Page 108 of Forest of Dreams and Whispers

But he couldn’t answer. The words were turning to ash in his mouth.

Juliana placed a hand against his chest and drew it back as if scalded. “Stop this!” she cried. “Stop it, stop it, stop it!”

He didn’t. He couldn’t. Even her words seemed wrapped in smoke.

Suddenly, she was screaming for someone else. Doors were opening. Horrified faces appeared in the room, and a healer descended into his chambers. The air was filled with bluish light, and the seizing started to subside…

Replaced with a thin, crackling pain, starting at his feet and climbing up his legs.

He looked down. Ice was encasing his body.

With a strangled cry, he reached out to Juliana, still hovering by his side, and gripped her hand.

“You’re all right,” she muttered, her eyes lit by fear. “You’re all right.”

Liar.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

“Lady Juliana, remove your hand,” the healer advised.

“I’m sorry,” she kept muttering, as she pried her hand from his. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

He wasn’t used to this, wasn’t used to Jules being scared, or sounding panicked.

That worried him more than anything else.

“Hawthorn,” she whispered, in that same awful, strangled voice, “you aren’t alone.”

But then the ice reached his neck, and blackness dragged him under.

Julianawoketoscreaming.It was a strange, eerie, distorted sound, like it was happening at the end of a long tunnel, bouncing off the walls, slow and quiet.

She opened her eyes.

She was lying in the middle of the great hall, a hundred guests from the night before slumped in their places. Vines twirled around them, still and quiet.

Nothing else was. Mortal servants screamed across the space, fleeing from the swarms of sluaghs shrieking above them. Some were armed with crude weapons—brooms and pitchforks—others with nothing but their fists.

Three descended on a quivering mortal maid trying to hide beneath the table. Juliana raced forward, drawing her sword—but her blade sliced through nothing.

The mortal screamed as a sluagh grabbed her elbow, but a frying pan swung into the back of her assailant, and another mortal tugged her free.

“This way!” said Dillon, covering her as she fled. “Get to the cellars!”

Juliana called out to him, but he didn’t reply. His words lingered in the air afterwards, like a greasy smear.

What is this place?

Was she dead? Ladrien had promised not to harm her, but perhaps something else had. Or perhaps he’d merely kept her alive until sunset and slaughtered her afterwards.

Although it was still dawn here, and the palace didn’t look like it had been under attack for long. More likely she was asleep somewhere. Little time had passed, and somehow her consciousness had been flung here.

But why? How?

“Come to torment me?” said a voice behind her, more solid than the others.

Juliana wheeled around, grabbing the speaker by the scruff of their clothes and slamming them against the wall.

---