Dreamless

by Jenniffer Wardell

  If not on her magic, on her health. Every jab of pain seemed more than enough confirmation that it was somehow snagged in her physical body, though the limitations of the projection spell meant that she couldn’t see it. It was a great waste of research opportunity, she knew—she had never heard of such a thing happening, and it was an unparalleled opportunity to gather data—but she had no desire to spend even a second longer in the middle of this tangle than she had to.

  Suddenly, the thread of magic she had been working to free was pulled out of her hands, pain digging deep as something inside her was jarred. She opened her eyes, trying to figure out what had just happened, only to stare at the curse strand now lying snugly across the thread. She could have sworn her mother had lifted it out of her way only seconds before.

  Elena stared in horror as another strand appeared, wrapped crosswise over the first. Her hands stayed frozen in midair, incapable of movement as she watched all the hard work everyone had done slowly but surely disappear before her eyes. More pain came, the threads of her magic compressed and twisted anew under the weight of a curse that seemed to be rebuilding itself, but right then it was the least of her worries. Far more wrenching was the helpless sound torn from her mother’s throat, or the way she felt Cam tense behind her as if he could somehow absorb the blows for them both.

  By the time she managed to rip her eyes away from the knot, everyone else had turned to glare at Ariadne. Elena’s aunt was staring at the curse in blank-faced shock. “It’s not supposed to do this,” she said, answering everyone’s unspoken question. She turned to the queen desperate. “I swear to you, I—” Ariadne stopped, looking appalled, and turned back to stare at the curse. “It was supposed to last for a hundred years.” Her voice had dropped to a whisper. “Energy degrades after a time, and I didn’t want him to wake up early, so I—” She swallowed. “I forgot. It was such a small thing, intended for such a different context than this. I never meant—”

  “That doesn’t matter,” Cam snapped, the anger in his voice cutting through the room like a knife. “All we care about is what you’re going to do to fix it.”

  A wave of exhaustion washed over Elena, and for an instant she thought it was simply despair once again rearing its ugly head. When she felt Cam sag just a little, however, she realized the truth was far worse. “It’s getting its energy from us,” she managed, clutching Cam’s hand as if she could keep him awake through physical force. “The curse is pulling from me and Cam to remake itself.”

  Ariadne made a choked sound. “It wasn’t supposed to pull enough that anyone would notice! Just enough to renew itself against the natural ravages of time. But assault—” The words trailed off again, as if she couldn’t bear to finish the sentence.

  Out of the corner of her eye Elena could see her mother’s fingers curl, as if she was fighting the urge to lunge for her sister, but Bishop stepped forward and put a steadying hand on her shoulder. Alan stepped forward as well, positioning himself between the queen and her sister. “Think.” The word was an order, aimed at Ariadne with all the force of a blow. “There is no apology in the world that can save you if you let these two die.”

  “Speed is the only answer,” Braeth said instead, turning his magic into a clawed hand and yanking away an entire handful of the cursed strands. As soon as they disappeared he dug into it again, ripping at the knot as if the secrets of the world lay on the other side.

  Just as the second handful disappeared, however, Elena could see the strands from the first knot reappear. As Braeth’s skeletal hand reached for more she felt another wave of energy leave her, with Cam’s head dropping against her shoulder as if he could no longer hold it upright. Still, he kept flinching at pain she could barely feel, as above them both the knot pulsed green. He barely had the energy to sit up, pouring all of it into the knot so he would hurt instead of her. She reached back to grab him as if she could physically pull him up out of the energy­sucking tangle her mouth forming the words to tell Braeth he was killing them both.

  Before she could tell him, Ariadne stopped the wraith by grabbing the arm of his cloak. She yanked her hand away, burned by the freezing cold radiating out of him. “You’ll never be fast enough, and then their deaths will be on both of our hands,” she said, every ounce of her regained control wrapping the words in iron. “We need to cut off all of the curse’s magic at once, so it doesn’t have time to renew itself.”

  Dr. Flyte gasped, but Elena’s brain was too battered and desperate at this point to understand what was so shocking about what Ariadne had said. Elena’s mother, at least, seemed to have a piece of it. “You want to use the spell they put into the charms that nullify magic,” she said, voice strained. “But you know just as well as I do that they don’t nullify curses. All it would do was shut down the projection spell and keep us from having any idea what’s happening to them. It’s useless for something like this.”

  “When it’s used as a surface charm, yes.” Ariadne’s voice was empty, and she looked everywhere but at her sister. “But we would be injecting the spell straight into the heart of Elena’s and the curse’s magic. Since the curse is entirely made of magic, there won’t be anything left of it to re-boot itself.”

  The queen’s eyes flickered to Elena, then back to her sister. “You have no idea what it will do to my daughter’s magic, do you?” When Ariadne didn’t respond, she turned to Dr. Flyte. “Do any of us?”

  The mirror hesitated, clearly not wanting to answer. “The briar pattern Elena used in the protective circle should keep the spell from touching the rest of us, so we’ll at least be able to maintain some control.”

  The queen’s voice was cold as she turned back to her sister. “That’s not what I asked.”

  Braeth stepped in. “It’s impossible to calculate the dangers of something like this. I consider the blood-binding spell to be far more harmless.”

  “I don’t care.” Elena nearly shouted the words, the effort of forcing her lungs to work pushing itself out all at once. “I can’t take this anymore, and if the choice is between Cam or my magic I will pick him every single time. Do it.”

  Cam lifted his head, his self-sacrificial tendencies once again giving him strength at the most inopportune times. “No.” The word was a rasp, making her afraid for him all over again. “There has to be another way.”

  Elena turned her head just enough to glare at him, covering his mouth with her hand. “No. If you’re the one who gets to value my life, I get to value yours. You don’t get a say in this.”

  She saw the surprise light his eyes, even as exhaustion overtook them. The curse was still pulling from them both, trying to recover from their hours of work, and it was killing him. She tried restoring the balance, pushing her magic into him to take more of the load, but there was no corresponding flare of blue light. Here, apparently, his stubbornness would not be bent.

  Screaming at him inside her mind and loving him so much she could barely breathe, Elena turned back to her aunt. “Do it. Now.”

  She turned around, the better to hold onto Cam, as her aunt sketched the necessary symbols in the air. She lifted her hands out in front of her, as if pressing them against the surface of the protective circle, then pulled them back again. “No. This isn’t close enough.” Taking a deep breath, she stepped inside the protective circle and dug her fingers into the center of the ever growing knot. The reappearing curse strands wrapped around her, as if simply adding her to its mass.

  Cam’s own eyes were nearly closed now, but the knot still flared green again as if he knew what was coming. Elena pressed her lips against his hair, pulling him even closer against her. “Stop it, you idiot,” she whispered, her eyes filling. “Please.”

  Ariadne murmured the final incantation. The inside of the circle flared white, the result of the spell attempting to do its work in a far more magically volatile environment than it was ever meant for. Elena felt like she’d been
hit physically, a chill sweeping through her, but she just wrapped her arms tighter around Cam.

  When the light cleared, the projection had disappeared entirely. Her mother re-cast it quickly, the runes safely outside both the protective boundary and the effects of the magic-nullifying spell, and thin green threads reappeared almost instantly. There was a flickering blue in their depths, and for a second Elena was foolish enough to think everything would be alright.

  Then the green light started to fade, and an area of shadow she hadn’t noticed before started solidifying into a curse strand. “Again!” The word was torn out of Elena’s throat. “Harder!”

  Ariadne’s entire body seemed to flare with purple light, and the part of Elena’s brain not screaming about Cam realized that she was drawing almost all of her power to the surface. The nullifying spell would hit her almost as hard as it would Elena. Maybe harder, since she didn’t have Cam standing in the way.

  Elena felt more jostling, likely the result of her aunt sketching the necessary symbols straight onto the curse strands themselves. There was the faintest pulse of green light as Ariadne said the incantation again, making the entire inner circle flare bright enough to blind.

  By the time the spots had cleared from Elena’s eyes, her mother had already recast the projection circle. The blue threads were there, as strong and straight as if they’d never borne the weight of a curse, but the green light that had nearly covered them before had faded until it was almost impossible to see.

  The curse immediately forgotten, Elena tilted Cam back onto the workroom floor. His heartbeat was slowing down, the feel of his breath against her palm faint enough that she wasn’t certain if she was hallucinating. Not caring about anything else, Elena tried to shove energy at him through the bond. He was no longer conscious enough to stop her, and she felt weakness take her as her energy moved to fill in the terrible deficit.

  “If there was anything left of the curse, it would have started to return by now,” Ariadne said, sounding as exhausted as Elena felt. “It’s done. She’s finally free.”

  When Elena looked up again, however, she wasn’t looking at the empty spaces where the curse had once been. She was looking for the green light, still barely visible. It wasn’t fading anymore, but it wasn’t growing any stronger.

  She swayed, then felt her mother reach out to grab her shoulder. At the same time, the teal glow of her mother’s energy flowed into her, restoring her strength. She pushed that on as well, and the green light above her head brightened just a little. Soon gold light joined the teal, the two colors twined together by a careful hand. Elena looked up at Bishop, who had silently offered her mother use of his energy as well. The elf smiled at her, as if he heard the “thank you” she wished she could say.

  Then Cam’s mother stepped forward, her husband only a step behind her. “Us, too,” she said, and Elena reached out and murmured the words to carefully draw out their energy as well. It came twined together as well, grey-blue and vivid yellow, and she channeled it all into Cam. She could be more methodical about it now, the draining sensation fading as his body recovered, and Elena could have cried at the sight of the green light above her growing brighter.

  When Cam’s energy was as vivid as it had been before, she ended the spell and stopped pulling energy from his parents. Her mother cut off her own spell soon after, and Elena silently sent enough energy to all of them that they felt nothing more than a lingering tiredness. She kept less for herself, but she was more than strong enough to yell at Cam just as soon as he opened his eyes.

  But it wasn’t happening. His body was fine, nearly pulsing with all the energy she’d fed it, his breathing steady, but when she laid her hand against his chest his heartbeat was still far too slow. Regathering her magic, Elena prepared to start the process all over again.

  Then Braeth moved closer. “Let me.” He leaned forward, lightly touching the tip of his finger to Cam’s chest. She felt a jolt near her own heart, an echo of what he’d sent into the man she loved, but that was nothing compared to what filled her when Cam’s eyes flew open. He gasped, jerking upright into a sitting position, and before he could say a word, his arms were full of Elena.

  She wrapped her own arms around him, burying her face against his neck as he tightened his arms around her. Elena felt dizzy, still reeling from the sudden absence of the weight and worry that had been a part of her life for so long.

  No, not dizzy. She felt like she was flying.

  Cam’s head moved, and she could tell he was looking up at the now-clean projection. “That looks like we did it,” he said, voice rough. “Tell me that means we did it.”

  Elena closed her eyes, tears of happiness catching in her throat. “We did it.”

  Now

  Illiana was the second person to hug her daughter, holding on as tightly as Cameron had. The thousand things she needed to say caught in her throat, coming out only in tears that were dangerously close to sobs. Elena, her own cheeks streaked with tears, seemed to understand.

  Then the parents switched children, Cameron’s releasing him into Illiana’s embrace while they enfolded Elena into their arms. She had shared her daughter with them for a long time now, too grateful for their strength to let herself resent the hold they had on Elena’s heart, but now the families would be stitched together formally. In a way, they would be hers now as well.

  Cam seemed surprised by the strength of Illiana’s hold, but he hugged her back as tightly as any son who had been well-trained by his mother. When they pulled back, Illiana held his face in her hands. “I think I will very much enjoy having a son-in-law,” she whispered, her voice thick with emotion.

  His eyes were wet. “We can team up against Elena when she’s being too much of a handful.”

  Illiana laughed, hugging him again.

  Then she hugged the Merricks, both of them wrapping their arms around her in the exact same embrace they had given the children. No words were needed here, though she knew they would have many in the weeks and months that followed. She’d been as bound by the curse as Elena was, the idea of making friends impossible when all that was good in the world hung by such a slender thread, but now a future stretched out before her as well.

  As they pulled away, Marie squeezed her hand. “Let me give you my mirror code.” She grinned, the expression remarkably similar to her son’s. “I’m sure you already have Alan’s, but he’s a terrible conversationalist.”

  Alan simply smiled, the joke clearly an old one between them, and Illiana felt her throat close up with emotion as she squeezed both their hands. “Let me give you the one for my private line as well. I don’t want to miss anything.”

  She wrapped Dr. Flyte up in a hug as well, frame and all, and smiled at Braeth in a silent acknowledgement that she would do the same to him if it were physically possible. Elena had pulled Bishop into the exchange, throwing her arms around him with an exuberance she was certain the elf had never seen from her daughter. He hugged her back just as tightly, looking at Illiana with a wonder that threatened to make the queen’s heart burst from her chest.

  Surely she had the courage now. Illiana turned, ready to speak to her sister. She wasn’t quite certain if she was ready to embrace her—there was still so much between them, even after the successes of the last few moments, for anything so open and simple. But Illiana knew what Ariadne had offered up in that last, desperate burst of effort to save Elena, and why she had not participated in the energy sharing to save Cam. There could at least be peace between them, if nothing else.

  But when she looked, Ariadne’s space in the circle was empty. Her sister was nowhere in the workroom, the celebration having given her plenty of opportunity to slip away without anyone noticing. It was the simplest way to end things, with actions replacing the words that neither of them would ever say. Ariadne’s debt was repaid, if not precisely erased, and their place in one another’s lives could fold
gently into the past.

  Illiana touched Bishop’s arm, drawing the attention of both him and her daughter. “I’ll be right back.” Then she hurried out of the room.

  Ariadne was outside in the sunlit courtyard, just as Illiana had suspected she would be, making arrangements for transportation to a coach service that was headquartered in the city. When she saw her sister approach, Illiana thought she saw the barest flicker of sorrow in her eyes. “Everything is well, isn’t it?” Ariadne asked, the tremor of worry in her voice not entirely masked as she slipped her personal mirror back into her pocket. “The projection spell was still active when I left, and there was no sign that the curse had returned. I know I have gotten a great many things wrong in all of this, but here at least I have the physics of magic to confirm my hypothesis.”

  Overcome, Illiana crossed the rest of the distance between them, reaching out to take her sister’s hands. “I know what you did,” she said softly.

  Ariadne took a deep breath. “It was nothing. Given the time window we were facing, half-measures would have been even more harmful than doing nothing.”

  She no longer knew what to say to her, the anger inside her drained away to make room for the new joy. She wasn’t used to wanting to say anything kind to her sister, the feeling of instincts she’d thought long dead slowly creaking back into life.

  The words that came weren’t the ones she had expected. “Your magic will come back,” she reassured Ariadne, not certain whether or not she was lying. No one had ever released a negation spell of that strength with the heart of their power so exposed. Cam had protected Elena’s magic—another debt she owed him—but Ariadne had taken the full brunt of it. “It just needs a little time.”

  Ariadne smiled a little, her face open in a way Illiana hadn’t seen for a very long time. “It doesn’t matter whether it does or not.” She sounded tired, but her smile widened slightly. “My power is the least of what I owed you both. If I can look at my husband and step-granddaughter without a weight upon my heart, it will be enough.”