The drome was lurching toward her, pudgy white fingers grasping the air.
“First Sight,” breathed Tiffany.
She cut Roland’s head off.
The snow had melted all across the clearing, and the trees looked real and properly treelike.
In front of Tiffany the drome fell backward. She was holding the old frying pan in her hand, but it had cut beautifully. Odd things, dreams.
She turned and faced Roland, who was staring at her with a face so pale, he might as well have been a drome.
“It was frightened,” she said. “It wanted me to attack you instead. It tried to look like you and made you look like a drome. But it didn’t know how to speak. You do.”
“You might have killed me!” he said hoarsely.
“No,” said Tiffany. “I just explained. Please don’t run away. Have you seen a baby boy here?”
Roland’s face wrinkled. “What?” he said.
“The Queen took him,” said Tiffany. “I’m going to fetch him home. I’ll take you too, if you like.”
“You’ll never get away,” whispered Roland.
“I got in, didn’t I?”
“Getting in is easy. No one gets out!”
“I mean to find a way,” said Tiffany, trying to sound a lot more confident than she felt.
“She won’t let you!” Roland started to back away again.
“Please don’t be so…so stupid,” said Tiffany. “I’m going to find the Queen and get my brother back, whatever you say. Understand? I’ve got this far. And I’ve got help, you know.”
“Where?” said Roland.
Tiffany looked around. There was no sign of the Nac Mac Feegle.
“They always turn up,” she said. “Just when I need them.”
It struck her that there was suddenly something very…empty about the forest. It seemed colder, too.
“They’ll be here any minute,” she added, hopefully.
“They got trapped in the dream,” said Roland flatly.
“They can’t have. I killed the drome!”
“It’s more complicated than that,” said the boy. “You don’t know what it’s like here. There’s dreams inside dreams. There’s…other things that live inside dreams, horrible things. You never know if you’ve really woken up. And the Queen controls them all. They’re fairy people, anyway. You can’t trust them. You can’t trust anyone. I don’t trust you. You’re probably just another dream.”
He turned his back and walked away, following the line of hoofprints.
Tiffany hesitated. The only other real person was going away, leaving her here with nothing but the trees and the shadows.
And, of course, anything horrible that was running toward her through them.
“Er…” she said. “Hello? Rob Anybody? William? Daft Wullie?”
There was no reply. There wasn’t even an echo. She was alone, except for her heartbeats.