I perched on the edge of my hospital bed, my feet dangling, clad in my trusty boots. Jen had packed them for Brad—along with my toiletries and a change of clothes—before he’d driven from Canberra to the district hospital where I was being treated. I’d never been so glad to see a pair of shoes. I’d nearly cried.
Although that may have been the pain medication.
My head ached from where I’d smacked into the glass door, my stomach was mottled with bruises, and my fingers were covered in sticking plasters. At least none of the cuts had needed stitches, but my right hand had been more badly cut up than my left. Typical.
Brad limped into the room, closing the door behind him. “We have to wait for the doctor to do his rounds. They won’t discharge you until then.” I nodded glumly, and he frowned. “I’m not going to argue with them, Melaina. It’s a long drive home. Concussion is serious.”
“Two hours. And a suspected minor concussion. But I don’t think it is—my memory is fine.” I shuddered. “I wish it wasn’t.”
“I don’t want you hurling in the car,” Brad teased, brushing my cheek with a feather-light touch. I studied his face, still glad to be seeing it in the flesh, not as an ephemera or a projection of his dreaming mind. As I did so, I ran the uninjured side of one hand across the textured surface of the woven blanket on which I sat.
This is real. And I’m safe.
I’d escaped. Selena, the Oneiroi who’d helped me, had assured me Ikelos was trapped, tucked away in Ewan’s head: a tick burrowed into a tender patch of skin, but with walls all around. Ewan himself was in a coma in another hospital ward, under police guard. The doctors thought I’d caused his condition, belting him with the iron, but I knew differently. So did Senior Constable Nelson. I’d told him the truth when he took my statement on the kidnapping.
He hadn’t written that part down, though, and somehow I doubted he’d shared it with the local police.
The thought of Ewan, trapped in a possessed nightmare with his master, struck me as a suitable repayment for what he’d done to my family and friends. Not to mention me, although I hadn’t suffered as badly as most of them. Ewan hadn’t even had me for a full day in the end, and I wasn’t badly harmed. In fact, Ikelos had protected me … up until he’d tried to bash my skull in.
Thinking of my friends made me bite my lip. I hadn’t seen Leander in my dreams last night—though my dreams had been foggy, probably clouded by the pain medication. At least I didn’t have a snoring neighbour sharing my room to keep me awake; although I didn’t have private health insurance, Nelson had secured me a single-bed room. I’d threatened to kiss him by way of thanks, which had definitely been due to the pain medication.
I started when Brad took my hand, holding it tenderly. He sat on the bed beside me. “He’ll show up,” he said, guessing the train of my thoughts. “You’ll see.” His tone was low and reassuring. I wanted to believe him.
“He saved my life. I wouldn’t have escaped without him.”
Brad’s fingers squeezed mine and, although the gesture was gentle, I winced. He immediately released my hand with a grimace of his own. “Sorry.”
I shrugged it off. “They’re fine. Stupid cuts. Next time I have to delay a pursuer, I’ll use something sturdier than a cheap vase.”
“Make sure you do,” he said, a twinkle in his eyes. Then his smile faded. “I wish I could’ve done more to help. I couldn’t even give the police a useful lead in finding you.”
“It’s not your fault. I was at the beach.” Ewan had broken into an empty vacation home; there hadn’t been a connection, financial or familial, for Nelson to find. The police had only found me after I’d staggered into the street, dizzy and confused, and a fisherman heading out to the nearby boat ramp had spotted me and dialled triple zero.
“Still, if I’d been there, maybe Leander wouldn’t have been hurt.”
I looked up to meet Brad’s despondent gaze, biting my lip. I didn’t want to tell him. I didn’t want to risk him leaving me here, with an ache in my heart to go with my other pains. But if I didn’t tell him straight away, the secret would gnaw at me. The longer I left it, the bigger a deal it would become. “Brad.” I drew a wavering breath. “There’s something I have to tell you.”
He blinked, his gaze sharpening on me. “Uh oh.”
“I, uh.” I swallowed. “You know how I told you I was able to light up my dream so the other Oneiroi could find us? Well, I tried it using the power you and Leander gave me, but it wasn’t enough. So I generated more by … by kissing Leander.”
Brad’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “Like, a peck on the cheek, or…?”
“Or.” I gripped his hand, afraid he’d pull away and disappear like that banished ephemera.
“So you did it to save yourself?”
I shook my head. “I didn’t know the kiss would generate the power,” I said, my voice barely a whisper. “I thought I was going to die. I was scared, and he’s one of my best friends.”
“Would you have kissed Jen if she were there?” Brad’s tone was light, but there was a twist to his lip that told me he wasn’t thrilled at my revelation.
“Maybe…” I said. Though probably not with tongue.
Brad looked away, and my heart shrivelled inside. I’d ruined everything.
“Tell him that, if it makes him feel any better, he can kiss me too.”
The voice came from the window behind me. I spun, gasping with pain as my abused midsection reminded me not to get overexcited. The greeting I’d been about to speak turned into a grunt of pain.
“Articulate as always, Melaina,” Leander said with a laugh.
“Leander. You’re alive!”
“Apparently.” Unlike me, the Oneiroi didn’t have any obvious signs of an injury, though his honey-brown skin was paler than normal and his eyes bore shadows that matched those under my own. “Go ahead, tell him.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes.”
Brad was watching me with a guarded expression that froze as, cheeks hot, I relayed Leander’s message. To my surprise, my boyfriend’s ears flamed red and his eyes widened.
Despite everything, the guffaw that burst from Leander’s lips was music to my ears. He was alive.
“He’s laughing at me, isn’t he?” Brad muttered.
“No,” I lied. “Whatever gave you that idea?”
“I’ve met him. Twice.” Brad’s gaze went to the window, where I knew he was seeing the hospital carpark rather than the grinning Oneiroi. “I’ll think about it and get back to you,” he said, eyebrows raised.
Leander stopped laughing, and I stared at Brad in shock.
The Oneiroi coughed. “As delightful as this is, I was hoping to talk to you about something else.”
“What? Is it Ikelos?” My stomach tightened, threatening to propel the dry toast I’d choked down all over the bedspread. Visions of the rogue Oneiroi coming for me in my dreams made my hands clammy. Or was he rampaging through the hospital in Ewan’s body?
Brad stood, glancing at the door.
“It’s not Ikelos,” Leander said. “At least, not directly.”
“What do you mean, not directly?” I asked, my voice sharp.
“There’s a reward for his capture, actually,” Leander said. “The Morpheus is due back here tomorrow, but he’s already sent a messenger to say we can ask a single boon of him for Ikelos’s arrest.”
I waved Brad back to the bed and he sat, his gaze flicking between me, the window and the door. “Not one each?” I asked.
Leander shook his head.
“Tight arse,” I muttered. Still, a boon from the Morpheus… It wouldn’t be particularly useful for me. None of his gifts would affect the real world—so what could he offer me that I couldn’t conjure for myself? But, for Leander, it was a huge deal. “You should take it. Get yourself a promotion so you don’t have to spend your days hunting fugitive Oneiroi in the far corners of the world.”
Leander shook his head, folding his arms. “I have a better idea.”
Jen and Mum collected the dinner plates, despite my protests. “Rest,” Mum told me, pointing at the couch with one hand as she balanced a stack of plates on the other.
“But you cooked,” I protested.
“Doctor’s orders,” Mum said with a shrug and a smile. “You can make it up to me next time I have a cold or something.”
“You better believe it.” I slumped onto the couch with a grimace. I’d been home for three days and felt a lot better. I could use my fingers so long as I was careful, and laughing no longer felt like I was being punched all over again. But I chafed at the inactivity. I hadn’t gone back to work yet; my bruises had turned a lovely greenish yellow that made me look like an extra from a zombie movie, and I didn’t want to frighten either my clients or Serenity’s. I could at least clean up after dinner, but Mum insisted on mothering me. She’d told me she was making up for lost opportunities. It was kind of sweet. Annoying, but sweet.
“Davina’s making tea,” Jen said, darting back into the room and flopping down beside me. She lowered her voice, leaning in. “Is it tonight?”
“I think so,” I whispered, grabbing the remote and turning the television on to cover the sound of our exchange. “Leander wasn’t sure of the specifics.”
“It’s so romantic.” Jen grinned from ear to ear. “And you are officially the best daughter ever.”
“Maybe,” I said.
“You’re not feeling bad about accepting Leander’s offer, are you?”
“A tiny bit. He could have secured himself the best posting in Erebus. Like, wall-to-wall dreams of ski bunnies. Whatever took his fancy.”
Jen regarded me for a moment, her blue eyes soft. “He doesn’t want that. Because then he’d have to leave you.”
My heart gave a kick in my chest. Was she right? Brad still hadn’t accepted Leander’s offer to make out, though he hadn’t refused it either. I wondered if he’d let me watch…
Still, all I did was raise an eyebrow in reply. “And you know this because…?”
“I know stuff.” Jen took the remote from me and flicked channels. “I think it’s crap that the Morpheus can’t release your dad,” she muttered. “What good is a boon that comes with restrictions?”
“There are rules, apparently,” I said dryly. “They can’t waive Dad’s punishment for breaking the law. But they can relocate his prison.” Leander had assured me that Dad’s imprisonment in Mum’s dream wouldn’t send her into a coma the way Ikelos’s had Ewan. It had something to do with her being a lucid dreamer and Dad being less heavy-handed than Ikelos. That second part was definitely true. Dad had lurked in Mum’s dreams for more than twenty years, and she’d been fine. Overly sleepy, but fine.
I hoped Mum didn’t choose to go down the hypersomniac route again. I didn’t think she would. Yes, she missed Dad, but she had built a life that was about more than him. She loved working at the shop, and had made several friends her own age. She and Serenity had even started a book club together.
“What’s the point of being king if you can’t ignore the rules?” Jen complained, jolting me out of my thoughts. “The Morpheus needs to watch himself some Aladdin. Jasmine’s dad figured it out in the end.”
“I don’t think they have Disney in Erebus.”
Jen glanced at me. “Are you kidding? I bet it’s all ice palaces and Polynesian princesses. Little girls dream too.”
I laughed.
Later, after we’d watched a movie together and eaten copious amounts of jelly and ice cream that Jen insisted was medicinal because they served it in hospitals, Mum stood. “I’m off to bed,” she said, stretching. “I’ve got a double shift tomorrow.”
“Okay,” Jen said. Thankfully, Mum didn’t notice her knowing look.
I managed to keep my own sentimental smile off my face too. Go, me. “Goodnight, Mum.”
“And to you, sweetheart.” Mum covered a yawn with the back of her hand, turning to go.
“Mum?” I called after her.
“Yes?” She paused in the doorway, her black and silver hair framing her face: still Snow White, but middle-aged and comfortably dressed.
I let myself grin. “Pleasant dreams.”
THE END