Chapter 18

Of course, having a couple of names didn’t mean I could accomplish much tonight. By the time my father dropped me off back at home it was nearly three a.m. I all but stumbled up the stairs, my exhausted legs protesting the climb. Even PC didn’t bother to greet me at the door, just lifted his head from where he was curled up on one of my pillows, gave me a look like “what took you so long?” and then closed his eyes, going back to sleep.

“You’re a very loyal dog,” I told him as I took off my boots.

He snored in response.

Right. I stripped off my pants and left them in a pile by the boots, and then, in just my shirt and underwear, collapsed into bed.

•   •   •

I woke standing in a plane of endless sand and darkness.

“A most interesting outfit, planeweaver,” a voice said behind me.

I whirled around. Where there had been unbroken sand before, there was now an enormous obsidian throne. A fae lounged across it, one black-leather-clad leg kicked up over one armrest and his elbow on the other, his head balanced on his knuckles.

“Kyran,” I said, recognizing the nightmare kingling.

“At your service, my dear.” He gave one of those elaborate hand gestures where he rolled his wrist, pantomiming a bow, even though the rest of his body didn’t move. He leered, a small secret smile at the edges of his mouth.

The first thing he’d said, about my outfit, finally registered and I looked down. I was wearing only the shirt and panties I’d crawled in bed wearing. No boots. No pants. No dagger.

“Shit.” I pulled at the edges of the shirt, trying to tug it down, but it was a fitted top, hitting right at my hipbones, and there wasn’t any stretch in it.

Kyran laughed, a boisterous full-bellied sound of mirth. I glared, which didn’t quiet his laugh at all. Well, glad I could amuse him.

“So I guess you can chalk this up to being one of those awkward dreams when you show up to work naked?”

“Why am I here?” I asked, trying to decide which was worse, trying and failing to cover myself better, or just saying screw it and pretending I didn’t care I was in my underwear. Tugging at the shirt was gaining me nothing, so I went for the latter, crossing my arms over my chest and ignoring the heat in my cheeks—the ones on my face, that was. The other cheeks were a little chilly.

“You’re the one who asked to see me, my dear.”

True. But . . . “I asked you to meet me at the Eternal Bloom—not drag me off to this creepy nightmare realm.” And speaking of the nightmares, where were they? The darkness around me was unending, but nothing seemed to be moving inside it. That was good, but how long would that last?

Kyran made a dismissive sound and lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. “Why fuss with all that political red tape when you come here nightly?”

Nightly? The first time I visited the realm of dreams and nightmares I’d been having trouble maintaining my shields during sleep, and as I’d already been in Faerie, my planeweaving had caused me to literally fall into a recurring nightmare, landing me physically in this realm. But, the way he’d worded his sentence . . .

“Do you mean this is a dream?”

“Of course. I simply pulled you out of the mundane imagery your exhausted mind typically conjures.”

I looked around at the endless, empty landscape. “If this is a dream, that means I can direct it, doesn’t it?”

“What, like lucid dreaming? Don’t do that. It’s annoying. You know that actually steals magic back from this place. Plain frustrating.”

Which didn’t mean I couldn’t do it. And that meant I didn’t have to stand here half naked. I imagined the black pants I’d been wearing before I’d gone to bed, the way they looked, the softness of the leather. The sand crawled up my legs, which was a totally weird sensation, but between one blink and the next I went from half naked to wearing pants. Well, mostly. Something was wrong with the pants that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. The way things are sometimes just off in a dream. Like I was looking at them through distorted glass. Still, at least I wasn’t half naked anymore.

I looked up to find Kyran frowning at me. He’d taken his legs off the arm of the chair and rotated forward, focused. “Didn’t I say not to do that.”

“What? You do. Or are you going to say that intimidating throne that follows you around isn’t made completely out of dream sand?”

“Yeah, but I live here.”

Point. I bowed my head, acknowledging that I was in the wrong, but I didn’t apologize. I’d needed the pants, damn it.

“You asked for this meeting. Surely it wasn’t simply to leach away magic from my land,” he said, propping both elbows on his knees and managing to sound both annoyed and bored. I wasn’t sure if he was agitated that I’d manipulated his realm or just that I knew I could.

But he was right—I had asked to meet. Not in these circumstances and I sure as hell would have preferred a more neutral ground, but I was here now. I looked around for a place to sit. There was, of course, nothing besides the throne where Kyran perched and the sand. I briefly considered dreaming up a chair, but I didn’t want to piss off the kingling right before asking for information. That likely wouldn’t go over well.

So, I shoved my hands in the back pockets of my dream pants and stood.

“The nightmares are stuck here without a door, right? They can’t be conjured up in the mortal realm?”

Kyran’s brow pinched, and he studied my face, clearly wondering where this line of questioning was headed. “You mean waking dreams? The kind where the dreamer drags his nightmares home to haunt him long after he leaves his bed? That was one of the High King’s fears. Nightmares growing too strong and walking out into the waking world in the mortal realm. It was why he severed this realm from the rest of Faerie. In its current state, nothing escapes without a door.”

I started to nod, and then stopped. I’d opened a door to the mortal realm the last time I’d been here. I’d had no other choice. The citizens of Nekros had rather vivid nightmares that night, but no unusual deaths had been reported. I was pretty sure he was implying that without a door like I’d opened, the nightmares were stuck. But implication left a lot of wiggle room.

Were there other ways to open a door? I knew Glitter was made from distilled glamour and that somehow fears were manifesting. Could the users become doorways?

“A penny for your thoughts, planeweaver.”

I’d been quiet too long, Kyran studying me intensely. I picked my words carefully. “Do you know if any of the nightmares left in the last few days? Or maybe . . . projected into the mortal realm, somehow?” Because that could be a possible explanation, couldn’t it?

Kyran tapped his steepled fingers together. “There are no days here. Only dreams.” He smiled his Cheshire Cat grin.

That so didn’t answer my question. Of course, he was under no obligation to answer my questions, and I’d asked him several without him asking me anything in return. I had to be careful or he might try to open a bargain in retrospect. They weren’t very binding, but I’d nearly been caught in one once before. Which meant I’d better start offering up information if I didn’t want to stumble into a debt. Not that Kyran was being horribly helpful.

Something caught at the edge of my attention, and I turned, searching the darkness. Nothing. I focused on Kyran once more, but tried to keep an eye on my peripheral vision.

“There is a new drug in Nekros. The people who take it, their fears come alive. Hallucinations given form.” I hesitated before continuing, though I was sure he guessed what I was getting at. “Maybe, their nightmares coming to life.”

“Alex.”

I froze. I’d definitely heard my name. And it wasn’t Kyran who’d said it. I twisted, glancing at the unending darkness and sand all around us. There was only the two of us.

Kyran leaned back in his throne, tapping one long finger against his jaw. “I think someone is trying to wake you. We are running out of time.”

And he hadn’t answered any of my questions.

“Alex.”

The darkness was starting to gray out. The sand under my feet fading away. Desperate, I blurted out, “Is it possible? With the help of a Faerie drug, could the nightmares cross over? Could they harm mortals if given form by glamour?”

Kyran’s form was hazy by the time he smiled, once again lifting a single shoulder in an indifferent shrug. “I think you’re looking in the wrong realm, planeweaver. Only those who are sleeping journey here. If your mortals are awake when their fears take form, you should be talking to the light court about their realm of daydreams.”

Then the gray fog thickened, becoming heavy and obscuring everything, as my consciousness returned to mortal reality.

•   •   •

I gasped, going from deep sleep to wide awake as I sat up. The covers spilled off me, and I felt the comforter against my bare thighs, the dream pants I’d conjured in the realm of nightmares having not followed me back to the waking world.

I blinked in the darkness of my room. The smallest trace of gray light peeked through my shuttered windows. Dawn was close, but it didn’t provide near enough light for my bad eyes. That didn’t matter though. I didn’t need my normal sight to make out the familiar form in my room.

Death.

“That’s an awful big frown, Al. A man might think you’re not happy to see him.”

“No, it’s not that. I—” I stopped and focused on changing my expression. And then reached out, wrapping my arms around his shoulders, and kissing him lightly in greeting. Because that’s what girlfriends did, right? Man, I sucked at this.

“Hi,” I said, which caused him to smile. An expression I felt against my lips rather than saw.

“Hi,” he said in return before kissing me again. A much deeper kiss than I’d greeted him with.

I tried to abandon myself to the kiss because he was Death and he was here. But the conversation I’d had with Kyran had occurred in a dream, and like most dreams, now that I was awake, it was slipping away, becoming elusive. Kyran had said something significant, right as I was waking. I had the feeling it was the most important thing he’d said—maybe the only important thing—during the entire conversation. What had it been?

“You seem distracted,” Death said, pulling back. He kept hold of one of my hands so he could sit on the bed without the mattress becoming intangible to him.

I opened my mouth to apologize but stopped. I was too fae to incur a debt for such a small thing. I couldn’t do it, even to make Death feel better. That realization hurt. And probably would have stung him as well. After all, he was the least likely person to abuse a debt between us. I covered by saying, “I was having a dream. Well, more like a meeting in a dream. I’m trying to remember what was said.”

He nodded, not saying anything, presumably giving me time to work it out. I racked my brain. What had Kyran said? Something about sleepers traveling to his realm.

But that visions seen when awake were daydreams.

The court of light.

“You thought of something?” Death asked, his thumb rubbing over my knuckles.

I nodded, but my shoulders slumped. “I apparently need to talk to someone in the light court.” And I knew absolutely nothing about that court, aside from the fact that their members glowed with an ephemeral beauty. Much more so than just the ethereal glow of the Sleagh Maith, and from what I’d seen at the Fall Equinox, the entire court held that delicate, awe-inspiring glow. They were the muses of Faerie.

Death looked around my small room. “You got rid of your houseguest?”

I nodded absently. “He’s off fighting the Winter Queen’s duels.” I frowned. “Could the light fae be involved in a drug that results in grisly murders? I mean, they thrive on daydreams. On inspiring creativity in mortals.”

“Darkness often takes creativity. I’ve collected many victims of those who considered themselves ‘artists.’”

I snapped my attention back to him. “I—You’re here, we shouldn’t be discussing such morbid topics.”

Death shrugged. “I am a soul collector.”

True. Still, I’d barely seen him over the last few weeks. He was my closest and oldest friend. My lover. He knew my secrets. I could tell him anything. We should talk about something happy. Something couples would discuss.

But the only thing I could think about was the case. And I was exhausted. Either my dream meeting with Kyran hadn’t corresponded with refreshing sleep, or I was running out of time. I needed a tie to Faerie. It occurred to me that Death didn’t know about the fading, though I was sure he could see something was wrong.

So I filled him in on everything that had happened recently. He listened, his hazel eyes growing increasingly concerned as I related my father’s revelation both of my ailing condition and of my theoretical betrothal, of my meeting with the queen and my need to find the alchemist, and of the two wedding crashing bogeymen. He asked a few clarifying questions, but he didn’t interrupt or redirect, he just listened, because that was what he’d done all of my life. It was one of the reasons I loved him.

That thought made me pause. And not just because of the panic that swelled up inside me at the word. I loved him. I did. Despite the fact I knew almost nothing about him. I’d learned more in the last few months than ever before, but I still knew very little about him or the man he’d been before he died and became a collector. I didn’t even know his name.

“What is it?” he asked, and I realized I’d fallen silent. I couldn’t remember where I was in my recap, and I had no idea where to pick back up.

I looked into those heavily hooded eyes, studied that strong jaw and full lips I knew so very well, and I thought about telling him. Just blurting out that I loved him. I knew he loved me, he’d told me so, but the words wouldn’t form. Instead I scooted closer to him, my arms sliding around his waist so I could lean on his shoulder.

I’d wanted to enjoy touching him without feeling the burning chill of the grave for so very long, and now I could, and it was thrilling, and comforting, but also wrong somehow. That thought made me frown, and I pushed it away, bringing my thoughts back around to safe topics. Like the case.

“So, like I said, it’s possible the light court is involved. Or maybe this is a wild-goose chase. I know you mentioned that creativity can be twisted and turned dark, but these people died from manifestations of their fears and nightmares. Maybe it’s not connected at all.”

Death didn’t say anything for a long moment, the silence stretching long enough for his lack of response to be noticeable. Finally he said, “Are you sure all the deaths have been from malicious manifestations?”

I straightened, meeting his gaze. “You know something.”

His eyes darted away, refusing to hold mine. He did know something. The secrets of soul collectors were well guarded and they were forbidden from speaking about those secrets. The souls he collected and their manner of death fell into that category. Still, he was also forbidden to see me, and for better or worse, he was breaking that rule, so I waited. If he decided he could tell me, he would. But I wouldn’t press him. Our relationship was already dangerous for him. Which made me feel guilty as hell, like I should send him away for his own safety. So I’d wait, let him set the pace.

Finally he looked at me again, and ran a hand through his dark, chin-length hair. “What have you found when you interacted with the bodies?”

“Weak shades.” I’d told him that already. I stopped. “Almost completely depleted shades. Like all the life energy of their being had been drawn out.” If the victims were unintentionally using the glamour in the drug to make their hallucinations real, they had to fuel that glamour somehow. Fae were born with the power to manipulate glamour, or maybe it was fueled through their tie to Faerie. But what happened when a mortal, especially a nonmagical mortal, used an artificial infusion of glamour? It still had to draw power from somewhere. I’d theorized that already. The victims felt like they’d been through some life-threatening magic burnout. But that wasn’t what had killed them. The hallucinations turned real had.

As if he could read the course of my thoughts, Death prompted me further. “And what if those children hadn’t manifested a nightmare, but something harmless?”

I thought about it. About how weak their shades were. About how much life force it must have taken to make that clown real. “They probably would have burned out completely and died anyway,” I said. Both sets of victims we’d found had died from violence, likely before they could get to a critical stage. But what if their hallucinations hadn’t been violent? “Are you saying there have been good manifestations?”

Death didn’t answer, not verbally at least, but he gave me the smallest incline of his head. My thoughts tumbled around my brain, a jumble of different half-realized ideas, until a memory rose to the surface. The homeless man on the unicorn. He’d been found dead several hours after I’d seen him, and from what I’d heard, the cause of death was unknown. I’d forgotten all about him with everything else that had happened, but I’d gotten a good look at that unicorn. It had definitely been glamour.

And nothing but glamour.

In the past I had seen constructs made from a mix of magic and glamour. And, of course, I’d seen fae disguising themselves with glamour. The unicorn hadn’t been either of those. If it had been something else, something with a soul or even something nonliving but with real components, I would have seen that when I opened my shields. But it hadn’t been. It had just been glamour. No more alive than a glamour-conjured chair and even less real than the cars my father transformed with his glamour.

I had been making assumptions about the hallucinations that had killed the victims. I’d assumed something that chased down and killed had to be sentient, cognizant. But if all of the nightmare-like images—and their actions—had come straight from the victim’s own minds? Maybe I wasn’t looking for any fae creatures, light or dark, that were possessing the glamours. Maybe it was all from the victim’s drug-addled mind. And of course, the dose of glamour in the drug itself.

Jeremy and the two high schoolers had had a bad drug trip. Their hallucinations had been frightening, deadly. How many users had partaken of Glitter and had a “good” trip? How many had gotten sucked into a fantasy until the glamour burned out their life force?

I repeated the question to Death, but I wasn’t surprised when he didn’t answer. He’d already given away more than he should have. Of course, technically he shouldn’t have been here at all.

I glanced at the window. I needed to go to the morgue, confirm my theory that our unicorn rider had died from burnout, and if I could, see if there were any other bodies with the same COD. Had the police found a way to test for Glitter use yet? I’d know just by feeling the shades, but the ones I’d raised already had been so drained I’d barely managed it. Would I even be able to raise a victim who’d died of magical burnout? It was worth a shot. I knew the probable identities of our bogeymen, but I had no idea how to track them down. Not yet at least. I didn’t have any proof that they were involved with Glitter, but it would be pretty damn coincidental that they’d attacked me in the middle of the investigation. Usually when bad guys started wanting me dead or captured, it was because I was getting close. If I could question the victims, maybe find a common link to how or where they acquired the Glitter . . .

The dull gray light of predawn still claimed the world. I couldn’t safely drive in the dimness, and the buses this far into the Glen wouldn’t be running yet. Unless I was going to wake someone for a ride, or call a cab, I’d have to wait a while. The graveyard shift at the morgue was also likely not the best time to show up.

A yawn caught me off guard, feeling like it all but cracked my face as I sucked down a huge lungful of air.

“Let me hold you, before I’m called away,” Death said, reaching out to tuck a curl behind my ear.

I couldn’t go anywhere for a while anyway, so in answer, I pulled the cover back and scooted over on the bed. He crawled in beside me, tucking us both in. And it did start with him holding me. But his warm hands on my waist, the familiar dew-like smell of him in my bed, the hard planes of his chest under my fingers—it didn’t stay just holding very long.

Much later, when the morning light streamed into my windows and we were both exhausted, but exhilarated, I fell asleep in his strong arms.

By the time I woke again. He was gone.