“What—”
“I don’t want to talk about her or think about her or have anything to do with her!”
He almost asked why, but the answer occurred to him in time. There was only one difference of opinion between daytime and nighttime Beatrix. One fought against the Vow’s effects. The other didn’t.
Then she kissed him, which proved the point. What had Miss Knight said? That he was driving Beatrix insane?
When he could manage it, he said, “What sets off your panic attacks?”
She blinked at him, thrown by the interruption. Her lips, half-open and reddened from kissing him, were so tempting that he leaned in to kiss her again before catching himself.
“Stress,” she said.
“Over your sister, in all cases?”
She hesitated.
“Over me, too?” he suggested.
She looked down at their intertwined hands. “Yes.”
He closed his eyes, feeling sick. “What if the panic attacks are the Vow’s way of forcing the point?”
She said nothing, and her silence seemed like an answer.
“I hate that thrice-damned Vow,” he cried out, leaping off the bed and pacing the room. “I don’twantyou to feel compelled to love me! I don’t want that at all!”
“No, I—I don’t think the Vow is giving me panic attacks because I’m fighting that compulsion,” she said. “And I know how you feel. I don’t doubt that for a moment.”
She held out a hand. He took it, sitting beside her.
“What can I do?” he asked.
She sighed and gave an expressive shrug.
“Beatrix—should I try to fall in love with someone else?”
He could hear the breath catch in her throat and knew he’d said the wrong thing. Perhaps it would have been all right to ask dayside. Dreamside, never. Dreamside, she wanted him without reservation.
Her voice trembled as she said, “If you think it would free you from?—”
“No, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he murmured, putting his arms around her, pressing his face to her hair. “I don’t want anyone else. I can’t imagine wanting anyone else. I just wish there were a way we could both get out of this circle of hell.”
“There’s no out,” she said. “Only deeper in.”
She unbuttoned his shirt, pressing her lips to his skin as she uncovered it. For a little while, sensation overpowered all else. But when they lay amid the untucked sheets later, he could think of nothing but the harm he was unwittingly doing her, and the tears running down her cheeks were proof that she was contemplating the same thing. They needed a distraction.
“Let’s go back to the beach,” he said, grasping the first one that came to him.
“What?”
“I know that experiment didn’t end well, but the beach was the good part of it,” he said. “Come on, show me how. Do you just picture what you want?”
She exhaled. “Start with one part. Pick something in the room to turn into a single piece of the setting.”
“Like the ocean?”
“Right, or the sand, or the sky—one thing. Imagine your item transforming. If you imagine hard enough, it will. And once you’ve got it going, the rest is much easier.”
