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Goosebumps prickled my arms, and an icy chill trailed down my back when I inspected the cabin Robby had brought us to.
“I thought you said we’d be safe here.” I glared at the jester.
“Yes, Princess. While candy-coated cabins in the forest are not typically as safe as they might otherwise appear, as long as we don’t actually eat any of the candy, we’ll be perfectly safe. These are transitional places. They start in Dream, but sometimes end up in Nightmare. This particular cabin originated with the fairy tales, but it also does double duty as a childhood fancy for kids who have played certain video games that are much kinder to hungry children in the woods. We will be safe.”
“As long as we don’t eat the candy?” My stomach disagreed with that plan. The delicious, sugary smell had filtered over to me, and it had exerted its own siren call on my sweet tooth.
Nic smiled and swirled into mist, disappearing for a few moments. Dio’s expression darkened to an annoyed glare.
When Nic returned he placed a hand on the cabin, pulled off a gingerbread wafer, and popped it in its mouth. We all waited, but when nothing happened, he relaxed. “I closed the connection to Nightmare. It will reopen eventually, but we don’t have to worry right now.”
Casey laughed bitterly. “Right. No one is worried about anything. Sure... Just eat the house. Like that’s normal?”
My momentary relief disappeared. “Right. So, I guess we’ve got a lot to tell you.”
Robby tightened his lips and put his arm around Casey. “Let’s go inside and we’ll fill you in.”
***
I stared around the cabin while Robby told Casey everything. We’d left him to explain things to her since it was essentially his fault she was involved. I listened, but he stuck to topics I was already familiar with. Ash stood with her hands behind her back, staring into the fireplace. A small fire crackled merrily, and a fortunately empty—I’d checked—stew pot hung nearby.
Hunger had gotten the better of me, and I wandered about nibbling on the house while I explored. Now I sat on the marshmallow cushioned couch and marveled at the way people’s dreams had shaped this particular cabin.
Like many dream structures, the interior design didn’t quite make sense, and a few doors that looked like they should lead outside led to other rooms, but it was cozy enough without the danger of ending up in a nightmare. It also repaired itself after you took a bite of it. Handy, that.
Casey’s look of horror and Ash’s tight shoulders told me all I needed to know about how they felt about their new circumstances.
“I’m trapped here?” Casey cried out when Robby got to the part about them being dreambound. “I can’t leave?”
“No, dear. At least we’ve not yet discovered a way to send mortals home once they reach Dream.”
“But...” She turned her attention to me. “Ember goes back and forth?”
“Ember is Nightmare’s princess,” Robby replied gently. “The same rules do not apply to her.”
“So I’m trapped in a land that is slowly getting erased, and if we don’t fix it we’re all going to die anyway?” She curled into Robby’s arms and wiped at her cheeks.
“Yes.”
“Just great,” she muttered.
I went over to the nearest gingerbread wall and snapped a piece off, more to have something to do with my hands than still being hungry.
“Casey, we will speak to the king and queen once we’ve saved Dream,” Robby assured her.
“All we have to do is find this Baz guy, hope those four can work things out, wish them a good love life and everything will be okay?” Casey’s voice cracked on every other word, but she did seem to grasp our situation.
“There may be more to it than that,” Nic said. “But finding Baz is the next step.”
“’K. How do we do that?” Casey straightened a little, though Robby kept his arm around her.
“First, we get some rest,” Nic said.
A yawn stopped my protest. I didn’t want to rest. I wanted to get this resolved so we could start figuring out how to help Ash and Casey.
Geraint took my hand and tugged me toward the back of the cabin where some of the bedrooms had been.
I stopped by Ash, putting my hand on her back.
