Guinevere finishes gleefully.
“Wrong,” D’Artagnan adds.
My fingers bite into his arm as the entire room tilts and the black-and-white checks of his doublet loom larger than life, leering at me like rows of teeth. “Did Frederic resurrect her? D’Artagnan! Is she”—I swallow hard—“is she alive ?”
He laughs again, prying my fingers away one by one. His eyes seem to glow yellow in the violet light, and his pupils narrow to the slits of a cat as he tilts his head. “Do you consider yourself alive, papillon? Do you consider me?”
“Is she here ?” I repeat as the two resume their dance, spinning away from me. My eyes dart around the ballroom. “Is Frederic?”
Guinevere glances back at me, tossing her ringlets over one delicate shoulder. “Frederic is the least of our concerns now.”
Lou seizes my hands before I can answer, cackling maniacally and pulling me through the crowd toward our friends. Leaning forward, she whispers conspiratorially, “She said no, you know, when Beau proposed.”
Reid leers in front of us as an actual skeleton. His fingers wrap around a wickedly sharp scythe.
I blink at both of them, confused—still searching for D’Artagnan and Guinevere, who have vanished—and brush elbows with a monk who walks his pet lion on a leash. A low growl rumbles in its throat at a passing courtesan, and in the corner, a hooded figure dressed like Death himself stands tall and silent, watching us. Except—I shake my head, blinking again. Except now he doesn’t stand in the corner at all. He stands in the entrance to the ominous clock room, which seems rather nearer than before. Lou continues to pull me toward it.
“Who said no?” I ask her, bemused.
“ Coco , of course.” A thick snake coils around the length of her body—its iridescent scales glistening first black, then purple, then green—and with a start, I realize she wears nothing else at all. The blacks of her eyes also appear larger than usual, and shadows seep into the hollows beneath them; her hair seems to crackle with energy. She sweeps a too-sharp hand down my arm as the snake’s tongue kisses my cheek. “She refused to marry him because of your dress, and honestly, Célie, I can’t say I blame her. What were you thinking ?”
Bewildered, I glance down, opening my mouth to defend myself, but the sparkling ballerina costume has vanished, replaced by a blood-flecked gown sewn from the pale linen of a burial shroud. And my tongue—I taste copper there. Hot, rich copper and something else—something foul , something that smells of tilled earth and dead, decaying things. Instantly, I tug my hand from Lou’s, but she refuses to let me go, her nails drawing four crescent moons on my wrist. “W-Where are we going?”
“To the clock room,” she says simply. “He said we all must go to the clock room eventually.”
“ Who said?” I dig in my heels, but here—in this strange interim place—I am weaker than her. “Lou, I—I don’t like this anymore. I think we should leave—”
Her grip only tightens, and the ebony clock strikes midnight, ringing out across all seven rooms; the musicians cease their bright music, and the revelers grow pale and still as if in some sort of reverie.
Behind us, Reid falls dead to the floor.
Horrified, I turn to stare at him, but Lou doesn’t seem to notice, her dark eyes rapt upon the ebony clock. When it quiets, soft laughter echoes through the crowd instead. It lifts the hair at my nape like a breath in my ear. It sends a chill down my spine. No. I pull harder against Lou, refusing to take another step—because I definitely don’t like this anymore. I don’t like it at all. That dread only deepens when the clock strikes again—one o’clock in the morning—and Coco drops like a marionette with cut strings.
Beau merely floats over her corpse before taking someone else in his arms. “This isn’t right.” I twist my wrist feverishly now, trying and failing to break Lou’s grip. “Lou, did you just see—? Reid and Coco—they’re—”
“Dead.” Lou nods as her snake hisses softly, and its black tongue flick, flick, flicks in the air. “We must all go to the clock room eventually,” she repeats, withdrawing a knife from Coco’s white robes.
Then she slides the blade across her throat, opening her scar in a macabre, bloody smile.
“You’d better feed soon, Célie,” she says, matter-of-fact, as the knife clatters back to the floor. Blood splatters in all directions. “When the clock strikes two, we’ll all die. He said so himself. He said we must all go to the clock room together.”
“ Lou. ” Desperate, I search for something to stanch her bleeding, but my fangs have already descended. My hands move as if they belong to someone else, and I have no choice but to watch as they lovingly descend on her shoulders. As they caress her skin. I am so much paler than her now. The thought is an errant one, almost amused, but it breaks my strange focus for the split second it takes to wrench my gaze away—to glance up and see my reflection in the violet-colored window.
Jagged stitches disfigure half my face; they stretch and twist as I grin, as I laugh with the last lethal chime of the clock. Releasing Lou at once, I stagger backward, startled, sickened , and Michal sweeps me into his arms instead. He presses a cold kiss against my temple. Warmth immediately suffuses my body, and I cling to him, unable to let him go.
It’s going to be all right.
The thought blooms through my fear like a talisman, like I hold a shield in my hands instead of Michal’s waist. Perhaps because here—in this multitude of dreams—I can sense the truth. His truth, my truth. If Michal is here, everything will be all right.
As if I’ve spoken aloud, he pulls me closer, flush against him now, and whispers, “Did you miss me?”
“No,” I lie.
He grins, sharp as a knife. “Petite menteuse.”
Between one blink and the next, he whisks me from the ballroom to a forest clearing, where a single tree has taken root in the moonlight. A laurel crown weaves across his brow now, and his skin gleams with internal light as he reaches up to pluck a fruit from overhead. Leaning closer, I resist the urge to inhale, to bury my face in his chest and sink my teeth into his skin. My gums throb with the effort. My fingers nearly draw blood. His presence, his scent—they’re headier here, disorienting, and my body aches with hunger and—and something else. Something I dare not name. Still, however, I cannot bring myself to let him go. “A fairy,” I whisper in awe. “You’re a fairy king.”
His chest rumbles with dark laughter as he offers the fruit to me. “And what does that make you ?”
I do not answer.
Instead, I tear my gaze away from his cruel face to behold the fruit in his hand—an apple. At first glance, it appears the perfect shade of crimson, its skin crisp and shining, but when I blink, when I focus , the fruit grows fur and splits open, revealing rotten flesh at the center. I knock it away from him with a cry. “What is that?”
He lifts my chin with a single finger in response, forcing me to meet his eyes. “Fairy tales don’t always have happy endings, Célie. Should I have let you die instead?”
My throat constricts at the accusation in his gaze, but instead of breaking away, I press closer still, finding it rather difficult to breathe. “I never wanted this.” The words spill from my lips in a rush of truth, but it’s too late to take them back. Perhaps it always has been. “I never wanted to die —”
“I never wanted to die either,” Michal confesses, “but we must all go to the clock room eventually.”
In the distance, an ebony clock tolls, and I stiffen, my entire body going cold at the sound. The scene tilts without warning, pitching us into the roots of the tree, and I wake with a gasp.
I wake without Michal.
Though my body shivers and aches with real hunger, it takes several seconds to realize the dream was just that—a dream. I stand on wood floors now instead of undergrowth, and the thick shadows around me are no longer trees, but a nightstand and candlestick. An armoire. Pillows. I clutch my elbows and glance around, taking deep, calming breaths I no longer need. Because I’m in my bedroom.
It was just a dream , I tell myself firmly. It wasn’t real. I’m in my bedroom, and it was just a dream.
Awareness does little to ease the tension in my shoulders, however. No. It makes everything so much worse.
Because until this moment, I have never known true fear—not when Frederic slit my throat, not when I stabbed Morgane, not even when she trapped me with my sister’s corpse. It grips my heart in an icy fist, crushing it, as my gaze lands directly below me.
Because I haven’t woken in my bedroom at all.
I’ve woken in Lou and Reid’s.
The last vestiges of the dream vanish in a dizzying wave at the sight of them, at the realization that I hover over their sleeping forms like a silent specter, mere inches from their bed. Mere seconds from—from—
Tears spill down my cheeks as Lou turns slightly, her eyes still closed, and seeks Reid even in her dreams. As his hand responds by tangling in her hair. Both breathe deeply, peacefully, unaware of the danger because they trust me. They trust me. I lift a hand to my mouth in horror. In shame. Though my teeth throb, I bite down hard until I draw blood, relishing the pain, the sharp, aberrant taste of myself.
If I’d woken a second later, Lou and Reid would be dead.
With one last, shuddering breath, I commit the sight of them to memory. My dear friends.
Then I turn on my heel, and I flee into the night.