Page 98 of Installment Immortality

I didn’t manage to pull the blanket over myself before my eyes closed and I fell into an almost immediate slumber.

“Excuse me, miss, are you free for this dance?”

I put down my glass of champagne—sweet and airy, served in a flute rimmed with frosting and edible glitter—to flash a smile at the handsome gallant who was offering me his hand. His hair and eyes were dark, and I had the distinct feeling that I knew him from somewhere, even though I couldn’t have possibly told you his name. Several of the mice who’d been using the table’s supply of gingerbread to build themselves a castle swept over and carried my glass away, adding it to the supplies they were stockpiling inside their baked palace.

“I am,” I said, and slid my hand into his, and he pulled me to my feet. My clothes changed as we moved, becoming perfectly suited to the waltz the band was now beginning. My dress was a long, shimmering sweep of fondant and gelatin, while my glass slippers were boiled sugar, clear and pure as anything.

He smiled at me, resplendent in his own licorice tuxedo, and together we curved elegantly into the first turn, his hand cupping my waist, my hand resting lightly on his shoulder.

“You look beautiful tonight, Verity,” he said. “But where’s David?”

I blinked, trying to understand both how this stranger knewmy name and who this “David” could possibly be. We spun around the dance floor, and he frowned, and I ached to see such sorrow on his face, to know that I had somehow been the one to put it there.

“Verity,” he repeated, “where’s David?”

“I’m sorry, sir, but I don’t know who you’re talking about,” I said. “I know several Davids, but none of them are at the party tonight. Do you mean the man who owns the bodega down the block?”

“No. Silly girl, no.” He shook his head. “I mean our son. He’ll be out in the world and endangering himself soon enough, but right now, he’s meant to be with you, always. Where’s David?”

I glanced down at my flat midsection, ringed in sugar and familiar as it had ever been. “I don’t know what you…” I froze. Oh, I was still dancing, still allowing myself to be moved through the familiar steps and gestures of the waltz, which I knew so well that I could dance it in my sleep, but that was automatic motion, my body operating without my order. What mattered of me was frozen, locked under a veil of confusion so thick that it might as well have been ice.

My partner leaned closer, his lips a hand’s breadth from my face as he murmured, “You know what I mean, my sweet girl. You have always known what I meant. It’s time for you to wake up now.”

“I don’t want to,” I said. I wanted this. A beautiful ballroom decked in spun sugar and edible glitter, where the mice formed a living centerpiece on every table and my dead husband could lead me around the dance floor, his skin warm against mine, his feet keeping perfect time to the rhythm of the band. I wanted a dream. Reality was too grim, and nothing like I had expected it to be. Reality was swollen ankles and aching kidneys, and loneliness so vast I was afraid it might come alive and swallow the world.

“You have to,” he said, and kissed my forehead before shovingme backward, away from him. I stumbled, my heel catching on a fold in the rug, and tumbled into a pool of frosting like quicksand.

The mice cheered as I was dragged down to who-knows-where, and continued cheering as the frosting filled my mouth, as I thrashed and shouted and gagged and—

—woke up sitting up in bed, both hands clasped across my midsection, baby still kicking like anything, and the mice still cheering in the distance. That was what had broken through the veils of sleep to wake me, aching eyes and all. I swiped at my cheeks with one hand as I swung my legs around to stand. I’d been crying in my sleep again. That wasn’t uncommon anymore. Since losing Dominic, I’d woken up in tears more times than I had bothered to count—although the mice could probably have given me an exact number, if I’d ever asked them.

I had no intention of asking. Some information is good, and some information is a gateway to despair. This seemed like the second kind.

As I levered myself out of the bed, a small voice from the dresser said, “Hail to the Waking of the Arboreal Priestess, although did the Well-Groomed Priestess not once Say, ‘Allow the Pregnant Ones to Sleep as much as they may, for they will have Less of it when the baby comes’?”

“You don’t need to quote the scriptures at me,” I said, somewhat more sourly than the poor mouse deserved. They were just trying to take care of me, in their intrusive little rodent way. “I know them. I’ve been hearing them my whole life. And this isn’t my first baby.”

“We are Well Aware, Priestess,” said the mouse. “We mean no Offense. We seek only to Advise and Inspire, that the next generation of the Divine may enter the world under the Best of Circumstances.”

“Too late on that one,” I said sourly, and shuffled out of the room.

Malena was sitting on the couch—again, not still, as the kitchen smelled like fresh-cooked steak and cheesy risotto—with a small army of Aeslin mouse surrounding her. Most were on the coffee table or the couch itself, but a fair number were sitting on her knees and the arm she had draped casually over the back of the couch, all watching her raptly.

“Welcome back, Sleeping Beauty,” she called. “Hope you don’t mind, but once I figured out you’d be asleep for a while, I went ahead and made with dinner. I figured you’d be hungry when you woke up.”

“You figured correctly,” I said, giving the air an appreciative sniff. My stomach rumbled rather than revolted, which was a good sign. “That smells amazing.”

“Steak, asparagus, risotto. And I have sour cream and butter, and some really nice herb paste that helps it all blend harmoniously.”

The rumbling stopped, replaced by the first stirrings of what might be mutiny. “Meaning…”

“Meaning I can puree the whole mess and it’ll still be delicious. Trust me, and think of it as a really interesting cream soup.” Malena smiled winningly. “You need to eat and keep it down, and I am here to help with that impossible combination.”

“I don’t know…” I’d been blending my food into unappetizing pastes for weeks. The thought of having it blended into anappetizingpaste was less enticing than it was alien and impossible. But she seemed so sure that it was possible, and I was so damn tired of being hungry all the time. “Fine, I guess. But I’m going to try chewing it first.”

“Deal,” she said, far too cheerfully for my tastes. “And on that note, mice, you’ve been wonderful company, but it’s time for me to feed your divinity.”

The mice cheered. They’d been more worried about my inability to eat than I had, which made sense, given how food-oriented they were as a colony.

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