“I’ll go do that,” Naerith agreed and legged it back to his wife.
Elena was indeed rousing from her bloodlust. Her eyes were clear, and she appeared quite satisfied with herself, so she was probably safe to approach.
“Back to the boat?” Clayton asked, holding out a hand to Mal.
Mal took it and nodded. “Back to the boat.”
As they approached the boat, Mal scooped Clayton into his arms and leaped onto the deck smoothly. Clayton sputtered and pushed at Mal’s chest, but Mal only grinned and rubbed his face against Clayton’s cheek.
He planted a noisy kiss on Clayton’s mouth before dropping him without warning. And because Clayton was no longer poisoned by the Real’s influence on his magic, he landed easily on the uneven floor.
“You did it!” Merry and Tommy cried out and ran toward Clayton at full speed. Halfway to him, Merry tripped, fell on top of Tommy, and they both began to roll down the slanted deck, straight toward a gap in the railing.
Before Mal had a chance to do anything, Clayton snatched a stray Tupperware container off the ground and tossed it. Itbounced off the laundry line, causing it to break free and send clean sheets and towels to fall and land in the perfect position to catch the two small children before they rolled off the boat to the jagged, rocky cave floor below.
Mal whistled and said, “Not bad, Red.”
“You liked that?” Clayton gave him a proud smile. “It was pretty cool, right?”
“Very.”
“You should probably send us back to the Real soon, though,” Clayton sighed, and his energy shifted from proud to resigned. “If the boat stays like this any longer, someone is going to get hurt. I guess I don’t need superpowers that badly.”
“Why do you want to go back?” Mal could live anywhere Clayton wanted to, so he certainly wasn’t holding him back.
“Well, I have to, don’t I? I have a job—at least I hope I still have one. I can’t just abandon it, especially now that I know what nightmares really are. I have to tell people in the Guard. Someone will listen; they just have to. If I can convince Samantha, then we can change everything.”
“Why do you need to change everything?” Mal had no idea what Clayton was going on about. Nightmares were monsters. Mal had empirical evidence of the fact.
“Nightmares are people, Mal. You’re living proof.”
“I hate to break it to you, sweetheart, but I am definitely not a person. Just because you love me doesn’t mean I’m not a monster. It just means you’re braver than most.”
Sure, there were plenty of self-proclaimed monster fuckers out there, but when faced with an actual opportunity, the number of people in the world who would actually fuck a monster was pretty low. The screaming and running generally started long before any fucking could happen.
“Iamvery brave, aren’t I?” Clayton struck a silly pose, putting both hands on his hips and pretending to staremajestically into the distance. “However, that doesn’t mean I’m wrong. My parents told me that some nightmares live in the fae realm like regular folk. They don’t prey on people. They use their skills to live peacefully rather than running wild.”
For the first time in his existence, Mal doubted his hearing. As a physical construct, anything he created worked exactly as he willed it, so it had never been an issue.
“I’m sorry, did you say nightmares are living with people in the fae realm?”
“Living and thriving, according to my parents,” Clayton confirmed.
“One of my teachers was a nightmare,” Merry announced, pulling Tommy along behind her up the deck. “Before we came to the Real, Tommy and I both had a nightmare teach us how to swim. He looked like a fish and made funny faces.”
Mal was stunned. “Timin?”
“You know him?” Merry looked excited.
Know him? Mal had nearly eaten him. He would have managed it if Timin hadn’t escaped into the depths of the ocean. Mal could have gone after him, but he wasn’t excited about a potentially long and drawn-out chase.
Thalassophobia had many avatars in the nightmare race, and Timin was created by someone who was specifically afraid of being eaten by a giant fish. How had Timin made it to the fae realm?
“They let nightmares around children? On purpose?” Mal scratched his head, unable to get his mind around the concept.
“Don’t look so surprised. You’re a nightmare, these are children, and they seem fine to me,” Clayton teased.
“I want uppies,” Tommy announced, holding his arms up to Mal so he could be picked up.
