Page 18 of Precipitous Nightmare's Valentine Dream

Precipitous sighed.

“The king does not call me for minor matters,” he pointed out, nodding toward the castle now visible far ahead along the road. “And I am loath to cause strife here in the Realm. I should have spoken to him about my desire to court a Dream. I should have expressed my hopes for eventual mortality.”

On Precipitous’ other side, a tall, thin creature covered in pulsating boils padded along silently.

“What say you, Fester?” asked Effie. “Is Precipitous over worried or being reasonable?”

Festering Nightmare shrugged. He rarely spoke, even at the best of times, but after a few moments, he deigned to give them an opinion.

“The king shall understand.”

“See,” insisted Effie, giving Precipitous a little punch on the side since she couldn’t quite reach his shoulder. “Nothing to worry about.”

“Have you seen this?” Precipitous finally asked, slightly afraid to know the answer. If Effie saw failure in his future, surely she would not be so optimistic about his upcoming meeting with the king.

Effie flashed him a mysterious smile.

“You know I cannot tell you that outside a contracted reading, and even then, my lips are sealed to some futures.”

Precipitous trudged on, not comforted in the least.

“Success?” Fester’s voice burbled from his ravaged throat. The boil-infested Nightmare opened his mouth to say more, but Precipitous cut him off, understanding the query immediately. Forcing Fester to speak more often than needed always seemed unnecessarily cruel.

“I believe that the Dream may, indeed, be falling for my many charms.”

He thought of her now.

The way her bright eyes sparkled as she challenged him to a chase. The unbridled enthusiasm in her response to anything he might do to her, particularly if it involved his horns. Her unflagging confidence in her own knowledge of everything from song lyrics to directions. The little vulnerabilities she showed only to him.

“You’re smiling and daydreaming,“ said Effie with a smirk, startling him out of his reverie. “That’s rare enough for me to think you’re falling, too.”

For a moment, Precipitous wondered how it worked, daydreaming here in the Nightmare realm where true Dreams didn’t operate at all. Was it her influence that made him capable of such?

“And you’re still at it,“ interrupted Effie with a giggle. She tilted her head to one side, overextending her long neck to an almost impossible degree to contemplate her cousin. “I’ve never seen you like this, Preci. It’s quite odd.”

“Whipped,” said Fester, and Precipitous shot him a glare at the teasing. Fester shrugged, his wrecked mouth twisting on one side to something like a smirk. “Or love.”

It was the word none of them had yet uttered.

Love.

Was he in love with Luminous Dream?

That had been his goal, after all. For the two of them to fall in love as mortals did, then part ways once they were done.

But now, the thought of parting ways twisted his gut and made him stumble. He considered what Lumi might want, contemplated her mission with Melanie and Gary. He’d thought it silly, gone along with her as a way to learn what might captivate a Dream into love. But it meant more to her than that. What she did there in the Real mattered to her. And her end goals were aimed firmly at the Dream Realm, not the mortal one.

It occurred to Precipitous that Luminous might not wish to be mortal alongside him. She might resent that fate should he force it upon her.

Precipitous could stand almost anything Lumi did to him, but to see her bright, eager enthusiasm for life shift into resentment and despair would likely destroy him.

“I must speak with her,” he said, and only Effie and Fester’s hands on his arms kept him from turning to flee back into the mortal realms to find her.

“Talk to the king first,” said Effie.

“Not impulsive,” added Fester.

Precipitous let them guide him forward, but in truth, there was no need. For at some point during their walk, the Nightmare King had shifted into being beside them, joining their little party on the road to the palace.

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