Page 167 of Sweet Nightmare

“Yeah, well, I think I’m going to have to disagree considering you can weave nightmares a hell of a lot better than me.”

“Maybe.” He reaches to take a nightmare from Jude, but in what may be the strangest thing I’ve seen today—which is saying something—it literally races away from him so fast that it ends up slamming into the wall across from us. “Or maybe we just have different roles to play here.”

He nods to the two strands he’s already woven together. “Pop a couple more nightmares up here and let’s see what we can do.”

I do as he asks, then watch in astonishment as he weaves them together as easily and better than any tapestry artist. But when Jude moves to hand him several more nightmares, they run away from him and circle me instead.

Remy shoots me an I told you so look as I grab them and hand them to him.

“What picture are you weaving?” Izzy asks from where she’s keeping a safe distance—whether from Remy or the nightmares, I’m not sure.

“I’m not,” he answers. “It’s doing that itself.”

“You’re not making the picture?” I ask, surprised.

“I’m a time wizard, not an artist.”

His answer only makes me more curious, because it reminds me of what the tapestry could do before it broke. I’ve never seen anything that could change pictures at whim like that.

“Hey!” Mozart says suddenly. I glance her way and realize she looks completely relieved. “That creepy feeling I’ve had since we got here is gone.”

“What creepy feeling?” Simon asks, looking confused.

“Like someone’s walking on my grave.” She shudders. “Gave me the heebie-jeebies.”

“There was a teenage vamp in here for a while,” I tell her. “He’s been bringing a different girl here every five minutes since we showed up. You’re pretty much standing on his favorite make-out spot.”

She jumps about ten feet to the left. “What the hell? Why didn’t you tell me?”

I take a couple of bright-turquoise nightmares from Jude and pass them through to Remy, who adds them to the tapestry. For the first time, I understand why the chricklers are so many different colors. Because every nightmare is a different hue.

I want to ask Jude what some of the really fun-colored nightmares are. I imagine they’re the milder ones—walking out of the house with no pants on or being attacked by a chipmunk—but I’m afraid he’ll tell me it’s the opposite, and I don’t want him to ruin it for me.

So I take a yellow one and slide it over to Remy, who weaves it with a pink one that’s already in the tapestry as I answer Mozart’s question.

“Because it’s crowded in here and there’s nowhere else you could have gone. Plus, he disappeared a little while ago, so I figured you were solid.”

“How long ago was that?” Remy asks.

I take several more nightmares from Jude and wrap them around my waist as my arms are getting full. “A few minutes ago, I guess.”

He raises a brow. “How many minutes ago?”

“I don’t know. Why?”

He doesn’t answer, just watches me steadily. And then it hits me. “You think Jude’s and my mating—” It’s still so new that I trip a little over the word. “You think that somehow did something?”

Again, he doesn’t answer, just takes the black-and-green nightmares I hand him and weaves them into the tapestry.

“I don’t know, Remy. That’s pretty egotistical, isn’t it? Thinking our relationship can affect time and space like that?” I ask as Jude hands me a beautiful scarlet-colored nightmare. “I mean, it’s important to us. But to the world? I don’t think—”

“I guess that depends on what your powers are, doesn’t it?” he interrupts, waving a hand at the tapestry he’s weaving. Instantly, the colors rearrange into a more pleasing array.

“I mean, Jude’s the Prince of Nightmares, so maybe what he does is important. But I’m just a manticore.”

“Do you know any other manticore who sees ghosts?” Remy shoots me a mild look as I hand him more nightmares. “Or who can see the past and the future the way that you can? Or who—”

“What are you trying to get at?” I ask, because I’m exhausted and have a bunch of nightmares draped all over me. While I really want to know what Remy thinks, I also want to get this show on the road.

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