Dark Consort

by Amber R. Duell

  But nothing worked.

  Rowan was off me. My hands were around her throat, and the pain registered behind a brick wall. She slammed me into one of the Keep’s walls. Her wings rose higher. Shifted. The tips pointed at me. And then Rowan screeched.

  With her grip loosened, I scrambled away, gasping for air, and my limbs slowly returned to me. What was that? My heart became heavier with each beat. Kail stood in the center of the room with half of Rowan’s right wing in his hands, and Halven slipped in front of his brother in a protective stance. My mind scrambled to find a solution, but my thoughts were twisted with the agony of Rowan’s touch. I was just now able to feel the terror at having my body stolen away.

  Rowan shot to her feet. I punched her again. She sailed sideways, her head cracking against the wall, and slumped to the floor, knocked out.

  “Tie her up somewhere before she regains consciousness,” I croaked to Halven. He was covered from head to toe, making him the only one of us who could safely touch her. I needed a minute to still my shaking body and relearn how to move properly. “Then find me something to kill her with.”

  Halven nodded and swept across the room, where he gripped Rowan by the crown of raven beaks adhered to the top of her head, dragging her from the room. Her intact wing snagged on the door frame. With one swift kick from Halven, the offending piece of burnt branch crumbled into ash, and the two of them disappeared down the hall. And, just like that, I was alone with Kail. Without a single idea of what to say or how to act.

  “You’re picking up on the whole grand entrance thing,” Kail said after a long, heavy moment. “I had ideas on how to teach you that particular skill, but I suppose this will have to do.”

  I cut him a sharp look. “You’re welcome.”

  “For?” he asked in a pained voice.

  “Saving your life.”

  He laughed and slid down the wall to sit beside me. When had I sat down? “I’m pretty sure I saved your life,” he said lightly.

  “What?” I blurted, and he tossed the broken branch at our feet. “That doesn’t count. Halven and I didn’t have to sneak in here, you know. We could’ve let Rowan kill you and gone for the stump instead.”

  “You didn’t have to save me, true.” He sighed and dabbed carefully at his bruising jaw.

  I opened my mouth to say I should’ve let him die, but swallowed the words. Kail’s cheek was already swelling, and there was a huge dent in the mask above his right temple. Each shallow breath ended with a crackle. Bones in one of his hands jutted out at unnatural angles, and scratches marked the side of his neck—yet still he hadn’t told Rowan where I was. My note hadn’t been very specific, of course, but he could’ve told her that I would be back. To hide and ambush me when I walked through the door. There had to be a million ways to double-cross me just waiting inside his head.

  I cleared my throat and shifted to kneel in front of him. “This doesn’t change anything,” I said carefully. “If you told me about the tree sooner, none of this would’ve happened.”

  He gave me a sad smile. “I didn’t protect you to change anything.”

  “Then why? You could’ve easily played your cards to save yourself.”

  “I told you.” He coughed and clutched at his ribs. “I have my reasons.”

  I rolled my eyes. “When I got here, you said these ulterior motives of yours depended on my humanity, which I assume means you’ll want a favor one day. You might as well fess up while I’m feeling generous.”

  He closed his eyes and licked the corner of his cracked lip. “Perceptive.”

  When he didn’t elaborate, I bit down on my tongue. Later. When Rowan wasn’t tied up in the other room—when she was dead. “I need gloves. And a turtleneck, maybe. Does your brother have spare masks lying around?”

  Kail cracked his eyes open, unamused. “Do you have spare faces lying around?”

  I opened my mouth, only to shut it again. Touché. “Are you going to help me kill her or not? I need to be able to touch her without worrying about her shredding my insides again.”

  “I’m afraid I’ll have to sit this one out.” He winced. “But you’re welcome to raid my closet for gloves. Or, you know, take the easy route and use the gun in your bag.”

  “You went through my stuff?” I shouted. Lies. Snooping. More lies. It shouldn’t surprise me, but he’d made such a big deal out of my trusting him. And he’d actually succeeded to a degree. I stared at him as his muscles twitched beneath his skin, and my anger left in a whoosh. He bore the pain well—well enough that I knew it wasn’t his first rodeo. After decades—maybe longer—at Rowan’s side, how could it be? He deserved to watch her die. I licked my lips. If I could heal Four, I could heal him too. I pressed my hand against his chest before I could change my mind.

  Kail jerked. “What are you doing?”

  “Shut up,” I snapped, then called on the grin.

  It unfurled, and the magic flowed from my fingertips, finding Kail’s knotted thread without a drop of effort. The thread throbbed against the magic, and the grin did the work, as always. It tucked gold fibers back in place, smoothed down snagged bits, and molded it all back into a neat ball. Except for the frayed end—that still dangled helplessly. I nudged the magic at it, but Kail pushed my hand away.

  “Not that,” he said hoarsely.

  I looked him in the eyes and startled. His blue eye flashed colors in unison with the other. “Your eye is better,” I whispered.

  “About time,” he muttered, though he couldn’t seem to help the boyish glint that surfaced in his irises. He stood. “Come on, Lady.”

  He was halfway through the door before I climbed to my feet. “Kail?”

  “What?” he asked without turning around.

  “You said I could’ve left you here to die…” I chewed my bottom lip for a moment. It wasn’t what he said, but how he said it. “Why couldn’t Halven have done the same?”

  “Ah.” He cracked his knuckles. “Careful, Lady. You might stumble upon all my secrets.”

  “Something tells me you don’t even know them all,” I joked.

  “You might be right,” he said with a laugh as he stepped into the hallway. “Let’s go. You’ve got a murder to commit.”

  Murder. The word twisted my gut. I knew it was what I was going to do—what I had already done. On top of torture. But it didn’t feel right to be so numb to it. I winced. Now was not a good time to regain my conscience. Rowan had to be dealt with while I had the chance, so I stood tall and followed Kail.

  Outside, the Blood Army’s moaning took on a deeper note, and I glanced out the nearest window. Each robed figure drifted toward the same point, circling their unseen prey. No. Deal with Rowan first, the Blood Army second. Whatever nightmare they were attacking was—

  “Sandman?” His name left my tongue before I could stop it.

  Kail leaned back on his heel to follow my gaze. “Ah. Don’t worry. He can handle himself.”

  “Don’t worry?” It felt as if I were the one out there, surrounded by the enemy. “He can’t possibly take that many on by himself.”

  Kail snorted. “Looks like he’s doing fine to me.”

  A silver tornado made of sand blew a path through the onslaught. Still, my heart raced. I remembered exactly how that mist felt. The Sandman needed help. The grin puckered in obvious denial at the idea of assistance.

  “I may have told him you were missing,” Kail admitted, nonplussed.

  “I wasn’t missing.” I sucked in a breath. “Wait—you what? How? When?”

  He shrugged. “I got your note and assumed you’d be there.”

  I gripped the windowsill. “So you what? Went to drag me back?”

  “Oh, I don’t think the Sandman would’ve let me drag you anywhere. You, on the other hand…” He winked and pressed a stone in the wall to open a hidden door.

  “Not another step,” Rowan ordered from inside.

  I froze, a million curses on my tongue. Halven’s back was pressed ag
ainst Rowan’s front, a long, jagged piece of her broken wing pressed against his throat. Before I could move, before I could speak, Kail let out a low wail at the sight of his brother in danger. “Don’t,” he pleaded. The word was brittle and desperate, and it nearly ruined me hearing it from him.

  “I could do it,” Rowan said. “Take you both out, then the girl. But the Sandman is another story.”

  “Rowan.” Kail sounded small. Lost. “Please.”

  “Send the Dream Keeper in, and I’ll let him go.”

  Kail shook with fear, or maybe anger, but he didn’t move. I shoved him aside. Despite the ruffles around Halven’s neck, Rowan’s weapon placement was perfect.

  “Let him go,” I demanded.

  Rowan dug the tip in a little deeper, but Halven didn’t move a muscle. “You’re not in any place to be making demands.”

  “Nora,” Kail begged. “Let her go.”

  “What?” I spun on him. “Are you kidding me? This is the moment we’ve been training for.”

  He shook his head. “Let her walk out of here. Promise the Sandman won’t touch her on the way out, and maybe she’ll let us all live to fight another day.”

  “I’d much rather see you all dead,” Rowan snapped.

  All of us.

  Kail and Halven wouldn’t matter much to the Dream Lord fighting an army singlehandedly, but I would. And no matter what he believed about the balance, the Sandman would never let anyone get away with killing me.

  “You could kill us all,” I agreed slowly. “But then you would die too. What you didn’t see inside the Keep the day I killed the Weaver was that I died too.” Not true, of course, though it felt like I had. The words flowed so easily, it didn’t feel like a lie. “The magic killed me and then brought me back as this. So I suppose the question you need to ask yourself is whether or not you would have time to be reborn before the Sandman finds you.”

  She hesitated. The grin inside me gnashed against my self-constraint. End her, end her, end her, it chanted. Let Halven die. Let anyone die, as long as she did too. Now. While she was in the Blood Tower. Trapped. Alone. Vulnerable.

  “You’ll never survive this realm,” Rowan spat, holding Halven against her chest. They moved toward us in unison without her hand leaving the weapon. “Every day you breathe is another day borrowed.”

  I shrugged, feigning confidence. “Take it up with my bank.”

  “Move,” she insisted. “I’ll release him when I’m outside.”

  Don’t you dare, the grin warned me, but the desperate look on Kail’s face as he obeyed was enough for me. This wasn’t letting Rowan escape—this was saving Kail’s brother. This was earning the loyalty he had given me. No. More than that. This was a way to keep my humanity in a place built for the inhumane.

  We followed Rowan all the way to the front door as she used Halven as a human shield. “I know you think you’ve figured out how to win,” she said, slipping the door open with her heel. “But you’ll never succeed.”

  “We’ll see,” I vowed.

  Rowan shoved Halven toward us a split second before the door slammed between us. I bolted around the brothers and threw it open again, but she was already halfway across the tundra, surrounded by what was left of the Blood Army. The ones the Sandman managed to kill lay scattered around the tower, their bodies slowly evaporating into red mist. There was no getting past it—we were trapped until the bodies finished decomposing unless we wanted to be boiled alive.

  “Rowan,” I screamed so loud my throat burned.

  Mistake, the grin chastised. Big, big mistake.

  It wasn’t wrong.

  27

  The Sandman

  The steady thud of a meat cleaver greeted me, followed immediately by the stench of what could only be a dozen corpses. They were skinned and chopped into large sections, rotting away on a tall table. I held my breath as I approached a small green nightmare standing on a stool beside the table. “Where is she?” I demanded, the sense of déjà vu not lost on me.

  The creature didn’t bother to look up from his work. “Who, Dream Lord?”

  “You know who.”

  “She left.” He paused to slide a pile of rancid meat across the table and resumed chopping. “Needed to borrow my Dreamer, then took off in a bit of a hurry.”

  “Your Dreamer?” I asked, confused. The nightmare nodded to the other end of the table, and I picked my way closer, avoiding the thick liquid dripping to the floor. My eyes widened. “Detective Bell?” The Dreamer muttered incoherently as his eyes darted around behind his lids.

  “She broke him,” the nightmare complained. “He’s not scared anymore, but he won’t wake up either.”

  I pressed my fingers against his throat to find a pulse. It was barely there, unsteady and fading. “What happened?”

  “Don’t ask me.” He waved his knife at Bell and kept talking. “The Lady took him sleepwalking and stayed in his head the whole time. Fried his brain, I suppose, but he’ll still make for some tasty meat. Chop him up and—”

  I tuned the nightmare out and stared at Bell. Sleepwalking was foreign to me. The how of it. The Weaver never stayed. He went in, did whatever brainwashing he had to do, and got out. Anything could’ve happened inside Bell’s head while Nora was in there. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. Hopefully, he would wake up with no lasting effects. I reached for my satchel. After everything he’d been through, starting with the Weaver’s first murder, he deserved the peace of the Dream Realm.

  Blood bubbled from Bell’s mouth. His head fell back, and his eyes rolled so far back, all I could see were their whites.

  “No fair,” the nightmare cried.

  I gripped my sand, but in the next moment, Bell vanished. “No!”

  “She didn’t say she was going to kill him,” the nightmare whined to itself.

  I leveled a stare at the creature, my heart thumping wildly. “Which way did Nora go?”

  “Not sure. Halven took her,” he said, pouting.

  I reached out with my magic until I found Nora’s. That way. The Blood Tower. She was on her way back to the very place Rowan would expect to find her. A low, frustrated scream lodged in my throat. Until this was over, Nora had to stop taking off without thinking, and we needed to know where she was. All of us—me, Kail, Baku, Halven. As unlikely as it was, we were working together toward the same goal of putting Nora in her rightful place. While I understood her desire to figure herself out, she needed to believe in us. Not even I was delusional enough to think I didn’t need help from time to time. I didn’t like needing someone like Kail to watch Nora’s back, but what I liked made no difference.

  With a shallow breath, I forced myself to stand and move in the direction of Nora’s power. I ran a hand through my hair, holding it off my forehead. My jaw ached as I clenched it shut. I was angry with Nora, but I should be even angrier. It wasn’t possible, though. She was in a bad place right now and doing what she thought was best, even if she was actually selecting the worst option. I kept telling myself that during my entire journey through the Nightmare Realm.

  When I reached the Blood Tower, I froze, my heart dropping. Whatever I expected to see at the Blood Tower, it wasn’t this. Rowan was supposed to be marching the Blood Army to defend her tree stump. That’s what made sense. The second set of nightmares should’ve come here, not Rowan herself. Nora could already be halfway across the Nightmare Realm for all Rowan knew. So why?

  But Nora wasn’t halfway anywhere—she was inside. Her anger raked along my mental wall like thorns. Fighting the entire Blood Army wasn’t at the top of my to-do list, but there was no getting around them. I stayed away from Nora all this time and still it came down to this. There would be ways to fix her image later if she survived. I steeled myself for what had to be done, and only what had to be done. If I held back now, Rowan might not realize I’d regained my strength until it was too late. She had already underestimated me once when she took me to the Keep.

  The weary, heartsick boy i
n me had no place here, so I looked across the tundra through the eyes of the Lord of Dreams. I registered everything with lightning precision. Tower entrances, Blood Army weaknesses, numbers, the density of the red mist. Alone, it meant nothing. Together, it gave me an exact plan of attack. I took my gloves from my belt and shoved my hands inside to protect my skin.

  “Forgive me, Nora,” I said without an ounce of apology and snapped my hood up.

  As I ran toward the tower, I felt nothing. Not the anger and vengeance I felt when I scoured the Nightmare Realm for Nora the first time. Not worry for her wellbeing because she already had help—and her own strength. I didn’t even feel the burn of the army’s mist where it snuck into the crevices of my clothing. I felt nothing except perhaps resignation. This wasn’t Nora and me anymore. This was Dream and Nightmare. Day and Night. And it was my duty to protect all of it.

  The Blood Army drifted toward me as a unit, circling me. I poured half of my satchel to the ground by my feet and waited. Waited for them to come closer. To press together into a tighter pack. Then I swept my arm out. A tornado ripped through their ranks, snuffing them out. The other robed figures wailed and pressed forward to fill in the gaps.

  “I don’t have time for this,” I mumbled and lifted my hand again.

  Only, my arm froze midair. Rowan’s red silk gown caught my eye from the doorway. She hugged Halven to her chest, a jagged stick in her hand. I noticed right away a large portion of her wings were missing. The Army swiveled away from me, moving toward her instead. I regained myself and threw my hand out to make another twister. More figures fell, but not enough. The door slammed shut. Rowan was alone. And running. The Blood Army circled her, their mist seeming to propel her faster and faster. I took two steps when Nora’s voice cut through me.

  Her scream was for Rowan, but it obliterated my sense of nothingness. It felt as if my heart started beating anew, and my stomach dropped. I’m in trouble. How could I be what the universe needed if, even in these circumstances, Nora filled my every breath? Unfortunately, there was no cure for love. Not that I would take it if there were.