Perchance to Dream Read Free Page A

get fairies flambé. Still sound like a good idea?”
    “Not so much, no,” he admitted.
    “At least we agree on something.” She looked about them, trying to conjure the scene in her mind before she put pen to paper to write,
As the night creeps ever closer
to the group of weary travelers—
    The moon’s brilliant illumination faded, and Nate’s voice came from her left side this time. “Lass?”
    “Hmm?”
    “Somethin’ is creepin’ this way.”
    The assertion was confirmed almost simultaneously when Peaseblossom tugged at one of Bertie’s curls. “There’s something out there!”
    “A Big, Dark something,” Moth added.
    “I think it’s the Night,” Mustardseed said. “And it has teeth.”
    Bertie looked in the direction the fairies’ fingers were pointing, and seven sets of gleaming feral eyes gazed back at her, their inquisitive interest directed largely at her jugular. The sizable pack of wolves paced along the edges of the caravan’s lamplight, momentarily held at bay by the thin golden curtain of illumination that barely encompassed Bertie and her friends. When the luminous hemline flickered, it revealed patchy fur and canines exposed in snarling mouths.
    Nate reached for a cutlass that wasn’t there. “Get back!”
    The fairies unwittingly obeyed him, darting to the driver’s seat where the light was brightest.
    “Do something, Bertie!” Moth whimpered above her. “You conjured them!”
    “I did not!” Taking tiny steps and trying not to draw their attention, Bertie backed up against the side of the caravan. “I made no mention of anything with teeth!”
    “Well, they have them,” said Moth. “Big ones.”
    “You weren’t called!” Mustardseed shook his tiny fist at the wolves. “Have the decency to wait for your cue!”
    “This isn’t the theater,” Peaseblossom said. “They don’t have to wait for stage directions.”
    “Makes me almost miss the Stage Manager. He’d have something to say about unauthorized entrances.” Bertie was at an absolute loss for what to do. Animals in the Théâtre were portrayed by puppets, actors dressed in fur, or steel-covered clockwork; they certainly didn’t exude the promise of a bone-crunching, painful death with every panted exhalation.
    “I’m fearin’ I’ll be no help in a brawl.” Moonlight-washed linen bunched as Nate flexed, testing his strength. Crouching, he reached for a fistful of grass and just managed to stir the spectral-dampened stalks. “Even if I had a weapon, I doubt it would do much good.”
    “It’s all right, I can fix this.” Biting her lip, Bertie drew a squiggly stripe through the line about the night, but the ink refused to stay put. It wiggled off the page like an inchworm having a seizure and fell onto the ground with a wet plop ! “I don’t get rewrites? Who can write a play in one draft?”
    “Shakespeare?” Ariel moved back a few paces, still standing between Bertie and the wolves, but now close enough that she could scent the perfume of his hair.
    “This is an inopportune time for a scholarly debate, I think.” Casting about them for inspiration, Bertie’s gaze came to rest on the lanterns. “The light is the only thing holding them at bay, isn’t it?”
    Nate nodded. “That’s how it works wi’ things long o’ fang an’ sharp o’ nail.”
    “They are most certainly long of fang, and I really don’t want to know about the sharpness of their nails.” Bertie could all too easily imagine the damage such claws could do.
    Ariel looked at her over his shoulder. Tendrils of his hair brushed her bare arm. “Given the results of your first attempts, you might want to be careful how you phrase the next bit.”
    “I’m not an idiot.” Twitching away from his unintentional caress, Bertie put pen back to paper to scribble,
The fairies kindle a fire.
    And the parties in question promptly burst into flames.
    “AAAAAH! It burns! It burns!” Mustardseed hollered as he batted at his