Once Upon a Nightmare

the grave of lilies

“I wonder what he’s planning . . .” he mutters.

“Planning?” Now I’m angry. “He isn’t planning anything! He just hates me and wants to get rid of me while not dooming himself because of the curse—” I stop, abruptly. I’m not sure Armand knows about the binding of my soul to Alexander’s.

Armand remains shrewd and unruffled—what a shock. “He’s not trying to finish you off, Violet. And if he hates you, he loves you too.”

Something inside me snaps, like a bomb letting loose. I’m not sure if this is good or bad reaction. All my limbs go stiff and my skin ripples first with heat, then goose bumps. It takes me less than a second to realize it’s a lie, that Alexander has somehow duped his brother, but my reaction is still embarrassing.

“Armand,” I say quietly, hoping he can hear my resignation. I accept it, and it’s okay with me. “He hates me—and that’s it.”

“One doesn’t cancel out the other,” he says. “To quote him—exactly—” And before my eyes his hair shrinks to the cropped mess on Alexander’s head, his eyes turning the color of fire. The frustrated expression on his face is so perfectly mimicked, I can almost believe they actually swapped places. “I hate her, then I love her,” Alexander says to someone, not to me. He tugs a hand through his hair, making it even more unmanageable. “I want to throw her off a cliff, then rush to the bottom and catch her.”

Alexander fades into Armand, who watches me again, his face unreadable.

“He said that?” I ask finally.

“The more we understand someone, the more we love them like ourselves—with impatience and loathing, but also unconditionally. And no one understands you more than Alexander.”

I cover my face with my hands. I don’t cry, but I want to shield myself, somehow, from Armand’s penetrating stare. Sighing deeply, I find some last scrap of courage and look up.

“I know he’s a pain.” Armand smiles a little. “But he’s smart—in an unpredictable, fearless way. He isn’t planning on leaving you here. I don’t know what he’s doing, but it isn’t that.”

I laugh, despite myself, and shake my head. Reclosing the distance between us, I fist my hands in his shirt so he can’t get away. “Why are you sticking up for him anyway? I thought we agreed to blame all our problems on him.”

“We can still do that.”

I smile. I want him to kiss me again, but as if he reads my intent in my eyes, he glances to the side and steps back. For now, I let him get away with avoiding me. “You never did tell me the plan,” I say after a moment. “Why, exactly, are we in the mountains again?”

“Well, for one, no one has a chance of stopping us here. The mountains . . . whisper to me. Tell me everything that passes through its shadows. The Night Terrors guard against intruders—which I am not.”

“And I’m with you. You told them that, right?” I’m trying to joke, but the small twitch of his lips is more courteous than actual amusement.

“I didn’t know if you needed . . .” He hesitates, then meets my eyes. “Why were you helping James Donovan find Queen Hina?”

“I wasn’t,” I say, confused. “I mean, I guess by default I was, but I was just trying to find the Stitch of Time.”

“The Dream Queen is imprisoned in the Stitch of Time,” Armand says; there’s a touch of doubt in his voice.

  I shrug. “Then, yes—technically. But I don’t care about the Queen.”

The doubt has changed to full on puzzlement. “Then why do you need the Stitch in Time?”