“Nightmare’s bones,” Brandt swears. “Looks like Twyne is doing far more than just working with the Commandant.”
We stare at the little girl, eyes screwed tightly shut in deep, engrossing sleep. Even at five years of age, she bears the harsh countenance of her father’s lineage, only somewhat softened by youthful chub. “And for several years,” Vera says. She rolls her eyes skyward. “Dreamer, might’ve been nice if you could’ve given us a warning.”
“The Dreamer guides us as he feels necessary.” I pull the pendant vial of dreamwort out from between my breasts and flip open the lid. “Let’s hope he guides us toward more clues of what Lady Twyne’s involved in.”
Vera fiddles with the lacing on her ball gown, exposing the lacework of scars along her right shoulder and arm. “I’ll pose as the maid. Brandt, get the butler’s outfit.”
I brace myself for the foul rotten-apple taste of the dreamwort elixir and gulp it down. Dimly, I feel the mattress soften my fall before I lose all sensation.
I stand on the beach of Oneiros, chilly waves lapping at my ankles. I charge along the coast and approach elaborate seaside villas that part through the ocean mist, eerie in their seeming emptiness. I have a limited amount of time to slip my leash and claim a new body before the Nightmare Wastes catch my scent. After my brush with them in the Land of the Iron Winds, I’m not about to underestimate their strength.
I stumble past another experimental Shaper’s creation—the beached husk of a ship, its exposed side torn through, as if it were a great insect’s molted shell burst open. I try not to wonder why it looks like something broke free as I circle around the bow and plunge into the forests beyond. The little girl’s soul has to be close by, given our proximity in the real world, and I’m reaching the end of my tether … A stretch, like fibers fraying, and then—snap. My soul tears free from my body.
Stop running from your fears. You can surrender, find eternal rest …
My breath falters. They’ve already found me.
The Nightmare Wastes’ call threads through the trees like a delicate wind. Delicate, but insistent—my soul flutters on the breeze. They’re blowing me off course, pulling a snare around me with those velvet words.
They will never forgive you. Isn’t it better to let go? Why suffer their disappointment a moment more? Surrender now, and never feel their hatred again.
Dreamer, but it’s hard to fight. Before, the Nightmare Wastes were only a gnat buzzing around me as I sought my host—irritating but escapable. Now I feel a great undertow gripping me, pulling me toward surrender. But I can’t, I can’t, I have to fight. Brandt needs me. The Empire of Barstadt needs me.
But they would rather it be anyone else.
Professor Hesse taught me to cleave to my purpose when the Wastes called my name, but they’ve never been so strong. I grab at a nearby branch and brace myself against it.
Surrender, foolish girl. There is nothing more you can do. Why fight?
Tears needle at my eyes. The sting of the Wastes’ cold hardens around my skin. I don’t know how much longer I can resist them.
But then I catch sight of it: the little girl’s consciousness, dangling gossamer-thin between two sapling branches—a spiderweb. It seems a fitting representation for her here, brought into Oneiros by the mothwood smoke. Her thoughts are more delicate than the adults I usually seek; I must brush against them tenderly to keep from tearing them to shreds. I take hold of the little girl’s tether and slip into her body.
Why bother, Livia? the Wastes cry out. You’ll only fail them once more—
We open our eyes.
Weak, watery shapes in cream and shadowy blue. It takes a moment to bring the world into focus. Brandt’s already donned the butler’s uniform and is busy wedging an arm into an armoire. Blearily, I recognize it as my own.
“Ah, there you are.” He shoves the armoire door shut with his back. I hope my fingers were out of the way. “Might want to figure out your name before we get any further.”
“Good point.” The girl’s voice is fluid; I can’t seem to hold it down. I lean back into her spiderweb thoughts, her fleeting dreams. “Martine.”
“All right, Martine. Ready to make a scene?” Brandt asks.
I don’t feel at all ready, but with Brandt supporting me, I’m far better off. “Let’s.”
We charge out into the sitting room. As soon as Brandt’s checked the restraints on the unconscious butler, I run from the bedroom suite. “Mommy! Mommy!” I shriek, tearing down the hallway and onto the grand staircase. Martine’s instincts tweak at me and I correct myself. “Maman! Maman!”
Brandt and Vera, in guise, chase after me and silence me halfway down the twisting stairs. Few party revelers look up, unable to hear us over the waltz, but we’ve achieved our desired effect. Lady Sindra Twyne rears up from her chair, glaring icicles at Vera and Brandt. She excuses herself from the ruby-flecked aristocrat with whom she’d been chatting and cuts a murderous path through the dance floor.
“Bring her to my rooms,” Lady Twyne hisses at Vera without turning to look at her, and keeps climbing the stairs past us, as if to deny all relations. Is this how poor Martine lives her entire life? Locked away with a nursemaid, forbidden from ever being seen on her mother’s arm? My heart aches for this little girl, even as I tangle up her spidersilk thoughts for my own nefarious purposes.
Lady Twyne ushers me into her grand suites on the mansion’s top floor and closes Vera and Brandt out in the hallway. Her sitting room is lined in the same exposed alabaster as the exterior, emitting a sun-kissed, pale glow. Ferns soften the harsh cut-stone edges, and gauzes in a variety of dyes crest the slender floor-to-ceiling windows.
“Come, darling. Sit in Mummy’s lap.” She nestles on a divan and billows her skirt around her. I toddle forward, still unsteady on such tiny legs, but the uncertainty feels appropriate for this delicate child. Lady Twyne throws her arms wide and hoists me into her lap.
“Maman, I had bad dreams.” I burrow my face into her bosom, trying to recall how I behaved with my own mother in the tunnels. But my mother was more like a ghost or a shadow to me than any solid figure.
Lady Twyne ruffles Martine’s thick bird’s nest of black hair. “Nonsense, dearie. Remember what we always say? The Dreamer is just a fairy tale; we can control our own dreams. Our destiny. Nightmare gives us the power to make it so.”
I suppress the shudder that wriggles into Martine’s delicate bones. Words of a traitor, indeed. How can she say such heresy? “But, Maman, this dream was different. It was about … Daddy.” I’m flailing here, completely fabricating this tale, not looking into Martine’s thoughts at all. I’m afraid of pushing too hard against her delicate young mind. Better to make a mistake. As little time as I suspect the lady spends with her daughter, she surely won’t know the difference.
Lady Twyne’s face hardens, like a great iron portcullis has been lowered between us. “Now, my little dove. I’ve asked you never to speak of him.”
I’ve struck a nerve. Perfect. “But Daddy talks to me in my dreams. He says he’s the ocean and he’s going to flood Barstadt.” The tremble in Martine’s voice isn’t faked. “It’s scary, Maman. I don’t want Daddy to drown us.”
Lady Twyne’s gaze pierces me for a moment, then she glances toward the door.
“Maman?” I ask. “Is it real?” I’m pressing her hard, I know, but if I remember my half siblings correctly, one can never overestimate the persistence of children.
Her expression is difficult to read. When she furrows her brow, the furrows only change the whorls of gemstones nestled in her skin; their twinkling masks her true intent. In her eyes, though, something dark smolders. Like she’s seeing straight through the disguise I’ve donned of her daughter to who I really am: small, clueless, and terrified.
“Soon, you won’t have to worry about what happens to Barstadt,” is all she says. She hoists me out of her lap and pushes me toward the door.
I cringe. No. We can’t have put in all this effort for nothing more than that cryptic hint. I must push harder. I cannot be afraid.
The spiderweb thoughts of Martine glisten in the moonlight. The tidbit I need to trip up Lady Twyne clings to them somewhere—it must. But where? How can I skim it off the surface?
And then it hits me—every spiderweb has a spider.
I flutter against the web like the tiniest gnat, too small to tear apart the strands. Martine’s thoughts and dreams drip past me like dewdrops: her mother’s face; playing in her room with only her nursemaid to keep her company. She dreams of soaring, arms spread high above the Barstadt harbor, weaving through the towers of Banhopf University and the Dreamer’s temple spires. She dreams of a true family.
And this dream lures out just the thought I need—the tempestuous, unmeditated, unfiltered reaction that only children can call forth. Martine blurts it out with no need for my help:
“You’re a liar! A filthy liar, and I wish you were dead!”
Lady Twyne rears back as if stung. Success. My consciousness warms with a twinge of pride for little Martine. Some of us spend our whole lives without standing up to our bullies, after all. I wish I had such gall.
“How dare you speak to me in such a way,” Lady Twyne says, with a voice slick as frost. But her hands shake; she tucks them into the folds of her skirt.
“You promised me that after my fifth birthday I could see Daddy,” I continue, Martine’s thoughts flowing effortlessly through me. “Are you going to keep your promise, or break it like all the others? I don’t want to stay locked up forever.”
Lady Twyne lurches toward me, dropping into a crouch. Her face, jagged as the cliffs, loses all calm, all beauty as she speaks. “Listen to me, darling. Life is about to become very dangerous for us.” Her tone could curdle the freshest cream. “I promise, your father’s people are coming for us very soon. I’ll be Empress, and we won’t have to hide anymore. The nightmares will be ours to command.”
I fight down my surging panic. We’ve gotten our confirmation that Twyne is working with the Commandant, but I need to know if there’s anything Twyne can tell me about the Land of the Iron Winds’ battle plans. “How soon?” I ask.
“Another month, perhaps, and then we’ll all be together. You’ll have a lovely new throne all your own, and you’ll never have to hide again.” She pinches the bridge of her nose and takes a deep breath. “You must keep that a secret, though, love. Can you do that for me? You can’t even tell your nurse, else I won’t let you meet Father, I swear it.”
I hang my head in what I hope is an appropriately sullen fashion. “I promise, Maman.”
“Good. See that you keep your word.” A sneer mars her painted lips. “The nightmares are not kind to those who betray them.”