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“Empty hallway. If we’re quiet we can get out of this room, but where would you like to go?”
“I was going to ask you. I haven’t spent much time here.”
“You have spent more time in Nightmare Castle than I have,” Robby pointed out as he straightened from the wall.
I laughed. “Yeah, the dungeon.”
“Let’s not go there.” He winked. “Your shadowy prince gave me some suggestions. I think we should retreat to one of the secret rooms near the throne room. Nic believes this one may actually be secret, and we will be safe there until the others can join us. With the added bonus that we can spy on the throne room from there. If we come across guards, then we can simply try Plan B.”
“Okay. Lead the way.”
Robby slipped in front of me, paused at the door for a moment, then opened it. Happy to follow, I gladly let him take charge. He seemed to know where he was going, and I exhaustion clouded my thoughts. I tried telling myself it wouldn’t be long before we’d win against the dreambound and stop all this, and then I could rest, and just enjoy my men, but it wasn’t working. I’d known accepting Nic’s offer to fully commit would be hard. I just hadn’t realized how terrifying it would be all the time.
The quiet trip through cold stone corridors gave me too much time to think. I tried to focus on moving quietly and following Robby’s lead, but I kept remembering the feelings of helplessness and worry for Geraint that I’d felt the last time I was here. I thought I was over the actual fear of falling by now, especially as my near fall hadn’t paralyzed me, but everything else still lingered. How was I going to reconcile these feelings with the real Baz once we woke him?
I didn’t want to think about that right now, but I kept turning the thoughts over and over in my mind until I was almost startled when Robby stopped abruptly in front of me and put out his hand to signal a halt.
Heart in my throat as footsteps marched across the stone floors, I pressed myself against the wall behind the jester. He flattened himself against the wall, and I was almost afraid he was going to leave me. Swallowing panic, I stared at Robby’s back. If I couldn’t see the monsters, they weren’t real, right?
He must have sensed something, because he put a reassuring hand on my shoulder. Once the footsteps faded, he glanced at me. “Not much farther.”
“Thanks.’
Robby nodded and gestured for me to follow.
I wasn’t sure how much more stress I could take by the time we reached a section of blank wall that Robby stopped by. He studied the stone for a moment before putting his hand just so on a block that looked the same as all the others.
Fortunately, the wall shifted and he slipped inside. “It’s safe. Hurry.”
Spurred on by his urgency, I darted inside. The entrance sealed behind me, leaving us in darkness. This was the first place I’d been in Nightmare Castle that didn’t have the weird ambient light.
“Can you see?” I reached out a hand and bumped into Robby.
He grabbed my hand. “No, but you should be able to fashion a light for us.”
I almost stupidly asked how, but I caught myself in time and pulled on the dream essence around me to make a light. The ambient glow I was used to lit the room we were in, revealing more gray stone and that we were in more of a hallway than a room.
Robby looked around, then headed farther into the space. I followed.
It didn’t take long before we reached a dead end, but the jester put a finger to his lips for quiet. “Dim the light, princess.”
I did as he asked until it was so low we could barely see. Then he touched a brick placed amongst the stone. It vanished. Robby glanced through the opening for a moment before leaning back and pointing for me to have a look.
The scene that greeted me through the hole made my blood run cold. Not-Baz stood in the throne room surrounded by those weird, flat gray dream beings that I’d encountered when last here. Many of them lay on the ground in various states of dismemberment. I was reminded of the Red Queen shouting “off with their heads.”
Robby shook his head eyes downcast when I glanced at him. Unable to look away for long, I returned my attention to the other room.
“Are you quite finished?” A chillingly familiar voice said. Not that I had a doubt before, but clearly not-Baz and his takeover of Nightmare was part of the dreambound woman’s plan to destroy the Unconscious Realm.
“Whatever do you mean, Effie?” not-Baz rounded on her. “You said I could do whatever I want. Right now, I’m angry and I want to destroy things.”
“That is what we’re doing, Basophobia. Destroying this horrid land so I can go home and you can remake it however you wish.” The woman I’d encountered in the forgotten dream came into view. Her long brown hair still perfectly coifed, and her elegant dress accenting her curves and legs were just as I remembered. She even still puffed on a cigarette on the end of a long stick.
“She wasn’t supposed to get away.”
“Well, who’s fault is that?”
“You let her slip away from you, too.”
