“No, wait. You shouldn’t…” I was having trouble finding words. “You can’t end it there.”
“Your eyes have been closed for the last five minutes. I’ll tell you the rest another time. Listen, we’ve not got any blankets or pillows. Perhaps you might—”
“Mm,” I said. Or something equally coherent. I leaned my head against Sam’s shoulder and fell asleep.
Chapter Eight
The Forest Primeval—and Also Repulsive
I ran through a hallway made of teeth. It twisted around like a corkscrew, leaving me unsure whether I was running on the floor or the ceiling. If it was the ceiling, I’d fall off as soon as I stopped, but there was no time to double-check. I was late for my deportment lesson, which was taught by a particularly irascible swan-maiden. She’d fly into a rage if I wasn’t there on time, and I had no desire to be pecked again.
The teeth bit into my bare feet as I hurried along, because I was naked. I must not have had time to put any clothes on. The swan-maiden would not be amused.
Swan-maidens have no business teaching deportment, anyway. It doesn’t take much skill to stretch out your neck when your neck is already five feet long. I’d argued to my stepmother that we’d learn more from, say, a frog prince. Someone who’d really had to work at it. But she’d ignoredme.
When was I going to reach the lesson room? The hallway stretched on and on. So many teeth. Endless teeth. Was this truly a hallway, or was it a mouth? It began to close in on me.Biting down. It was going to chew on me for hours, like a piece of stringy gristle. I had to get the teeth planted in the field right away, or they were goingto—
“Melilot!” Jonquil shouted. “Slow down.”
I turned and saw her behind me, struggling to catch up. “There’s no time!” I said. “We’re late enough as it is.”
She was fully clothed, I noted. Typical. Little Miss Dutiful would never show up nude in a classroom. She’d meet my stepmother’s impossible standards or die trying. Again.
Jonquil rolled her eyes. “We’re not late for anything. This is a dream.”
A dream? What nonsense. This was just an ordinary day where I was running naked through a hallway that was also a mouth because I was late for my…
Oh.
I stumbled to a halt, and Jonquil caught up to me, panting. She glanced at me once, her eyes widening, and then carefully looked in any direction but mine.
“Did you want to put some clothes on?” she asked. “It’s just that, when I bring Calla in, you’ll be the only one not wearing anything. So if that would make you feel awkward…”
“What does it matter? You’re not real. She won’t be, either.”
“Oh, no, I’m actually here.”
“You are?”
“I spent the last month learning how to dreamwalk so we could visit you. Surprise!”
“You learned to dreamwalk inone month?” Entering the dreams of others was unfathomably difficult magic—the kind that wizened, ancient witches sometimes achieve after a lifetime spent staring at constellations and chicken entrails, struggling to unlock the secrets of the universe. Of course Jonquil had worked it out in a few weeks.
Unless I was only dreaming she’d dreamwalked here? No, she was too…steady. She didn’t fit in with the rest of the scenery,like an oil portrait dropped into a smear of watercolors. The teeth shifted and twitched in the corners of my eyes, sometimes a hallway and sometimes a mouth, and sometimes the walls were green or sparkly or Thursday. But Jonquil remained Jonquil, never once becoming a platypus or a hat rack.
I looked around in search of a tapestry I could wrap around myself, but the walls remained bare of anything but dentition. “I’m not sure where I can finda—”
“Dream,” Jonquil remindedme.
Right, how dense could I be? I concentrated, getting my thoughts under control, and a gown draped itself overme.
In the meantime, Jonquil looked over her surroundings with a fascinated air. “Are you still fretting over the tooth quest? I didn’t think it was that traumatic, as they go. Is it the near disaster at the end that bothers you? Or just handling all those teeth?”
“Do not,” I growled, “psychoanalyze me based on a single dream you have invaded.”
“I was only trying to help.”
“Melilot!” Calla cried, throwing her arms around me. “I missed you!”
