CHAPTER 1
In the black void, he heard his name.
He couldn’t make out the other thin, distant words, but he thought it might be Beatrix. Was he not dead? He felt something—a faint pressure, like a squeeze of the hand—and tried to move, to squeeze back. That brought on a pain so searing he could think of nothing at all for an indeterminate amount of time.
When he came back to himself, he still had no idea where he was or in what condition. What had come before, he remembered with exacting and terrible precision. How Miss Knight (no, Draden, MarbellaDraden, the vice president’s daughter) had tried to kill him and hundreds of thousands of other people. How he’d lain helpless as she chanted the incantations that set off his horrific weapon, using his own life force to power the explosion. How Beatrix had teleportedthe payload stone from the shadow of the Capitol Building to the New Mexico desert, saving D.C.
But he’d thought there would be no saving him. So what had happened after that?
He considered the possibility that he really was dead, stuck in limbo or in a waystation to hell. Then, as if someone was slowly turning up the volume around him, he went from hearing the faintest suggestion of sounds to conversations he could understand.
He was lying in a hospital bed, comatose. No one—least of all him—knew if he would recover. He certainly couldn’t seem to talk or indicate in any way that he was aware. Anytime he tried to move his limbs, tongue or other parts of his body, that terrible pain hit and the outside world receded, so he tried only occasionally and never while Beatrix was there. He didn’t want to miss a word she said.
She was often there, holding his hand. She talked to him oh-so-carefully, no doubt afraid her one-sided conversations with him were being recorded. He could hear the strain in her voice, the choked emotion in her pauses. She was contractually heartbroken.
He should havedied. If he had, these emotions forced on her by the Vows they’d taken—the binding spells he’d insisted on—would be gone. The will he’d written leaving her everything he owned would kick in. Instead, she was jobless and distraught.
This truly was hell. Yet again, he’d dragged her there with him.
He progressed to begging.Please, God, let me die. Please, just grant me this one request. Or get me out of this coma, if you prefer, but please don’t leave me like this.
Nothing changed. He floated in the abyss, aware of his body only when a nurse shifted him or Beatrix took his hand, and then only in the faintest of ways—as if he were hanging on to the physical world by a spider’s thread.
There was nothing he could do but feel terrible and drift between consciousness and unconsciousness.
It took him longer than it should have to realize that when he fell into the latter state, he was sleeping.
Desperate excitement now filled him.Dreamside. If he slept, he could get dreamside—all he had to do was time it right. He could talk to Beatrix there. He could strategize with her about what she could do. He could ask her everything he badly wanted to know.
ThankGodfor dreamside. He never thought he would see a silver lining to the Vows, but this was surely it.
Beatrix looked down at Peter,to all appearances simply asleep, and bitterly wished the Vows had not been broken. Then she laughed under her breath at the irony—how she’dlongedfor a way out that didn’t involve death, hers or his, and how impossible it had seemed until it actually happened. But if his heart hadn’t momentarily stopped, dreamside would still exist. If dreamside still existed, she could talk to him—and there was a great deal they needed to talk about.
She could not, of course, access his bank account. The question of how his care was to be paid for followed her like a wraith. The hospital had let the question go unanswered so far, but it seemed clear that this could not continue for long. Already, he’d been here for three weeks and four days. He had no insurance—and neither did she, for that matter, nor any source of income. The bill for her own hospitalization had not yet been sent to her, but the knowledge that it was coming pressed on her like a weight. She would not be able to pay it. And that would be nothing to the expense of Peter’s care.
She knew he had no next of kin, because he’d had to live at the Academy after his grandmother died. But if only she could talk to him—if only dreamside still existed—then surely there would be some action she could take that would present itself, something they could figure out together.
Assuming, of course, that he wasn’t for all intents and purposes dead.
Twenty days had passed since she thought he’d squeezed her hand, and he had made no movement since. She’d been sohopeful. The nurses and doctors had all warned her not to make too much of it until there were repeat performances, though, and they were right. It could have been an unconscious twitch. She might have imagined it entirely. Because surely if hehaddone it knowingly, he would have done it again.
She’d told him she felt it—she’d told him right away. The very next visit, she’d tried for hours to get him to do it again.You can, I know you can! I’ll ask you questions, and you can squeeze once for “yes” and twice for “no”!
But nothing happened. She had to stop talking about it to him because the very thought made her want to rage and sob. For one short day, she’d been all but certain he would wake up. And then her hope retreated, bit by bit, moment by moment, an oceanful of hope now shrunk to a muddy puddle.
“Hello, dearie! You’re here late today.”
She looked up into the lined face of Nurse Weller, who was smiling at her. Always cheerful, Nurse Weller.
“I lost track of time,” she said, squeezing Peter’s hand and letting go, getting to her feet. “How are you?”
“Oh, can’t complain.” The nurse walked out with her. “Any luck on the job front?”
“No, not yet.” She sighed, glancing back at Peter’s door. “The other day, when I wondered how many coma patients you’d seen recover, and you said three-quarters of them …”
“Yes, dearie?”
“How quickly did they wake up?”
