Illusions of Fate

Why am I in the red dress? I don’t want to be in this dress, I hate this dress. I threw it away. I turn around to hurry back the way I came, but the beach stretches on infinitely. I look down and see Sir Bird’s lifeless body on the sand. “No,” I whisper, but when I reach to pick him up he disappears.

A nameless fear surrounds me, chokes me, and I turn to run back when I notice something ahead of me. I walk toward it, my terror growing, but I must go that direction. There are no other options.

On the beach is a table, rich dark wood, laid with a familiar tea service.

I try to run the other way but the table is behind me now, and this time Lord Downpike sits at it, wearing a suit and top hat, black feathered wings tucked behind him. “Do sit down,” he says, giving me his sharp smile.

I sit across from him.

This isn’t real, it can’t be real, but I can taste the salt air and feel the stomach-turning terror as I smell the tea.

“It’s not real,” I whisper.

“Of course not.” He says it with a condescending laugh and the wind dies, leaving us in a vacuum on the soundless, motionless dead beach. The smell of the tea is overwhelming and I put my hand to my nose to try and block it.

“Oh,” I cry out. My hand is a mess of broken, splintered bones and ghastly bruises. “No. No, Finn fixed it.”

Lord Downpike pours the tea, stirring in scoop after scoop of sugar. “But you still remember the pain. He couldn’t take that away, could he? He couldn’t make you forget what you’ve already been through. Put your hand on the table.”

I stare at my hand, fingers splayed out, unmoving on the tabletop. “Wake up, Jessamin. Wake up, wake up.”

“Not until I say so. Tell me, are you enjoying your time with your dashing Alben lord? Is he taking good care of you? You make a lovely pet.”

My brain screams at my hand to move, but it doesn’t. It should hurt, the state it’s in. “I can’t feel my fingers.”

“I can change that. What is Finn doing? Has he shown you any magic? Told you about his mother?” Lord Downpike picks up a hammer, idly waving it from side to side as though testing the balance.

I seal my lips shut. I will not engage this dream. I will not. I’m fine, I’m asleep, I know I am, I know I am.

Lord Downpike sighs. “Very well, then. Your mind already knows exactly what this will feel like. I don’t have to do a thing.” He brings the hammer down on my hand, and I scream.

“Jessamin!” Finn says. He’s not on the beach. Where is he? I’m screaming, screaming, my hand—the pain is too much, I cannot—“Jessamin, wake up.”

I sit up, gasping, my hair tangled around my face. “My hand!” I clutch it to my chest, stare at it in the dim candlelight. Nothing but the black glove, the cold tingling sensation overlaying the sharp, bright aftertaste of pain still lingering.

“That’s the third time tonight.” Eleanor leans against my doorway in her white nightdress. Her hair is in a long braid down her shoulder, and she looks exhausted.

“I’m . . . I’m so sorry. I was . . .” I cannot tell them, cannot get the words out. I know my hand is fine, I know it, but the pain! I close my eyes, unable to get rid of the smell of tea lodged in my sinuses.

“It’s perfectly understandable,” Finn says, rising from where he was sitting on the edge of the bed next to me. “You’ve been through so much.” He doesn’t sound tired like Eleanor. He sounds weighted down, sad.

“I am beginning to regret agreeing to stay here with the two of you.” Eleanor walks into the room and sits in a chair beside my bed with a heavy sigh. “I thought I’d be watching your rooms closely at night for far more lurid and interesting goings-on than screaming night terrors.”

“I don’t know what’s come over me.” I shift, embarrassed, kicking my feet free from where they’re tangled in the sheets. Finn has taken us both in, now that we know Eleanor isn’t safe and we no longer have possession of Lord Downpike’s book.

Oh, Sir Bird, I am sorry.

I thought—heavy with grief for Sir Bird—that I would sleep heavily. Instead, my mind is plagued with horrors.

“Give it some time.” Finn pats my hand. “Everyone has nightmares.”

“They’ve never bothered me like this. They feel so real, so out of my control.”

Eleanor frowns thoughtfully, then runs out of the room and comes back in, carrying her snuffbox.

“Isn’t it an odd time for that?” Finn asks.

“Oh, hush. You aren’t the only one here with magic, and if there is one thing I am good at . . .” She pulls out a pinch, and I barely have time to close my eyes before she blows it right in my face.