Dreamfever (10 page)

No, she didn't
know
. She
remembered
.

Because Feodor had known.

She climbed onto the bed on her knees and traced the diagrams with a fingertip. There was the circlet, there was the vambrace. The drawings on the wall showed her how to treat the crystals, how to connect them to the wires, which wires to use, where the magnets should go, the direction of polarization.

Show me how these work. I want to understand.

Well, he had showed her all right.

She glanced at the clock—3:27. There was still time.

Sitting down with a large sketch pad, she transferred the writing on the wall onto paper. She did this almost entirely from memory, only occasionally checking the walls.

Exactly how much of Feodor's memory she had was unclear to her. She suspected that all of it was in her mind somewhere, but information recall often had to be triggered by a dream or situational necessity. She hadn't remembered that a Minotaur lived in a labyrinth until she'd needed to know.

Except that … As she copied, she realized that the plans were incomplete. The vambrace and circlet worked by using a signaling network built across the Dream, like cell phones communicating via cell phone towers, but the walls contained no instructions on how to build this network. Without it, the equipment was useless.

Josh felt disappointed and, at the same time, relieved. The vambrace and circlet were incredibly powerful. If she put them on, she'd be able to forget about connecting with the Dream mentally, forget her breathing exercises, forget struggling and fighting. The Dream would open to her like a flower blossoming. The vambrace and circlet would give her exactly the power she had been trying so hard to attain.

But since she didn't have the complete plans, that was one moral argument she wouldn't have to have with herself.

She worked until almost seven and then went down to the basement. A search of the numerous half-empty paint cans turned up no white paint, but she did find half a gallon of white primer, which was even better.

As Feodor's diagrams and formulas vanished beneath the primer like rubble hidden beneath snow, Josh wondered if she should have copied the plans at all. Maybe they were somehow as morally corrupt as Feodor had been, as fundamentally dangerous.…

But she remembered the nightmare from a few nights before, how he had tried to save his little sister and her puppy, how angry he had been when Josh stopped him, and Josh thought of her own sister. If he had loved Bryga the way Josh loved Deloise, there had to have been something good in him, right? He had to have had a good heart beneath all the madness.

Was that even possible?

When the walls were again innocence white, Josh opened the window and turned on a fan, then tiptoed down to Will's room to sleep. She managed not to wake him up this time as she slipped into bed. His back was turned to her, but she put her arm over his side and tucked her hand inside his. He was endearingly responsive when he slept: If she snuggled up against him, he would hug her close; if she put her hand in his, he would hold it.

But that morning, for some reason, he didn't. His fingers fell heavy and lax against the back of her hand, and a sense of loneliness washed over her. Lately they were always off doing their own thing—he was in the basement with his laptop and his stalker wall, she was in the attic with her secret projects. She had begun to miss the days after their encounter with Feodor, when the medications kept the nightmares away and they were both too banged up and loopy on painkillers to do anything besides sit on the apartment couch together, watching movies, occasionally either making out or ordering pizza. For a few nights they'd even slept on the pullout couch together, their proximity sanctioned by the celibacy of their injuries and the public nature of the living room, and during the days they'd found time for what they'd never done previously: hanging out. They'd told each other crazy stories and jokes and made fun of television. Will had taught her card games. Josh had taught him knife tricks. She'd thought then that she was so lucky to have him, lucky to be with someone so genuine, who believed she was good enough just as she was, who always looked in her eyes when he said that he loved her.

She'd felt like she could tell him anything then, but the memories had come between them—his
and
Feodor's. Now she had a whole new world of secrets she hadn't shared with him and
couldn't
share. He hated Feodor, and if he found out that the man's memories were living in Josh's subconscious, she was afraid he might start to hate her.

Or at least break up with her.

Someday we'll both get over it,
she told herself, watching dawn break over Will's sleeping form.
We'll figure out how to live with it. Someday I'll be able to tell him about the nightmares without him freaking out.

Yeah, and he'd take down his stalker wall then, too.

Sure.

 

Eight

“So,” Will said,
“maybe we should talk about what happened yesterday.”

Josh, who was sitting at the kitchen table and sharpening a knife with a whetstone, looked at Will with confusion.

“I mean at the restaurant,” Will clarified.

They were getting ready to meet with Davita, each in his or her own way. Mirren was arranging the tea set and trying to keep Josh from getting metal shavings all over the lace tablecloth. Haley was writing on his steno pad. Will was trying to prepare everyone emotionally. Out of all of them, Will felt he had the hardest job.

“The restaurant?” Josh asked.

“Yes. When Mirren went running out of it.”

Mirren's face was as composed and distant as it had been the day before, her eyes politely cast toward the floor. After she'd returned from the parking lot with Haley, she'd claimed to have vomited into the bushes outside, blaming all the sugar and refined flour she'd eaten. Will hadn't believed her for a moment.

Apparently Josh had. “She needed to puke.”

Will sighed. “Right. She needed to puke because Whim had just dropped it on her that your grandfather is the one responsible for killing her parents.”

“Oh, that.” Josh began sharpening her knife again, the blade grating loudly against the stone. “Whim didn't know that would freak her out.”

“Josh.” Will felt himself quicken with anger, the way he did so often and so easily these days, and he briefly made his hands into fists in an attempt to release the energy. He couldn't blame Josh for being Josh. “I think Mirren would feel more comfortable if she understood a little more about your relationship with Peregrine. Specifically the part where you aren't fond of each other.”

“Oh,” Josh said again. “All right.” She spoke to Mirren but didn't stop sharpening her knife. “I hate my grandfather. Like, a lot. He's a terrible person, he treated my grandmother like crap, and he tried to get me, Haley, and Will tortured to death last February. I figure that makes you and me allies.” She used a towel to wipe the grit from her blade. “So we're good?”

Will would have given a very different explanation, but Mirren was smiling with her lips pressed tight together, as if trying not to laugh. “We're good,” she said. “And I would be happy to have you as an ally.”

She put the kettle on for tea, and shortly afterward, the doorbell rang. Will got up to answer it, but Kerstel beat him to the door.

Will loved his adoptive mother like he'd loved his alcoholic birth mother, who had given him up to the state when he was twelve. Sometimes he thought he loved Kerstel more. She hadn't just gone out of her way to make him part of their family, she'd taken the time to build a real friendship with him, even reading his favorite self-help books and teaching him about her own passions, philosophy and posthumanism. But every time he looked at her since the attack, a blind black hatred for the man who had hurt her filled him like black smoke, working its way from his gut to his limbs, his fingers and toes, his eyelashes.

He immediately felt bad for having made her get up and answer the door. In addition to the terrible injuries she had sustained when Feodor's zombies had come out of the archway and attacked the household, Kerstel had learned in the ICU that she was six weeks pregnant, and the combined toll had worn her thin and weak. She still had nerve damage in her right arm, and she couldn't stand for more than ten minutes.

“You should have let someone else get it,” Will told her.

“I need the practice,” Kerstel said as she held the door open so Davita could enter. “You think Lauren's going to get up with the baby in the middle of the night?”

“No,” Will said sincerely. “I think Deloise will.”

They all laughed, even Davita. Deloise was so excited about a baby joining the family that she had learned to knit baby booties.

Davita Bach stood five feet ten, knew fifteen different ways to French-twist her titian-red hair, and wore a power suit like she'd been born in one. That afternoon she had on a cream-colored suit with dark brown pinstripes. Usually the small gold Rousellario family crest she wore on a chain around her neck was hidden beneath her clothes, but today it hung in full view against a light brown silk blouse.

“Have you picked out a name?” Davita asked.

“Lauren and I are at war over the name,” Kerstel admitted. “He wants Bramko, I want Popolomus.”

Will secretly thought both names were hideous, but Davita expressed admiration for the choices. Finally, they left Kerstel to her protein shake and a book called
A Child's Understanding of the World
and headed for the kitchen.

Although Josh and Will believed Davita would feel the same loyalty to Mirren that she had to Mirren's parents, they'd agreed not to take chances. When they entered the kitchen, Josh was sitting beside Mirren with her knife hidden in her lap. She remained sitting when Mirren stood.

Davita looked to Will in the silence that followed, and he realized she was waiting for him to make introductions. Dream walkers loved formal introductions. “Davita, this is Mirren Rousellario. Mirren, Davita Bakareilionne.”

Mirren extended a hand across the kitchen table, but Davita laughed uncomfortably at the sight of it and instead dropped to one knee. The unexpected motion caused Josh to spring out of her chair, knife in hand. Dismayed, Mirren touched her lips with two fingers.

“Please get up,” she said to Davita, pushing Josh's knife arm down. “There's no need for that.”

Davita straightened, but she said, “I want you to know that I'm here only to serve you, Your Majesty.”

The title made Mirren wince. “Please, just call me Mirren.”

“You are the daughter of my king and queen,” Davita insisted.

“The king and queen are dead and the kingdom destroyed,” Mirren said flatly. “Please call me Mirren or nothing at all. Let's sit down.”

The kettle whistled, and Haley got up to fill the teapot.

“I'm relieved to see that you're well,” Davita said, taking a seat. “Your family has been very worried.”

Mirren smiled, but her anxiety was evident in the lines around her mouth. “My new friends have taken excellent care of me.”

We're her friends?
Will wondered, and snuck a glance at Josh out of the corner of his eye. He could see her trying to hide how taken aback she was.

But Will noticed that when Haley returned to the table with the teapot, he scooted his chair very close to Mirren's, and he remembered how he had offered to go after Mirren with Haley the day before and how quick Haley had been to say no.

Five months ago he was in love with Josh on Ian's behalf,
Will thought.
Now he's putting the moves on a princess.

He wondered how Haley had come out of their encounter with Feodor so much stronger when Josh and Will had come out so damaged.

The sudden intensity in Mirren's voice drew him out of his thoughts.

“I am sorry that Katia has been worried,” she was saying. “I'm truly sorry for frightening her.” Her voice hardened. “But as for my aunt and uncle, it serves them right—for what they've hidden from me, for how they've lied to me, and especially for keeping me trapped in that universe for nineteen years.”

Whoa,
Will said. The tone of the conversation had changed abruptly, and he saw Josh's right arm tense, no doubt tightening her grip on the knife beneath the table.

“Who's Katia?” Will asked as Haley poured him a cup of tea.

“Katia is my cousin,” Mirren explained. “She was born in the Hidden Kingdom fifteen years ago and she's never once been allowed to leave it.”

“Miss Mirren,” Davita said, her tone distressed, “even I didn't know you have a cousin, and I'm sure your aunt and uncle would be very upset if you let the word get out. They're trying to—”

“Protect her?” Mirren finished as though she'd heard it a hundred times before. “Like they protected me by imprisoning me? By lying to me?”

“I'm sure they did what they thought was best for you.”

Haley said, “Mirren is an adult. She has the right to make her own decisions now.”

Davita stared at him as if he were a talking toaster, but Mirren smiled her beautiful, wise smile and softened.

“My family and I have very different priorities,” she said. “Their priority is to see me live out my life trapped in a medieval castle, married to a man of their choice, and breeding like a rabbit, and my priority is to stop staging from becoming government policy.”

Josh and Will exchanged glances. This was the first Will had heard of Mirren's intentions, but it put her panic in the restaurant the day before in perspective.

“I see,” Davita said, her painted mouth slack with surprise.

“I have to make sure that the Lodestone Party does not win the vote at the Accordance Conclave and make staging permanent policy,” Mirren said. “I know unequivocally that this is what my parents would want me to do. But I don't know how best to do it. And that's why I need you, if you're willing to help me.”