He held up the flame, but it granted him no glimpses of Bel or anyone else.
It was not entirely an empty threat. But the walk back to the manor would be long and frozen and dark. In that time, Bel could be defeated, or distracted, and the creature could return.
“There might be another, closer Ring,” Nicodemus reasoned aloud, voice far shakier now, as though an unfamiliar Ring would make any difference. He knew of none in this part of town, but that didn’t mean they did not exist. If one had appeared, the residents here might have hidden it rather than invite State attention. Or maybe a rogue peculiari had made one and left it, and it lurked within the current of the river itself, whispering.
Anyone could make one, Bel had said, they just didn’t think to do it. Maybe he had meant anypeculiariwhen he had saidanyone. Maybe he had not. He had also said people lacked imagination when it came to the Realm. Maybe some of them were too scared of their own dreams to try.
Nicodemus did not think he was particularly brave or clever. But he was not especially scared of his dreams, either. Perhaps that was simply proof of how silly he was, housebound, houseproud, with people to care for, in his fashion.
Bel’s fashion seemed far more practical, if distant. And yet, Nicodemus did not feel like honoring it. He switched his attention to the flame hovering above his hand and then, before he could second-guess it, flicked his wrist to send the flame tumbling toward the ground, where it vanished before it hit the packed dirt of the alley floor.
Nicodemus was once again alone in the dark.
He was a lambchop to be devoured. He was bait. He wanted so much that it had drawn them both, as if Bel was as much a creature of the Realm as that thing killing people. Nicodemus had wanted for so long and thought it was impossible. He was not alone in that. But he still wanted.
A call reached his ears.
No, not a call, exactly. A stirring, somewhere at the end of the alley. Rats, quite possibly, or the cat chasing them. The wind. A murmur.
Do not listen.Do not get close. Those were the rules for a reason.Do not look, was what Bel would add. But it was far too late for that.
Within the dark was a different dark, a nighttime somewhere else, with stars and trees that did not appear to be any sort of trees that Nicodemus recognized, yet he knew they would be calledtreesif he asked. He didn’t know much about plants, or the countryside, or forests. He knew houses and towns and part of one city. These trees were not tall, but they tangled around each other, snarled like thornbushes or ivy, and their leaves reflected the light of the stars above them, but only at the top. At their trunks and down to the roots, they were gnarled together so tightly that starlight struggled to pass through them.
They were very close now.
Nicodemus stopped, swaying. He was not brave or filled with despair. He was close to burning up with need but not yet. All he did was want.
“I am Nicodemus,” he reminded himself softly. He had no surname. It saidSmithon his records at the home he’d been in as a child. Holt’s parents were fond of him, but society would have frowned on anyone adopting an asterion. Most did not even keep their own.
Nicodemus swallowed the surge of bitterness because Holt had claimed him as friend and that was a great gift. It warmed him.
“I am Nicodemus the asterion,” Nicodemus tried again. “I keep the peculiari safe and well. They are…. I suppose they are my friends, although I am not one of them.” He paused to consider this and it also warmed him. But the pounding of his heart, that was something else. “I am Nicodemus.” Bel had told him to remember this, as if, to Bel, Nicodemus was special enough to withstand the Realm simply by recalling his own name. “And I am loved by Lewis Belasko,” he burned anew to say it out loud, although he said this softly as well, “the monster.”
He held that to his chest, kept it loud in his mind, and stepped into the Ring.
NICODEMUSWALKED through the trees wherever the trees had space for him. There was no worn-down footpath to follow, no neatly cut branches like a topiary maze in a botanical garden. He could not see more than a few feet in front of him, but the ground was soft with moss and not a single dried leaf or needle, and his horns did not catch on any stray thorns or hooked prickles.
Sometimes, he glimpsed small lights within the twisting leaves. Animals, he guessed, though they did not make much noise. The path did not allow him space to investigate, in any case, and there were no other ways to follow but the one that had been set for him. That made this not a maze, but a labyrinth, which was not a thought to calm him.
Minutes, or hours, from his ridiculous decision to enter the Realm, and Nicodemus realized too late he was possibly being led, that his worry for Bel might have been a lure forhim, and that perhaps the creature was simply not picky as long as it found its prey interesting. Although Nicodemus was still not certain he qualified.
He did not have even the smallest penknife on him. He had checked his pockets for something to do as he walked, finding a handkerchief full of crumbs, his tiny pot of homemade sexual lubricant, which seemed an embarrassment now, and the bag of nuts Bel had given him. He ate a handful of those as he continued on, dropping the bits of shell that had not been fully removed to the ground and thinking of the fairy tales that Bel had not wanted him to think of.
He did not look to see if the shells could guide him back out once more. He could barely turn in the space between the gnarled trees, and there was only the one way in, and therefore, only one way out. At least for him.
Rather belatedly, he wondered if this was actually true, and stopped for several moments to remember that he was in the Realm. He had gotten there with magic and he was surrounded by it, and somewhere, if Bel was not furious with him, he would also be amused that Nicodemus had forgotten this despite never having used worked a marvel before.
The realization still did not exactly help his situation, but it was slightly calming. Nicodemus was not lost; he just did not know where he was. He was in the Realm, but if he didn’t wish to be, he could leave.
Probably.
He wasn’t ready to test the theory yet.
“I am Nicodemus,” he reminded himself quietly and resumed walking. “I came here because I wanted Bel in front of me. IwantBel in front of me.” This was the Realm. He’d thought it would use his want to ensnare him. Instead, the woods around him were never-ending.
People could be trapped in the Realm for months. Years. Forever.
Nicodemus stopped again, breathing fast. His affliction and proximity to Bel had addled his brains. He’d brought himself to this place to rescue Bel.Bel, a self-proclaimed monster who was more at home here than he would ever be in drawing rooms or libraries.
