by Noree Cosper
“They would still be connected to the Well,” the Sandman said.
“But they’d no longer have to feed,” Colin said.
“And they’d be dependent on the half-breeds,” I said. “They’ll most likely try to enslave them instead of witches.”
“Then we make sure that doesn’t happen,” Colin said.
“As much as I would like to push my plan forward, we have a direr situation,” the Sandman said. “Nimue has managed to create her own pseudo-well with her Dreamless. She now has a separate source of power.”
“I thought they couldn’t be put to sleep,” Colin said.
“Dreamless is a misnomer,” the Sandman said. “She has put them in a sleep state.”
A chill ran up my spine. “And she’s feeding off their devotion to her.”
The Sandman nodded. “She intends to use that power to take control of the Dreamlands. The other Fae would be hesitant to fight her because use of heavy magic in fighting would deplete the entire faction.”
I gulped. “How the hell can she be stopped, then?”
He smiled and landed next to the pool. “I can connect the both of you to the Well. You will no longer depend on our, your parents, magic, but have access to Fae magic. Which you should be able to replenish. You will also have your witchcraft. A mixture of magic she won’t expect.”
Colin stepped forward with his shoulders straight and an eagerness in his eyes. “I’m all for it. Having no Fae magic sucks.”
The Sandman and Colin looked in my direction.
I dug my heels in the grassy ground and crossed my arms. “No.”
The Sandman blinked at me. “No?”
I threw my hands in the air. “You’ve lied to me all this time and now you expect me to just go along with your plans? Not no, but hell no.”
“I didn’t exactly lie to you,” he said. “I did tell you my name was Morpheus. That is one of my names.”
“You kept what you really were a secret from me. That’s close enough. And you got Mom to lie to me about my heritage.” I paused to take a breath and glared around at the grove. “And what was the point of going to Bedlam when you could have taken us here in the first place?”
“I needed to speak with Diawl and warn him about what Nimue has done,” the Sandman said.
“Diawl?”
“My son.” He touched his forehead with a sigh. “He’s taken to calling himself the Prince of Darkness. He needed to know that Nimue has my other son, Anawn, the Prince of Dreams as you know him, under her spell.”
I gritted my teeth. “So that was a trick, as well. This whole time you have been manipulating me.”
“You weren’t ready to know the truth.” The Sandman narrowed his eyes at me. “The way you are acting, I’m still not sure if you are ready, but we have little choice at this point.”
“You know what? You can find someone else to be your savior. Colin seems more than willing.” With that, I spun around and stomped off through the trees.
The grove was deceiving in its size. The trees seemed to go on forever. After twenty minutes of tramping through them, I stopped and kicked the trunk of a large oak tree with a frustrated yell. I sat down and leaned against it as I caught my breath. From this point, the Well was no longer visible. I closed my eyes and rubbed my face with a groan.
My trounce had been childish and pretty trivial with everything that was happening, but I didn’t care at this point. My heart burned, filling me up to the point I wanted to scream and break things.
My mother had lied to me. I wasn’t just some Fae blooded witch. I was the daughter of the King of Dreams. His grand plan for bringing Fae and witches together. It wasn’t going to work. I didn’t even know how to stand up to Nimue. How’d he expect me to stand up to an entire caste of Fae?
The snapping of a branch echoed from my right. I popped my head up as my hand went to the knife in my boot. Colin stood a few feet away, holding two oranges.
“Peace offering?” he asked.
A smile came to my lips, despite my anger, and I nodded, waving him over. He slid down beside me and handed me an orange. My fingernails dug into to the soft, bumpy skin as I peeled it away. The sweet, tangy juice filled my mouth. We ate in silence for several minutes, listening to the wind rustle the leaves and the birds call out to one another.
“You know, I used to hate oranges when I was a child,” Colin said. “Mai would always make me eat them, for my health, she said. Now, they’re not so bad.”
I dropped the remainder of the peel on the ground and wiped my fingers on my pants, licking the juice off my lips. “What was it like? Growing up there.”
He shrugged as he rubbed his hand together. “Not much to tell. I mean I had lessons from my father and the other Fae. Mostly, I just hung out, read, played with the witches.”
I raised a brow at the word played.
He chuckled at my expression. “Played as a kid does. And well, later, yeah what you’re thinking. When I was old enough to go out on my own I took up a job of trading supplies to the Respite along with the triplets.”
I sighed and leaned my head back against the tree. “Your life was pretty privileged. Mine wasn’t. After Mom died, all I had was Morphy and Dylan.”
“Dylan?”
“My boyfriend.”
“Oh, Dreamless guy has a name, huh?”
I elbowed him with a glare and he shot me a smirk.
“I lost Dylan to Nimue. And now with Morphy…” I pressed my forehead to my knee. “It’s just too much.”
The warm weight of Colin’s arm settled on my shoulders and he pulled me close. “Hey, I get it. The things your parents keep from you can rock your whole world, and not in a good way.”
I chuckled into my knee. “Yeah.”
“Still, what The Sandman is offering can help everyone in our world. It can free the witches.”
“Or just change their servitude into breeders,” I said. “And then the half-breeds will be forced to maintain the Well.”
“We can make sure that doesn’t happen,” he said.
“Changing the society on that scale? You know this won’t happen in our lifetime.”
“Depends on how long that is,” he said. “Besides, every movement has to start somewhere, right? Otherwise, things will never change.”
“How do we even begin?” I asked.
“By getting witches on our side,” he said. “And my dad still has influence with several Fae. First, we’ve got to handle Nimue.”
“Handle her,” I barked out a bitter laugh. “How are we supposed to do that?”
“Besides connecting to the Well? The Mara’s book probably has some spells that might be useful. Or your dad might know some things.”
I shook my head with a snort. “If he knew, why didn’t he stop her in the first place?”
Colin shrugged. “Don’t know. But I have another reason you should connect to the Well.”
“What?”
“Do you really want to be stuck depending on his magic for the rest of your life?”
I flicked one of the orange peels with my thumb and middle finger as I mulled over his words. My Fae magic, the stuff I used the most, was tied to Morpheus and always had been. If I somehow lost him, or he decided to cut me off, I’d be stuck without my Fae magic and my witch magic still sucked.
I stood up, wiping my hands on my pants again. “Fine. I’ll do it. At least it will be one more thing I’ll be free of.”
He grinned and got up. “You’ll love it. It’s a rush I’ve never felt before.”
I blinked. “You’re already connected?”
“Yeah,” he said. “It doesn’t take that long. Not really much of a ritual, I guess since we’re at the Well and he’s the Sandman.”
“Let’s get this over with, then.”
I’d taken two steps when an explosion rocked through the grove. It shook the trees to their roots, and the birds fell into a frightened silence. A plume of smoke rose in the air in the directio
n of the Well.
21
With my bow in hand, I raced through the trees towards the smoke, my footfalls seeming to mimic the beat of my heart. Colin kept pace alongside me. We broke through the tree line of the copse surrounding the Well.
Chunks of smoking rock lay scattered across the grass, sending up a burnt mineral stench. The Sandman had taken the shape of Morphy and flew a screeching defiance at the same twelve Dreamless Nimue had tried to use to help her open the portal.
Morphy flew down and released a gout of purple fire. One Dreamless raised one hand with his palm out and put the other in a fist against the first with the thumb side against the palm. A translucent rainbow pattern formed in a semi-circle around the twelve and Morphy’s flames guttered upon it. This had to be the one who created the barriers before.
I pulled Colin back into the trees and motioned with my head to sneak behind them. The barrier probably only worked in the front. We snuck through the trees until we could see their backs.
I raised my bow, nocked an arrow, and let it fly. It embedded in the back of one Dreamless and he dropped. One down, eleven to go. His fall caught the attention of two others. They turned and one shouted. Seven more faced our direction.
Great.
Colin pulled his gun. “Nice shot. Definitely better at that than the knife.”
I cast him a glare. “Shut up and shoot.”
He fired off three shots in quick succession. The first two hit a Dreamless in the shoulder and the last hit his gut. The Dreamless doubled over, clutching his stomach, and dropped to his knees.
Three of the Dreamless raised their hands in an L shape and chanted under their breath. The others pulled guns of their own and fired. I dove behind a tree. I pressed my back against the tree, covering my ears with my hands, as the boom of gunshots echoed through the grove. Bullets embedded into the trees and ground where Colin had stood. Yards away, Colin had taken up a similar position as me. He glanced to where he’d been standing and looked back at me with wide eyes.
The deadly rain ended in time for the shout of the three chanting Dreamless to reverberate. The trees around us shook and groaned. Small mounds of dirt rose from the ground and popped open. The tree roots slithered out and moved to wrap around my legs. I kicked one away with a scream and tried to roll away from the tree. Two of the roots snatched my ankles and one wrapped around my legs. My fingers dug into the dirt, ripping bits of grass, as I was dragged towards the Dreamless.
One of the chanters lowered his face mask, revealing himself as Dylan. He kneeled down beside me and brushed my damp hair away from my face. Two of the Dreamless flanked him with their guns pointed into the forest.
“You should give up,” Dylan said. “If you come peacefully, we won’t have to kill the Fae boy. You care for him, right? He’s your lover?”
My lips parted as my hand went to rest on my collarbone, where my amulet lay.
“Don’t get me wrong. I’m not upset,” Dylan said. “I have all the love in the world with the mistress. And you will too. All you have to do is accept her.”
“Like hell I will.” My fingers dug into the fibers of my shirt until I could feel the engraving of the amulet. “Blow, wind, blow. Make this man go.”
Like in the room in Bedlam, the air rippled in front of me. A force lifted Dylan off the ground and sent him flying towards the Well. He slammed into the barrier and bounced to the ground. The other two Dreamless raised their guns to me. Colin popped out from his hiding spot behind a large oak and fired twice. Red spots appeared in their chest and they fell.
More gunshots rang out and bullets flew over my head from the Dreamless who had their guns out. Colin dove back behind the trees. The two Dreamless that had been fighting Morphy turned our direction and joined the two casters. Their arms swept up in an over-the-head pinwheel motion as they chanted.
I kicked my legs, snapping away the now inert roots around my knees and ankles, and reached under my shirt to grip the amulet. “Rock and stone are falling down, falling down. Rock and stone are falling down, says this fair lady.”
The ground rumbled under the Dreamless. Their guns and hands waved in the air as they staggered about trying to gain their footing. I pushed away the last of the roots and climbed to my feet, panting.
Morphy flew down to hover next to me. He released a torrent of flame at the Dreamless. The fire caught three of them full on and spread from their chests to their arms. They screamed, batting at their arms and legs. One of the Dreamless Morphy had missed aimed his gun at Morphy and pulled the trigger.
The bullet ripped into the little dragon’s chest. His eyes bulged and his wings gave two last beats before he fell from the air. I screamed, leaping forward to catch him before he hit the ground.
A shudder ran through the earth extending from the Well. The smooth surface shifted and bubbled, the silver bleeding away to leave crimson in its wake. A bright flash of light started from the pool and filled my vision.
In an instant, the warmth of the grove disappeared and was replaced with a bone-chilling wetness. When I opened my eyes, I stood in the snow at the foot of a mountain ridge with Morphy cradled in my arms.
I wasn’t sure if I had caused it to happen, or if the Dreamless who shot Morphy had done it. Either way, the Well seemed to have banished us. I had no idea how to get back.
22
I cradled Morphy’s trembling body in the crook of my arm as I pressed my back to a rock outcropping near the base of the mountain. The cover blocked the onslaught of wind and sleet that rained down on us. All my stuff, including what I needed to help Morphy, was in my bag inside the grove we’d been banished from.
Blood gushed between my fingers as I covered Morphy’s wound with my hand. “Stay with me…Dad.”
He coughed and his body convulsed into a spasm. “You have to get back to the grove. I can use the Well to heal.”
“I could just use a spell to heal you,” I said.
“This wound is much worse,” he said. “Save our magic for getting to the Well.”
“How am I supposed to do that?” I asked. “I don’t even know where the tunnels we went through are.”
I squatted down and balanced him on my knees. He needed to have something to stop the bleeding. I ripped the bottom of my shirt and wrapped it around his wound.
“You’ve been there. Concentrate and use your teleportation spell that you used to get away from the guards in Bedlam.”
I closed my eyes, envisioning the silver pool surrounded by trees. The ground had been ruptured from our fight with the Dreamless. My hand wrapped around my amulet.
“You don’t need to hold that piece of wood, you know. Your magic doesn’t come from there.”
I lowered my hands, but fingers twitched. No, it felt too weird. I grasped the amulet again. “So many miles to Babylon. But our heels are nimble and light.”
“Look out,” Morphy cried.
I spun around just as Dylan lunged at me from around the rock.
I sputtered the last words. “So, we will get there by magic-light.”
Dylan’s hand closed on my arm as the white faded to black. After a flash of yellow, we tumbled and rolled into the grass of the grove. Morphy toppled out of my arms and came to a stop near the edge of the pool. My breath locked up at the sudden shift from freezing to warm. Dylan flipped me onto my back and trapped my arms to the ground with his knees.
One of his hands closed around my neck. “No more casting that weird shit for you.”
I glanced at Morphy who flopped on his back, unable to roll over. He’d said I didn’t need it. Dylan pulled up his mask and inhaled.
The rhyme tumbled from my mouth as I pictured the air thickening and pushing at Dylan. “Blow, wind, blow. Make this man go.”
The spell hit him, not with the same force as normal, but enough to knock him off of me. He landed on the ground a couple of feet from me and got to his hand and knees with a groan. I rolled up and hopped to my feet in one fluid motion. I hiked
my leg back and kicked him in the stomach. Dylan wrapped his arms around his stomach with a cry.
I glanced around, panting. The bastard couldn’t be knocked out, but there had to be something that could bind him. My gaze landed on the bits of root scattered around the grass.
“Apple tree, Oak tree. Swing for me.” I pointed at the branches. “Twist your limbs to and fro, so this man does not go.”
The trees swayed at my command. Their limbs stretched to Dylan, lengthening. His eyes widened and he scrambled to his feet with a scream, but he was too late. A branch speared through his clothes, pinning him to the ground. Others surrounded him and dug their tips deep in the dirt to form a cage with gaps barely two fingers wide. Two branches wrapped around his arms and held them to the ground, preventing any spellcasting. Dylan struggled at the wood holding him down, but they wouldn’t move.
“Let me out,” he yelled.
“Yeah, like that’s going to work.” I turned away from him.
I rushed towards Morphy and lifted him from the ground. His mouth opened and closed in a silent gasp as his legs wiggled. The strip of my shirt around his chest had soaked through, turning red. The grove around us was empty except for the three of us. The Well must have banished everyone from it, including the bodies of the fallen Dreamless.
“Tell me what I need to do,” I said.
“Place me in the Well,” he said, wincing.
I waded in with him in my arms. The liquid tickled, like warm, tiny bubbles against my skin. I lay him in the water and a silver glow surrounded him. He once again took on the amorphous form that shifted into the Sandman. His skin had taken a chalk like pallor and blood drifted from the wound on his side. I swallowed the lump in my throat. He had to be all right. I couldn’t lose him. There was too much we hadn’t said to each other.
He groaned and touched the wound on his side. His hand came away with the metal bullet in his palm. I gulped, bile rising in my throat, and looked away towards Dylan.
“You can still save him,” the Sandman said with a shaky voice.
