Copper Ravens (26 page)

Nothing untoward? “You're in a cell?” He nodded. “Take me there.
Now.”

In the blink of an eye, our dreamselves went from the lush harem to a dank, dark cell. Crumpled against the far wall was a corpse. It twitched and I jumped; so, not quite a corpse, not yet, anyway. Whoever it was had been badly beaten, his skin covered in bruises and sticky clots of blood. Then the body twitched again, into the light, and I noticed a thatch of hair like a dandelion gone to seed; Micah had once warned me that a glamour would dissolve if its wearer fell asleep. Or was beaten to a bloody pulp.

“Micah,” I cried, falling to my knees before his body. “What did they do to you?” I tried to caress his bruised cheek, but my hand, insubstantial, passed through him. Then his dreamself's arms were around me, and I buried my face in his chest.

“I'm so sorry,” I sobbed. “You're so hurt, all because of me and my stupid brother. You'd be better off without us.”

“It looks worse than it is,” he soothed. “I will be fine.”

“Fine? You're unconscious!”

“I needed to sleep in order to dreamwalk and find you.” He pried me away from his chest, and turned my face toward his body. “Have a look at my back.” Hesitantly I crept around his prone form, and gasped when I saw his expanse of caramel skin, marred by bruises and blood, but devoid of his mark.

“They took it!” I shrieked. “Your silver!”

“No, love,” he murmured, once again taking me into his arms. “I drew my silver deep into my body. Even now, it is healing me.” I eyed his body dubiously; he certainly didn't look like he was healing. “Those who captured us were intent on the rest of you, Baudoin's children and mate. They did not realize who I am, or that I am of metal.”

“Still, we need to get you out of here,” I began, when Micah hushed me again.

“Love, truly my predicament is not as dire as yours. Look.” He crouched at his body's feet and indicated heavy shackles that chained him to the floor. “I'm chained with metal. And the door is fitted with metal hinges. When the time comes, I will merely walk out.”

“When the time comes,” I repeated. “Where's Mom?”

Micah's face darkened. “When I last looked in on her, she was being interrogated. Come, I'll take you there.”

We slipped through the heavy wooden door and navigated a bustling corridor; while our dreamselves could instantly reach our physical forms, once we were actively dreaming, we were limited to far more basic means of transportation. Though no awake persons could see us while we were dreamwalking, I was decidedly embarrassed to be walking alongside a naked elf.

“You may keep looking,” Micah commented, catching me before my eyes could dart away.

“Why did they strip you?” I mumbled. Until now, I'd had no idea that my dreamself could blush.

“Looting, most likely,” he replied. “Ah. Here it is.”

We slipped through another door and found ourselves in a larger, cleaner version of Micah's cell. Mom was tied to a chair, thankfully with her clothes on, and surrounded by several small creatures, squat and gray-skinned and so ugly I couldn't stop looking at them. Micah, after laughing at my description, agreed that they were orcs, though these few were smaller than those in the Whispering Dell. Then again, those orcs had been mostly beer belly.

“Again, where do we send the message?” the smallest orc, standing on a table in order to be at Mom's eye level, shouted in her face.

“Again, I do not know!” Mom spat. Her blue eyes blazed, and I almost felt sorry for the orcs. They had no idea what they'd gotten themselves into. While her children were being held, Mom would pretend to play their games, but once she knew we were safe, they would feel the full wrath of the Queen of the Seelie Court.

“What message?” I whispered to Micah, though only he could hear me.

“They wish to send a ransom note to your father,” Micah replied. “They believe Maeve knows of his location.”

Stupid orcs. They knew nothing of the Corbeau family dynamic. “Will they hurt her?”

“Perhaps, but not seriously. If they kill her, not only will they risk Baudoin's wrath, but they won't receive their coin.” I nodded, and we withdrew to the corridor, mostly because I could hardly hear over Mom shrieking curses in Gaelic.

“So, what's our plan?” By the time I'd finished speaking, we were back in the harem room with Max and Sadie. Oh, and my body, too.

“You will wait here, and I will come for you,” Micah replied.

“Micah.” I placed my hand on his arm, which was foolish. I couldn't stay his dreamself like I could his physical form. “Are you… Will you be able to make it here?”

“Of course.” He brushed his thumb over my cheek, catching a tear. “I am nearly healed. Once my dreamself returns, I will wake, and then I will come for you.”

Infuriating man! So calm and confident, while I was terrified for his life. Since our captors hadn't gleaned his identity, Micah was the least safe among us, the expendable one. I could deal with being captured, my mother being interrogated; hell, I could even deal with a crazy queen and Old Stoney's hatred. What I could not deal with was Micah being expendable.

“If you die, I will kill myself and follow you to the underworld,” I declared. “If you dare leave me, I will torment your soul until the end of time.”

The bastard smiled. “Good.” Then he kissed me, lightly at first, but when he would have moved away, I threw my arms around him and held him fast. Since he wasn't wearing anything, I was very aware of how much he enjoyed that.

“Sara,” he began, but my kisses silenced him. Right then, I needed him more than I'd ever needed anything, more than breath or water or sunlight. Micah drew me to the far side of the room, down onto a heap of the oversized floor cushions. We'd only made love once before while dreamwalking, and it had been amazing, so amazing that I hadn't wanted to repeat it, in case that one time had been a fluke.

It wasn't.

Afterward, Micah stroked my back while I lay on my stomach, watching my slumbering body. “My body's wearing clothes, but my dreamself isn't,” I mused.

“Did you think your clothes would just disappear?” he asked, and I laughed. We cuddled a few heartbeats longer, then Micah went from teasing to grave.

“I must go now. We've dallied long enough.” He rose then and murmured a few words that extinguished the drug-laced incense. Someday, far from here, he was going to have to teach me a few of these tricks. I was starting to think he was leaving all the good stuff out of Sadie's Magic 101 lessons. “By the time your body wakes, I will be here.”

“If you're not, I will come for you,” I promised. “We will leave this place together.”

“I am counting on it.” Micah squeezed my hand, and then he was gone.

23

V
ibrating again…

I opened my eyes—my physical eyes this time—and saw Micah's hands gently shaking my shoulders; once again, he was the source of my seismic event. I opened my mouth to speak, realized that that wouldn't be happening, then rolled onto my hands and knees and retched violently. Aw, I ruined the pretty silk pillows.

“The incense,” Micah murmured as he rubbed my back. The nausea passed soon enough, and Micah went on to wake Sadie and Max. They had similar, disgusting, reactions to the smoke.

“What was in that stuff?” I rasped. Sadie had gotten over it fairly quickly, but Max's skin had taken on a grayish cast. He was coated in a thin sheen of sweat, and he couldn't stop puking. “Will he be okay?” I asked, jerking my chin toward Max.

“He will,” Micah assured as he helped me to my feet. I saw that he wasn't naked any longer, but had covered himself in dark iron armor. He'd even fashioned himself a short sword, complete with a belt.

“The manacles and hinges?” I asked, to which he nodded. “Did any guards see you?”

“They won't be following,” he said flatly. As a rule, Micah avoided violence, mostly because I couldn't stomach it, but since these people—goblins, orcs, whatever they were—had captured us, I was fine with Micah doling out whatever punishment he saw fit. And after the beating they had given Micah, I wouldn't mind seeing this place razed to the ground.

Once the smoke had dispersed and Max's stomach was somewhat calm, Micah informed my siblings of our recent capture and Mom's interrogation over Dad's whereabouts.

“I don't remember being captured,” Max protested, rather weakly, since our current situation proved otherwise.

“I remember you walking into a deep shadow, then the shadow moved,” Sadie whispered. “Mom yelled for you to stop, but you were too far ahead to hear her. Then, we woke up here.”

Micah nodded. “They took Max first, as an enticement for Maeve,” he said. “They could not risk her flight.”

Max pushed himself upright, wobbling only a bit. “All right. Let's get Mom and get out of this hellhole.”

Our progress toward Mom was ridiculously slow, being that Max needed to vomit every few minutes, the retching punctuated by some Olympic-caliber belches. I wondered if, as the first one captured, he'd been exposed to some other drug along with the smoke. Whatever it was seemed to be working its way out of his system, albeit in the most revolting way possible.

“Maybe you should sit,” Sadie suggested after he yakked on her feet.

“Nah,” he said, shaking his head. “I'll be fine.”

“Then puke on a bad guy next time!” she huffed.

Eventually, we made it to the last bend in the corridor before Mom's cell. We'd only encountered two guards along the corridors, both of whom Micah had quickly and quietly dispatched.

“Wait here,” Micah murmured, then he crept forward and peered around the corner.

“Hey, sis,” Max rasped, his rampant puking having wrecked his throat. Not to mention his breath.

“Yeah?”

“Next time you want to get it on with your boyfriend, get your own room.”

My mouth fell open, while my face went flaming hot. “I-I don't know what you're talking about.”

“I'm a Dreamwalker too, remember?”

I banged my forehead against the slimy stone wall; no, at the time I'd forgotten all about Max's supernatural abilities. Sadie started pestering Max for information, wanting in on the torment of me, when thankfully Max puked again.
Wow. I'm glad that Max puked. That smoke must have made me as nutty as Oriana
.

Before Max could recover himself, Micah returned, wearing an interesting look on his face. When I asked why, he replied, “That guard happens to be the fellow who stole my belongings. I'd rather like them back.”

I peeked around the corner and looked at the goblin, who was standing guard about half the corridor's length away, monitoring the final turn before Mom's cell. Like the one who'd approached Max at the fountain, he was short and stout, with the same generous paunch and waxy yellow skin. He had crammed his bowed legs into Micah's pants, the leather bunched up around his ankles, and Micah's sword, the point of the scabbard scraping the floor, dangled from his belt. I saw a crumpled shirt and pair of boots behind the creature, as if he'd tried to wear them but had long since given up. Clearly, goblins and elves did not frequent the same tailors. I opened my mouth to question if, since Micah's things were already ruined, this distraction was worth it, when I saw the token I'd made for Micah hooked onto the creature's belt.

“Kill it,” I said. Micah grinned and pressed a kiss to my forehead before returning to the corridor.

“My friend,” Micah announced as he stepped into view. “Do you remember me?”

The goblin's jaw went slack, his curved, cracked toenails scraping the floor as he backed away, trapping himself between Micah and the wall. Micah grabbed him by his loose, wrinkly throat and slammed him into the stone wall once, twice, thrice. As the goblin's body slid downward into a pool of blood and filth, Micah retrieved his sword, his shirt, and, most importantly, his copper token.

“I did like those boots,” Micah said wistfully, toeing the heap of ruined leather.

“I'll get you new boots,” I promised.

He smiled at that, then he turned and beckoned us to follow. We rounded that last turn, then we were outside Mom's cell. Presumably, the guard who was supposed to be stationed by the door had heard the commotion down the hall and abandoned his post, probably to round up reinforcements, so we needed to make this rescue quick.

Things inside the cell were much the same as when Micah and I had dreamwalked in; Mom was still tied to her chair, and the orc in charge was still on the table, but now he was jumping up and down as he bellowed threats in Mom's face, threatening her family's lives as spittle sprayed everywhere. Not wise behavior on Mr. Orc's part, not wise at all.

At our entry, the orc spun around, his spindly arms flailing as he called for his goblin guard to apprehend us. Little did he know his guards had either taken off or been more permanently relieved of their positions. And the rest of the orcs in the cell seemed content to let him handle us newcomers.

Mom leaned to the side, saw that the four of us were relatively unharmed, and stood as her rope bindings fell away. The head orc fell silent for a moment, but only one; then, he resumed screaming and hopping. Mom, who'd long since had enough of this nonsense, leaned forward and clapped a hand on the orc's bald little head.

“Silence!” Mom commanded, and the orc's mouth was instantly replaced by a smooth patch of skin. This only got the little critter even more worked up, so Mom yelled, “Cease, or I'll do away with something far more dear!”

At that, the orc stilled himself. “I don't know if this feeble, ill-advised plan was your doing, or if someone else has directed you,” Mom continued, “but risk coming after a Corbeau at your peril. We are
not
to be trifled with.” She glared in turn at each of the orcs, most of whom were now cowering against the back wall of the cell; I noticed that some were missing ears or noses. Mom's curse had affected more than just the orc in charge, then. Good.