The heels of her shoes clicked as she walked across the room, her dress rustled against the floor and then—he gasped, it was so unexpected—her fingers wrapped around his. She pulled his hands from his eyes.
“Peter.” He could hear the anxiety in her voice, feel it in her trembling hands and in every atom of his own body. “You must tell me what’s going on.”
The last of his resistance gave way.
“I’ll show you,” he said.
Peter—howjarring to think of him like that while awake—retrieved one of the sleeping drafts they’d made, which explained how he intended to show her.
“Can you spare an hour?” He rummaged in the implement drawer and came out with a half-teaspoon. “This speeds up entry into the stage of sleep with the most vivid dreams, but it’s not immediate.”
She glanced at her watch—seven-thirty. In for a penny, in for a pound. “Yes.”
“I’ll … get sheets on a bed in one of the spare rooms,” he said, looking away. “Assuming you wouldn’t prefer to go home and take the dose there.”
“We might as well both use your bed.” She pressed her palms against her burning eyes. “It’s not as if sleeping fully clothed near each other would be the most outrageous thing we’ve more or less done on it.”
A pulse of white-hot regret hit her the second before he said, “Beatrix, I—I’m so?—”
“I know,” she murmured. Clearly he was sorry—she could feel the truth of it through their connection. It didn’t change the fact that he’d done it, but he hadn’t meant it to turn out this way. “Shall we?”
Up the stairs to his bedroom they went. And though it was nothing like the first time they’d gone this way together, the first dreamed time, that other trip came immediately to mind.
He sat on one side of the bed. She took the other, heart rapidly thudding—mostly from the awful certainty that she was about to learn something fearful, though his proximity wasn’t helping. Neither, for that matter, was the prospect of taking the draft.
“I need you to promise you won’t tell anyone what I’m about to show you,” he said.“Anyone. Not even your sister.”
She nodded. “I promise.”
He measured out a dose and was about to swallow it when he caught her eye and hesitated. “Are you all right?”
“Yes.”
But the next instant a sob escaped from her throat.
He poured the liquid back into its bottle and leaned toward her. “What is it?”
She’d never told anyone. But she wanted to tell him.
“After my mother died, Dad kept taking the sleeping draft until—” She swallowed, catching the dawning realization in his eyes. “The doctors called it an accident, but I ... I don’t know if it was.”
He put out a hand and nearly touched her cheek before jerking back. Recollecting himself. She could well understand the lapse, sitting where they were.
“Go on,” she said, gesturing to the brew.
He looked at her for a moment, then poured the dose again and downed it. He handed her the bottle and the spoon, and she followed suit, trying not to gag. Sweet at first with a sharp sour turn, like rotten vinegar.
“I’m sorry you lost him.Bothyour parents,” he said. “I truly am.”
She believed it, even the inclusion of her mother. He of all people understood what it was like to have nobody to lean on. She wanted to tell him so, but the draft kicked in with a rush. Her lips felt like rubber. Her head was too heavy to hold up. She slumped onto the pillow, eyes sliding shut.
Then, without warning, she was on her feet next to the bed—they both were. That was the first clue they’d stepped through the looking glass. The second was seeing absolutely no reason she shouldn’t kiss him. So she did. It felt like waking up well after days of being sick.
With great effort, she stepped back. “Right. I’m ready.”
He squeezed his eyes shut, face screwed up in concentration. Nothing happened at first. Then he began to fade away. So did the bedroom, replaced with a claustrophobic space in industrial grays. Long, thin slats cutinto the concrete served as windows, revealing nothing but sand and scrub.
She’d seen this place many times before. She knew the wizards and military officers standing about near the slats. Like the dreams of the first contract, she was in Peter’s head, experiencing this as if she were him—but unlike those dreams, she was self-aware enough to realize it.
