Dreamless

by Jenniffer Wardell

  Cameron just laughed. “Remind me to get you out into the sparring ring at some point. If your mother asks, we’ll call it self-defense training.”

  Without anything to push back against, Elena felt the righteous anger she’d been gathering slip through her fingers. She clung to it, intent on making Cameron respond to something in a way that made sense to her. “So I defied you, snuck out, presumably made you steal what had to be the quietest horse in the stables to chase me out here, and yet somehow you’ve decided this is all wonderful news.” She’d gotten him shouting before, and he had to be exhausted right now. It shouldn’t take too much work to make him yell at her again. “Did you hit your head when you were riding after me?”

  He shook his head, still looking far too pleased about the whole thing. “That ice princess routine isn’t going to work anymore, Princess. Game’s up.”

  Elena didn’t understand what he was talking about, but that didn’t stop a thin trickle of panic from working its way through her chest. “You’re babbling.”

  “And you sneak out of your room at night to go flying through the forest when no one else can see you.” He watched her face, looking for a reaction. “I bet you even do loop-de-loops.”

  She loved doing loops. “Don’t be absurd.”

  Triumph lit Cameron’s eyes. “I knew it.” Mercifully, he turned to scan the forest around them. “I used to fight ogres.”

  It was exhausting trying to keep up with the man. “When you were with the border guards?”He snorted as he turned back to look at her. “No, when I was twelve, on nights I couldn’t sleep, I’d sneak out into the shed Dad used for practice and use one of his staves to beat up on the practice bag. In my head, though, I was saving a town from a ravaging ogre. I did a pretty good impression of a cheering crowd.” He laughed. “Still do, actually.”

  For just a second, she could see him as that little boy, hitting a practice bag with all the determination he was currently pouring into driving her insane. “And you think this is my version of your late-night practice fights? That I’m living out some secret fantasy of being a dragon I haven’t told anyone about?”

  Cameron cocked his head to one side, looking at her as if trying to sort out a riddle. “At what point did you decide that there wasn’t a single person in the entire kingdom you could relax around?”

  Elena had hoped that being able to loom over him in midair would give her some advantage, but if anything he seemed even more determined to control the conversation than usual. She let her feet touch the ground, murmuring the word that would shut off the spell. “I find your father very relaxing.”

  “See, I know you’re lying now, because I know my dad.” His voice was easy, and no matter how much she wanted to Elena couldn’t detect even a hint of frustration. “But nice try.”

  Unfortunately, he was doing a wonderful job at annoying her. “You may know your father, but you don’t know me at all.” She lifted her chin, aware they were arguing in circles. Flying off in a huff, however, would only relocate the conversation someplace where too many people would overhear it. “You’re in no position to decide whether or not I find something relaxing.”

  Cameron pulled his hands out of his pockets. “If you were the ice princess you try so hard to seem like, you would have come out here in the first place solely as some sort of annoying mind game. When I showed up, you would have said something cutting about my reflexes or my reaction time and flown off again. Which is why I brought the rope.” He moved toward her suddenly, and when she stepped back he reached out and plucked something off the top of her head. When he pulled his hand back, he was holding a single leaf. “You definitely wouldn’t risk getting leaves in your hair, or touch all the branches as you flew by like you were telling them hello.”

  She hadn’t been aware she did that. “I still defied you.”

  “Yeah, but now I’m starting to understand why you did it, and since it’s for the exact reason I would have I can’t be too annoyed about it.” Cameron said, dropping the leaf. “I’m not gonna start yelling at you, so you might as well stop trying to push me into it. I will ask how you pulled off the flying trick, though.”

  Her first stubborn impulse was not to tell him, but there was no reason not to. “I enchanted the leather with the basic spell witches use to make their brooms fly,” she said, lifting up her tunic just far enough to give him a look at the harness. “Then I tweaked it for more directional mobility, and added the leather bracelets to improve the guidance system.”

  Cameron looked impressed. “Would the bracelets work on their own? Like if a squirrel stole one, would he have his own little magical flying belt?”

  Elena’s lips twitched at the image, though she did her best to repress the response. “I hooked all of the enchantments together, so one won’t work without the other. That fact can be fairly annoying when I misplace one of the bracelets, but it’s safer in the long run.”

  “Probably true.” He hesitated. “I feel I should probably warn you that Robbie knows you can fly now. He’ll be polite about it, but he’ll pester you until you indulge him in a full-on technical discussion of every single tweak you made. He’ll take a lot of notes, and maybe even bow.”

  “Robert? Really?” Cameron’s brother was only a year or so younger than she was, and Elena had always thought of him as the safest of the Merrick siblings. They’d had a few discussions about magic over the years, but nothing too terribly involved. “I’d be happy to.”

  “See? This is why I can’t be mad at you.” He nodded, satisfied. “Whenever we were forced to be in the same room before, you’d just sit there all stiff and quiet like you didn’t know how to interact with the rest of us.Every time I tried to draw you in, you’d freeze me out.”

  “I was always perfectly polite to you,” Elena said.

  “Politeness can be its own weapon.”Cameron sounded amused. “Now that I find out you’re using it to hide a playful side, though, I’m seeing it in a whole new light.”

  The panic was back, and as usual it made her voice sharp. “Because you think you know some big secret about me? For all you know, this whole inner life you’re so sure you see in me is nothing more than a construct inside your own head.”

  He smirked. “Another thing I’ve figured out about you. You bluff with absolutely no cards in your hand, which can be either frustrating or funny depending on my mood.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. It would serve him right if she did start being honest with him. A few weeks of hearing all the details of her life and he’d be begging her to go back to the “ice princess routine” he was so dismissive of.

  As Elena turned the thought over in her head, it started to genuinely sound like a pretty good idea. It wouldn’t be quite as easy as it sounded, of course. His father could handle the occasional morbid joke without becoming uncomfortable, which meant she’d have to dump everything on Cameron’s head to have any chance of properly scaring him off.

  The thought sent panic sliding through her chest again, a cold slither that felt like a warning. But he clearly wasn’t going to give up and wander away on his own, and it didn’t seem like she had another option. “Maybe I am quite sweet and sensitive in reality.” Her voice was sugar sweet as she spoke. “When I start crying in the middle of the night, should I knock on your door so you can come comfort me?”

  She had the distinct satisfaction of seeing his eyes go wide for a second. It didn’t matter how tough a man was—a crying woman rattled every single one of them. “You have crying fits in the middle of the night?”

  “You tell me.” Elena folded her arms across her chest. “After all, you’re the one who knows me so well.”

  He made an exasperated noise. “Look, the verbal sparring is fun, but it’s giving you the wrong impression. I can promise you I have no interest in reading your psyche or walking you through some confrontational therapy mumbo jumbo.” He hel
d his hands out in a “What can you do?” gesture, looking far more tired and harried than furious. “I just want to spend the next six weeks without feeling like I offended you by existing. I don’t like that feeling, and I definitely don’t like the fact that feeling that way makes me want to yell at people.”

  For some reason, it was incredibly hard for her to stay mad at the man. “All I asked was that we leave each other alone. After spending the entire evening arguing with me, I would think you’d jump at the opportunity.”

  “Normal people don’t stop talking when they leave each other alone!” Cameron moved closer, expression suggesting that he was seriously thinking about shaking her. “Sure, you tiptoe around the really painful stuff if they want, but random, pleasant conversation about the weather, crazy families or what you did over the weekend is a basic part of being a human being.” He took a deep breath, deliberately making himself calm down. “And, now that I’m 100 percent certain you are a human being, I’m going to wait patiently until you figure that out, too.”

  Ignoring the frisson of worry that snuck through her, she tightened her jaw. “I don’t believe you’re capable of being patient.”

  “Okay, relatively patient.” He smiled again, the charm firmly back in place. “Will it help if I answer the question you asked Braeth earlier?”

  Her brow furrowed at the sudden change in topic. “What question?”

  “Why everyone likes seeing you upset.” When she narrowed her eyes at him, he shrugged. “I’m serious. I haven’t interviewed the ‘everyone’ you were referring to, but my guess is that seeing you shout is the only time they have any idea what’s going on inside your head.”

  Elena huffed. “You just think that way because your family’s insane. You’re all far too comfortable talking about your feelings.”

  His responding grin was warm and genuine, though Elena wasn’t entirely certain she’d been joking. “We’ve been called insane for a lot of reasons, but never that.” He turned around, looking back in the direction where he’d presumably left the horse. “So, have I annoyed you enough you’ll be flying back, or did you want to hang out here a few more hours?”

  “Don’t think you have to lose sleep because of me,” Elena said carefully, the warning bells going off in her head. “Alan was usually home with Marie during my flying trips, and I’m so wrapped up in protective spells it’s practically impossible for someone to kidnap me.”

  He met her eyes. “Do any of those spells fly you home if you have one of your blackout episodes in midair?”

  Elena didn’t bother trying to answer, not wanting to admit that she hadn’t thought of that. “I’ll see you back at the castle.” She re-activated the spell, pushing herself upward. “We’ll re-visit the question of whether or not you’re coming with me next time when I have some actual evidence to argue with.”

  Looking not at all bothered by this prospect, Cameron he headed back to his horse. Our of the corner of her eye, she could see him wave at her as she flew off.

  The idea that he was following her back, that he’d notice if she fell, was a weirdly comforting one. She firmly ignored it.

  Summer

  19 years ago

  Illiana didn’t think of herself as evil, though she had all the training and proper certification to advertise that she was. As her older sister Ariadne put it, being “evil” simply meant that you attracted a more interesting range of clients and were exempt from the normal community service requirements.

  Having only recently graduated, Illiana had little firsthand experience with clients of any sort. She was currently working as an assistant to her sister, handling research duties and providing a second pair of hands for more complicated spells. Ariadne, who had already been practicing independently for a few years, dealt directly with customers and handled the creative experimentation that had given her such a long client list. Both sisters were happy with the arrangement, which appealed to their personal strengths.

  Illiana had first been promised the job when she was nine years old, a blood-oath made by a twelve-year old Ariadne in her first throes of passion over what she swore was her destined profession. She had said as much to their parents only hours before, interrupting an evening cocktail with other elegantly dressed people to do so. Their indifference to the news, a common response when it came to their inconvenient children, had infuriated Ariadne into a spectacular rant about her professional future.

  “I’ll be the greatest sorceress the world has ever seen!” she had shouted, throwing out her arms wide. “And not a stupid good one, either. No one tells evil sorceresses not to do something because people will gossip about it. Evil sorceresses love gossip.”

  It was Illiana’s job to be the audience to such proclamations, a duty she was always happy to fulfill when it came to her sister. The world was full of people infinitely more bright and shiny than she was, and Ariadne was the only one who ever tried to include her little sister in the glow. “Don’t you have to be scary to be an evil sorceress?” Illiana asked then, a pillow clutched tight against her chest. “I want to be one, too, but I don’t know if I can be scary.”

  Ariadne had seemed a little startled at that, as if she’d forgotten anyone else was in the room. Then she’d jumped down from the dresser she’d been standing on and sat next to Illiana on the bed. “I’ll be scary for both of us, and you can help me with stuff,” Ariadne said, putting an arm around her little sister. “We’ll be the greatest evil sorceresses the world has ever seen.”

  A decade later, it was still the best offer Illiana had ever received. Ariadne had her own tower, payment for one of her more spectacular jobs, and she’d given her little sister an entire suite of rooms and free run of the well-stocked library. Illiana had been in the library for most of the afternoon, researching illnesses that could be induced by sorcery and were almost, but not quite, fatal.

  She had just started her notes on a curse that would make everything a person ate taste like spoiled milk when Ariadne burst into the room. “Ana!” There was a slight theatrical edge to her voice that meant she wasn’t in any genuine distress. “You’re the only one who can save me!”

  Smiling slightly, Illiana carefully finished the sentence she’d started before looking up. “Have the ravens gotten out of their cages again?”

  “No, nothing so boring as that.” Long black sleeves fluttering as she made a dismissive gesture, Ariadne dropped down into the seat opposite Illiana’s. “I’ve got a client that’s going to make our fortunes, but I’ve run into a bit of a snag.”

  Illiana’s brow furrowed. “I thought you weren’t taking clients for a little while so you could focus on a special project.”

  “This is the special project! I didn’t want to tell you about it until I was sure it would be as fabulous as I hoped.” Ariadne leaned forward across the table, the excitement in her voice entirely at odds with her precise upsweep of white-blond hair. Illiana often wondered if she was the only person her sister allowed herself to be giddy with. “We’re going to curse a king.”

  Illiana hesitated. “Killing royalty brings powerful enemies, Ari, especially if whoever hired us makes sure the blame falls on us as well.”

  Ariadne’s eyes narrowed, her voice dark enough that it sent a chill through Illiana. “Oh, I’ve taken care of that.” Then her expression cleared again. “Besides, we’re not going to kill him. I’ve been working on this genius curse that will keep him asleep for a hundred years. The second cousin once removed can cry with everyone else when he takes the throne, making solemn promises that he won’t rest until a cure is found for his poor whoever it is.”

  Personally, Illiana preferred the curses that involved giving someone boils or terrible fashion sense. Ariadne always told Illiana that she thought too small. “What will he do if someone does find a cure? Wandering princesses are less common than princes, but the odds are that someone will try and convince the c
urse that this sleeping king is her true love.”

  “That’s the best part!” Ariadne dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, delight evident in every line of her face. “The first thing I did was disconnect the True Love’s Kiss trigger. Unless some sorceress can make it through all my shields and unwind my whole knot by hand, there is no cure for this curse!”

  Illiana blinked, a little unnerved by her sister’s happiness. Ariadne, however, would have no interest in hearing about that. “You’d be known as the most ruthless evil sorceress in all the kingdoms.” She reminded herself that such a reputation would be a clear advantage in their business, and that evil sorceresses weren’t supposed to care about being seen as horrible people. “I’m not sure I see where you need me, though.”

  Now Ariadne’s expression turned frustrated. “I need to tie the curse into the king’s blood. It’s the only key deep enough to make the spell truly unbreakable, but I have no idea how to actually get some.”

  “Why not the second cousin who hired you? Family blood is a common enough substitute.”

  Ariadne shook her head. “The connection is too distant between them for his blood to be any good. If that was my only option, I might as well just tie the curse to the king’s hair and be done with it.” Then she tilted her head to the side, lowering it just enough that she could look up at her sister. She didn’t flutter her eyelashes—it was too much of a joke between them—but she did widen her eyes just a little. “Lucky for me, I have an incredibly smart sister who can pretend to be one of the scholars the king allows to use the palace library. You’ll get a sample of his blood and bring it back to me, and I’ll make sure everyone knows we created the curse together.”

  Illiana hesitated. She’d never admit to her sister, but she didn’t like dealing with either client or their targets. She’d met a few of their clients, and most of them seemed like the kind of people who could stand to have a few more painful swelling boils in their lives. It had been hard to do the research for those assignments, though she’d never told her sister about it. She hadn’t wanted to disappoint her.