“Fight this. This isyour monster.” Andrew cupped Thomas’s face. “Pen? We need a p-pen.”
Thomas fumbled in his pockets.
Andrew reached around him to pull Lana and Chloe under the table, too, trying not to bang their heads as they slumped lifelessly into the cramped space. It bought them all time, but not much.
He had to tell a story.
“I don’t remember drawing this…” Thomas trailed off, his cheek resting against Andrew’s shoulder. He had his arms wrapped around his stomach, over the hole the monsters had already left in him.
“Stay awake. It won’t touch you again.” Andrew snatched the pen from Thomas, but his fingers shook so hard he struggled to press it to the underside of the table. Without a birch to write on, this seemed like the best option.
Think of a story.Now.
Before the ravager drank everyone’s dreams and their lives along with it.
“Thomas, I c-can’t think. I—”
But Thomas’s eyes had closed. He looked so vulnerable, mouth open and body limp, all the fury of their fight drained until he was no more than a wisp. Andrew’s eyes felt thick and cottony, his eyelashes dipped in molasses, but he bit down on his bottom lip until blood slicked his teeth.
Stay awake.
Thomas had fought monsters alone for countless nights. Now it was Andrew’s turn to save them all.
He laid Thomas’s head in his lap and dug fingers into his soft curls.Hold on. Ground yourself.
He began to write.
Once upon a time a boy collected nightmares and put them interra-cotta jars. He traveled across many kingdoms to add to his collection, and if anyone refused to give over their foul dreams, he’d wait till they slept before peeling out their darkness with his long, needle fingers.
Above Andrew, the table shook under the weight of the monster. Sweat beaded around his mouth and he licked it so it stung against his bitten lip.
Nightmares swirled like black galaxies within his terra-cotta jars, beautiful and wicked and mesmerizing, and it did not take long before he opened the lids and took a sip. Then another, then another. Soon he could eat nothing but this. All other food poisoned him and he forgot he had been a boy. He ravaged a thousand dreams a night and still he starved.
Until one night he could no longer stand the hunger. He put mortal food to his lips. He ate, and for that he died.
Ink bled across Andrew’s fingers and he wrote until he felt dizzy. Tendrils of shadows coiled under the table, sliding over Lana’s face and between Chloe’s lips.
This was the part where Thomas would use Andrew’s stories to win the battle. Andrew would write how it would go—swing an ax, spill some blood, wrap a noose of vines about a monster’s neck, scream enchanted words—and Thomas would make the story come true.
But Thomas was a dead weight, sprawled in Andrew’s lap. Panic rose in his throat, and it took all his strength to hold it in, to believe he could do this by himself. He could be the prince, just this once.
Then a crooked hand shot under the table and grabbed him by the hair.
A cry ripped from his throat as the monster dragged him out. He thrashed like a caught fish, but the creature drew him into the air and then slammed him onto the tabletop. Plates shattered. Cutlery skidded away as glasses tipped over and drinks sloshed across the wood.
“WAIT—” It tumbled out like a gasp, but monsters didn’t wait.
And no one was coming to save him.
The monster hauled Andrew down the table by his hair. Broken crockery sliced at his back and food smeared across his pants. He held on to the monster’s wrists, trying to take some of the tension off his hair, but the pain splintered his vision.
The monster stopped in the center of the long table, surrounded by an audience of unconscious bodies with ribbons of darkness streaming from their heads. They looked like dolls, stitched with black thread, sightless and horrible. Andrew choked on a whimper. He tried to worm free, but the monster’s twig fingers went tight. Then it slammed Andrew’s head down on the mahogany table.
Once—stars, dazzling and bitter—
Twice—ears ringing, piercing whine—
Three times—blood in his mouth, the world turned doughy and unsteady, the back of his head wet, wet, wet—
