I’m dreaming. Nightmaring. Whatever it’s called. My back is flat against the floor. My shoulders stick disgustingly to my shirt.
I’m in a banquet hall—beautiful, hideous, ornate. Everything is black and red. Red light. Black shadows. And everything is upside down. Chandeliers sprout from the floor like trees. A long table hangs from the ceiling. The table is covered with heaps of food, grotesque and unrecognizable in the dark, and somehow it doesn’t fall.
I’m sitting at the table, upside down, my shoulder blades digging into a high, carved chair. And now gravity shifts and I’m upright. A plate is in front of me. I can’t tell what’s on it, but it’s piled high, steaming. . . .
I flinch. Someone else is sitting at the table, way at the other end. He’s obscured by shadow, but I feel his eyes on me, and they’re cold. Sharp. Ice blue.
A sound, like a knife against a crystal goblet, and the red lights flare along the table. I see the figure at the other end. It’s a huge man, a silhouette against the ruddy glow. For some reason I can only see parts of him, a red velvet coat, lacy cuffs resting on the table in front of him. The lower part of his face. Warts pressing like boils through the powder. The man is chewing, smiling, chewing and smiling, faster and faster, smacking his lips. I get little glimpses of his teeth––red teeth, stained teeth chewing.
“Are you the butterfly man?” I want to ask, but something is clogging my throat, and I’m coughing, choking, vomiting bullets onto my plate––
I wake up gasping.
The sweat is freezing on my back. I shudder, pinch my eyes closed. Sit up.
What time is it? Lilly is hanging off her chair. Jules and Will are sprawled every which way on the floor. The light seems to have changed. It’s pale white now, not the golden glow we went to sleep in.
Something’s not right.
The room feels crowded suddenly, stiflingly full. Lilly, Jules, and Will are next to me, but there are other people lying across the floor, propped against the fireplace, draped over tables. Sleeping people, their faces turned away from me, unmoving.
I spin, searching for Perdu. He’s in the shadows behind a massive globe, crying, clawing at the painted map. And now he turns to me and his eyes are red fire.
Run, he spits. Run while you can. He’s seen you.
I wake with a shout. Shove myself upright. The light is soft and warm. The sleepers are gone. It’s just Jules, Will, Lilly, me. Four.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Perdu’s gone.
I’m tear across the library.
“Perdu!” I don’t even care if anyone hears me. The clock stopped at 2:17. Five hours after I last checked it. There’s blood on the floor, dark and stinking of hot metal. My feet are slapping in it.
I reach the doors and stare up at them. All the furniture we had stacked in front of it is lying in a pile. I see soggy stacks of paper, stained red. Broken chair-legs. The massive walnut table is on its side. The doors are still closed. The floor peg is out.
No-no-no, how long was it out, how long was the door open––
“Will?” I wail over my shoulder.
I jam the floor peg in again and spin, racing back toward the fireplace. It’s not just blood on the floor. There are tufts of dark hair floating in the red, and fatty, pearly strands of white. Like something ripped at Perdu.
“Jules!” The others are just starting to stand, gaping at the blood. “Jules, please tell me you didn’t fall asleep. Please—”
He jerks around to look at me, his eyes wide.
He fell asleep. We all did.
Will peels away from us, heading for the door. I drop to hands and knees and crawl between the chairs, trying to see if anything is missing. My letter opener is still in my pocket. The compass is on the floor, half hidden under a heap of pillows and carpets. I grab it and clench it in my fist, still crawling. The two swords are lying on the floor. We don’t have anything else to steal.
I leap to my feet and run back to the doors. Will’s there, one hand hovering over a bloody print on the wood. It’s smaller than his hand. Smaller than my hand. It’s tiny, almost delicate. Did Perdu have delicate hands?
“Nothing’s broken,” Will says quietly. “The floor peg and the fire poker, it’s all fine, which means . . .” He coughs. “Which means the door was opened from this side.”
I let out some sort of animal cry and turn in a circle, my fingers going to my hair, digging into my scalp. “Perdu let someone in and we didn’t hear? He pulled down a mountain of furniture, was possibly attacked and mauled, and we just slept through it?”