of … of watching a pot boil? That sounds like the Dreamer’s idea of folks like you!”
Somehow, Brandt manages to lure the butler into the room, hemming him in with Vera. I trail them inside and slam the door shut.
The butler lurches for Vera. She takes a swing at him, all pretense of aristocracy gone. He staggers backward into Brandt, who’s ready and waiting with a kerchief soaked with the smoke from burning mothwood. The butler thrashes against him for only a few seconds before falling limp.
“Dreams of death,” Vera mutters to me. “You don’t have the slightest clue how to be a spy. It’d be easier to just drag you in here already unconscious.”
“No, it’d be easier if you told me your plan in advance,” I retort.
But Vera and Brandt are already stripping away the excessive components of their costumes as they stride to the opposite side of the sitting room. Vera throws open the next set of doors to the little girl’s bedroom. Shrieks flood from the room as Brandt and I peer through the doorway, masked by shadows.
A nurse, wild-eyed and shaking, coils around a tiny figure on the mattress. “What do you want? Please don’t hurt her! She’s done nothing wrong!”
“Shh, shh. Everything will be just fine.” Vera opens up her handbag, lights a censer of mothwood, rolls it on the floor and slinks back out, closing the door behind her.
“They’ll remember seeing us,” Brandt chides her. “You should have pumped it under the door.”
“They were already panicked by the disturbance. Let’s just get on with it.” She rolls her eyes in my general direction.
After a few seconds more, we tie scarves around our faces and open the bedroom door. Brandt and I move as we always do into a new room—him sweeping to the left and me to the right, though Vera traipses right down the middle. Both the girl and her maid slump against one another in the center of the bed. Without the maid coiled around her like a constrictor, I can see the girl’s face now. It blazes through me like a shock.
“Cursed dreams.” I swallow hard. “I think we’ve found our traitor, all right.”
A native Barstadter is always easy to pick out of a crowd—our skin ranges from light to deep brown, and our hair, from dark blond like Brandt’s, through redder shades, up to the dark brown of sunbaked earth like Vera’s. Coal-black hair and skin the color of birch trees—those are the signs of someone from the Land of the Iron Winds. But despite the solitary sapphire set into the girl’s forehead, a mark of Barstadt nobility, the girl’s dark hair and creamy skin mark her as just that.
Chapter Seven
“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
Somehow, Brandt manages to lure the butler into the room, hemming him in with Vera. I trail them inside and slam the door shut.
The butler lurches for Vera. She takes a swing at him, all pretense of aristocracy gone. He staggers backward into Brandt, who’s ready and waiting with a kerchief soaked with the smoke from burning mothwood. The butler thrashes against him for only a few seconds before falling limp.
“Dreams of death,” Vera mutters to me. “You don’t have the slightest clue how to be a spy. It’d be easier to just drag you in here already unconscious.”
“No, it’d be easier if you told me your plan in advance,” I retort.
But Vera and Brandt are already stripping away the excessive components of their costumes as they stride to the opposite side of the sitting room. Vera throws open the next set of doors to the little girl’s bedroom. Shrieks flood from the room as Brandt and I peer through the doorway, masked by shadows.
A nurse, wild-eyed and shaking, coils around a tiny figure on the mattress. “What do you want? Please don’t hurt her! She’s done nothing wrong!”
“Shh, shh. Everything will be just fine.” Vera opens up her handbag, lights a censer of mothwood, rolls it on the floor and slinks back out, closing the door behind her.
“They’ll remember seeing us,” Brandt chides her. “You should have pumped it under the door.”
“They were already panicked by the disturbance. Let’s just get on with it.” She rolls her eyes in my general direction.
After a few seconds more, we tie scarves around our faces and open the bedroom door. Brandt and I move as we always do into a new room—him sweeping to the left and me to the right, though Vera traipses right down the middle. Both the girl and her maid slump against one another in the center of the bed. Without the maid coiled around her like a constrictor, I can see the girl’s face now. It blazes through me like a shock.
“Cursed dreams.” I swallow hard. “I think we’ve found our traitor, all right.”
A native Barstadter is always easy to pick out of a crowd—our skin ranges from light to deep brown, and our hair, from dark blond like Brandt’s, through redder shades, up to the dark brown of sunbaked earth like Vera’s. Coal-black hair and skin the color of birch trees—those are the signs of someone from the Land of the Iron Winds. But despite the solitary sapphire set into the girl’s forehead, a mark of Barstadt nobility, the girl’s dark hair and creamy skin mark her as just that.
Chapter Seven
“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
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