Page 47 of Nightmare's Dance

“What if dear old Baz grew angry with her for helping your escape?”

“Shit,” Nic muttered. “I hadn’t considered that.”

“Do you think he hurt Mary?” I covered my mouth, worried about the terrifying woman who’d helped us escape.

“He won’t have hurt her too badly,” Nic said. “Imprisoned is more likely. He’ll need her to move around if he wants any of his people to get to the conscious realm.”

“How do we get back, then?” I hated how my voice broke.

“Prince Nic will simply have to use his princely ability to take us home after you fix this arch.”

“There will be no way to hide my involvement with rescuing the knight,” Nic said grimly. “There will be repercussions.”

“What ability?”

“Even without a mirror dweller, I can activate an arch to get us home to Nightmare. It only works with the main travel mirror in Nightmare Castle, simply because that’s where the magic is strongest, and it takes a great deal of effort. It’s a one-way thing. I can get home, but I can’t go to other places. A failsafe so the princes don’t get stranded somewhere they don’t wish to be. I could still become trapped here, but not easily.”

“Ahh. Well, at least we can get back. Right?” I knew there had to be more to it than Nic said, but it didn’t seem as if we had any options, either.

He nodded. “There is that. Okay, let’s get home. Ember, if you would please fix this arch.”

I moved as carefully as I could, trying not to stir up too much dust. Unfortunately, there was a lot. One sneeze set off another.

Nic came up behind me, wrapping shadows around us, until I could breathe again.

“Thanks.” I rubbed at my nose and made it the rest of the way to the broken mirror without incident.

The broken glass was cool under my palm. Nic was still touching me when I pulled on the essence, channeling it through the cracks. Instead of taking the energy inside me, I accidentally grabbed onto his instead.

“Yes,” he breathed. “That’s how you siphon.”

“Maybe I just needed to be actively using it.”

“Perhaps.”

With his much larger well of energy to draw from, fixing the mirror was no trouble at all. It took me a little longer to fix the arch, but the effort was minimal once I figured out how to feed the shadow essence through the fractures.

“Good job, Spark,” Nic praised me.

His pleasure rolled through me, filling me with warmth and desire.

“This will not be like your last trips through the mirrors. The transition will be much more abrupt and jarring. Jester, be ready should there be someone standing guard on the other side of the mirror. It is possible they’re expecting us.”

Nic put his arm around my waist, and Robby put his hand on Nic’s shoulder. I curled into Nic’s embrace and buried my face against his chest, feeling weak but not wanting to watch, just wanting to feel safe.

Nic’s shadowy presence wrapped around me, and his powers jerked us through the mirror so rapidly, I barely felt the liquid cold splash as we passed through the glassy surface before we tumbled out the other side.

Nic kept us on our feet. I risked a look, and Robby made it seem like he did this sort of thing every day, standing with a sword he’d pulled from somewhere in hand, gaze scanning the empty room.

At least, I thought it was empty.

Nic dragged me back into the shadows, and Robby followed until we were heavily concealed. This had to have been a ballroom at some point, but dust coated the surfaces and dirt dulled the mirror, much like the rest of the castle.

Robby took a deep breath. “It is good to be home,” he whispered. “I wasn’t sure how much longer I’d be able to hold out.”

“Then it is a good thing we found each other,” Nic replied equally quietly. “The doors are guarded from the outside. We must take to the shadows. Do you have any skill in that regard?”

“I’m a jester. Of course I do.” Robby grinned at Nic. “What about our princess?”

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