SOMETHING IS WRONG.

    Travis Stoll feels the wrongness behind his ribs. In the same place where the absence of Valerie lives, the same place where all of his love for her is stored, there is a pulsing feeling of something not right.

    He hasn't felt like this in almost two years—not since the Battle of Manhattan. Not since she was halfway across the city and he didn't know if she was alive or dead. Just like right now, that panic and strange void of her has rooted itself behind his ribcage.

    It blindsides him, forces him to let go of Clara's hand and stumble blindly over to a park bench, collapsing onto it, eyes unseeing but trained on the ground.

    "Travis?" The littlest Greenwood asks, and her bubblegum pink Converse high-tops come into his blurry vision as she steps closer to him. "Travis, are you okay? You look sick."

    He manages to take a sharp breath, and his gaze travels to her face. Her eyebrows are furrowed together in concern. "I'm—I think I'm okay. It just feels weird. In my chest."

    "Are you having a heart attack? Do you need me to call 911?" Clara asks, insistent. Her green eyes narrow as she looks at him with too much wisdom for a ten year old. "It's my sister, isn't it?" There's an all-knowing expression on her face that makes her question wholly rhetorical, and she's pulling out a cell phone before he can answer.

    He starts to protest, but she holds up a freckled hand—such a Valerie gesture that his throat bobs. "I know. Monsters. Val told me. Just shut up and let me call Joss."

    Travis is stunned into silence by the realization that the younger Greenwoods are just like the Sandman herself, and he can only watch mutely as Clara taps the phone's screen a few times before holding it up to her ear.

    They are both quiet for a few moments, listening to the dial tone that comes from the phone's speaker.

    "You've reached Josslyn Greenwood-Fisher. Leave a message."

    Clara visibly deflates. "It went to voicemail." She stares at the phone briefly, as if willing her oldest sister to call back. "She always answers when I call, even if she's in a meeting. She'll yell at me for interrupting when she answers, but she always answers."

    He finds his voice then: "I can't feel her."

    The presence of Valerie that has lived within his chest for the past decade and a half has gone cold. What had once been a burning, raging fire within him is no more than embers now.

    She has disappeared from his mind and the place she has always occupied in his heart.

    The freezing cold inside of him is terrifying. "We need to go. Now."

|

    Valerie Greenwood had her jaw wired shut, just once, a little less than a decade ago. She'd gotten into a fight with Clarisse LaRue on one of her first days at camp and Clarisse, two years younger than her but eight inches taller than her then, had punched her so hard that Valerie's jaw had been broken in two different places.

    While she hasn't forgiven Clarisse, ten years later, she still remembers the pain, the discomfort, of not being able to open her mouth.

    She feels the same in this moment, watching mutely as the only love she's ever known stumbles into the restaurant with her sister and nephew in tow. She wants to scream, beg him to turn around and leave, shout at him that he is in danger here—that he is in danger with her.

    She wants him to run.

    But Travis Stoll is stubbornly in love with her. And despite the fact that she pleads with him inside of her head, he doesn't turn his back on her.

    She just prays, to a god higher up than her father, that her eyes are expressing the thoughts that run rampant in her head.

    Morpheus turns to meet her screaming gaze, a gleeful expression painted onto his face. "Loverboy has joined us, hasn't he?" He asks, bronze eyes alight. "Dear Valerie, why didn't you tell me you'd invited him?"

    She shrivels at the gloating tone of his voice. She'd shut down the link between her and Travis's minds the moment her father made her mute, and the place she'd always felt Travis within her feels cold, empty. She misses it already, but as strong as he is, this is how she can protect him.

    Her heart hammers behind her ribs, and the lump in her throat burns every time she swallows. There is so much pressure on her shoulders and chest that she feels like Atlas, holding up the world. She knows that everyone making it out of this restaurant alive is dependent on how she reacts and behaves—an outburst from her can end with her sisters and Travis dead in an instant, but if she complies, becomes the silent and obedient daughter Morpheus expects her to be, she might be able to spare them.

    Spare them. Because this will not end well for her, obedient or not. Whether she surrenders to Morpheus's sick and twisted plan or fights back, this is her chance to make her last stand.

    She stood in front of the Greenwood Hotel two years ago, laden with weapons and magic, while her sisters and mother were bewitched to sleep within the hotel, with no idea whether Travis or Alyssa were alive, in order to ensure the survival of those she loved.

    Valerie intends to do the same right here, right now. She will be the sacrificial lamb for them.

    With Morpheus's power still wrapped around her own, squeezing painfully around her blessing and her curse, she doesn't dare retreat into the fortress within her mind.

    It feels like hours before someone finally speaks.

    "You." Clara hisses, and the anger in her green eyes is so familiar that Valerie wants to kill Morpheus with her bare hands and give him a mortal death. "It was you. You killed my sister."

    Valerie's spine straightens almost immediately, and she's torn between squeezing her eyes shut and never blinking again as Morpheus faces Clara, eyebrows raised.

    "Mortals are so strange. They all talk like they all have a death wish, but when I come to collect, they plead for their lives." His white teeth are slightly, almost imperceptibly, pointed, fanged. "Sit down. Both of you."

    Valerie holds her arms out silently, a wordless beckoning to Clara, who keeps her eyes on Morpheus as she crosses the distance between her and her sister, trembling from head to toe when she falls into Valerie's arms.

    Travis's expression is pained, and the muscles in his jaw tick from holding himself back. He looks like he is half a second away from pulling out a weapon and getting himself killed. He's angry, Valerie understands. Whether or not he's angry enough to defend her right now, she doesn't know.

    She prays he can read her like he always has been able to.

    "Dear Valerie," Morpheus begins, clasping his hands on the tabletop. "Are you prepared to behave, or must I keep your muzzle on a bit longer?"

    Her eyes flash darkly, and she winces so harshly that it looks like a twitch. It takes her several moments to regain her composure—several moments where everyone at the table watches her, seeing if she will unleash the Tartarus-born power that runs through her veins.

    Finally, at long last, she nods, a slow and purposeful tip of her chin that ends with her looking down her nose at her father.

    Another dark smile from Morpheus. "Excellent." He says, that almost ancient accent slipping through the clipped English.

    "Let them go." Valerie's voice is low, even and quiet. "Let them leave, alive and unharmed, and I'll go with you. I'll do whatever you want."

    Clara's mouth opens, but a squeak is all that leaves it when Valerie squeezes her wrist tightly.

    The god of dreams tilts his head. "What makes you think I'm letting anyone in this restaurant walk out with their heads attached to their bodies?"

    Something in the air shifts.

    Thunder booms overhead, and the calm look on Valerie's face is replaced with one of sheer murderous intent. Darkness ripples in the space around her body, shadows eminating from her skin.

    "Don't start something you can't finish, Valerie." Morpheus growls, shifting his weight in his seat.

    She smiles wickedly. "Threaten my sisters or my boyfriend again, and I'll finish what you started the day I was born."

    If Morpheus is shaken by her threat, he doesn't show it. "Boyfriend? Oh, this is so much more interesting than I thought."

    Valerie's finger twitches, and the rest of the restaurant falls silently asleep at their tables, scattered servers curled up on the floor around the dining room. "Let them leave, or this ends right here, right now."

    "A simple party trick," Morpheus says. "Something you mastered when you were merely a child. I know that the power within you could level a whole block. You've got to do better than that, my dear."

    The shadows around her grow darker, a storm cloud gathering in an empty field.

    She tries to convince herself that she is alright with killing everyone else in the restaurant if her abilities go awry. Because, as her power swells and crests behind her ribcage, she fears she cannot control it.

    The look on her face darkens even more. "You threatened the people I care about. You're going to die, one way or another." Another wicked grin crosses her expression. "You raised me to be like this. Why are you surprised that I turned out just like you? Murdering family members is something you're okay with, right?"

    Travis's hand finds her thigh under the table, squeezing three times, and it is the first time she has felt truly strong since Morpheus sat down at this table.

    Travis Stoll has loved her since she was a pile of shattered pieces, sharp around the edges, all dark and jagged and cruel. He has loved her to the point where she feels safe being good or evil—being like her mother and sisters, or being like her father.

    Today, it seems, her evil side has conquered.

    "Fine." Morpheus seethes. "You might have won the battle, but I assure you, daughter of mine, that you will not win the war. I will find you again."

    He disappears into a cloud of roiling darkness, and she sags against the back of the chair, her arms wrapped around Clara's waist.

|

    Valerie stays in the penthouse that night, in her childhood bedroom, with Travis across the hall in a guest room.

    Crammed into her king-sized bed are the four Greenwood Girls, the elder two of the four on the edges of the mattress while the younger two are sandwiched between them. Josslyn and Eloise sleep soundly, deep and even breaths leaving their lips. They are not afraid of nightmares, because Valerie's protection is wound around them like a heavy blanket.

    "Will you tell me a story?" Clara whispers into the darkness of the room. "Something happy, please."

    Valerie inhales Clara's linen-and-lavender scent. "Do you want to hear a love story?" She whispers in return, pushing Clara's red hair off of her forehead. She watches as Clara nods, eyes still closed, smiling tiredly.

    Something soft flashes across Valerie's face, so different than the expression she wore earlier today.

    "Once upon a time, there was a little girl made of bronze, who lived in a castle with her sisters. She loved her sisters very much, but she was friends with the shadows and the nightmares, too. She had a foot in both worlds."

    Clara's nose wrinkles, and a small smile graces her lips. "Is this story about you, Vally?"

    "Don't be silly." There is humor in Valerie's voice. "It's a fictional story that I made up just now. Be quiet so I can keep going."

    Clara quiets down, burrowing under the covers even more despite the early-summer heat. Her eyes stay closed, but her eyebrows furrow, listening intently to every word that leaves her sister's mouth.

    Valerie resumes the gentle drum beat of her fingers on Clara's temples. "Anyway, the little girl had a foot in both worlds. She never fit in in either one, and she never felt at home, no matter how far she traveled or how much she loved her sisters. She was different than anyone she'd ever met. She felt so alone in both worlds."

    The littlest Greenwood frowns.

    "But one day, when the little girl made of bronze was talking a stroll in her dream world, she stumbled upon a boy made of mercury. He was different, too—different than her, different than his friends and his family. And without even hearing her speak, without meeting or even knowing her, the little boy made of mercury understood her. Without trying, as they grew up, he became the person who knew her best, who knew all sides of her."

    Clara's frown blooms into a smile, crooked and grinning. "I've heard this story before. You're skipping the good parts." She whispers into the space between them.

    Lips twitching, Valerie sighs. "Fine. Where was I?" She thinks back to Travis's first day at camp. "The girl made of bronze eventually left her castle, and left her sisters, too. She dove headfirst into the strange other world, where everyone was made of precious metals and gems. But she was too odd, even for the other world. She didn't fit in there, just like she didn't fit in in her kingdom." She can't help but smile through her insecurities. "And then the boy made of mercury stumbled into the other world in the middle of the day."

    Behind her closed eyes, Valerie can see it all clearly. "The little girl—not so little now, just a little older than you—saw him across the room. He fell out of his seat in shock. And she spent the next few years pushing him away, because he knew her too well and it scared her. She hid in her fortress of nightmares and darkness, used her sharpness to keep him away. But he kept finding her, over and over and over again." Her drum beat on Clara's temples halts. "When she stopped pushing him away, she was afraid that it was too late. That he didn't want to know her anymore."

    "What happened next?" Clara asks.

    "You know how in Snow White, true love's kiss saves the day? Well, it was something like that. The girl made of bronze turned from the ogre into the princess because the boy made of mercury loved her."

    The sincerity and lovesickness of her own words makes her want to gag. She's hated romance movies for as long as she can remember, scoffed at the idea of falling in love.

    Love was not for people like her. Love was for good people, for those whose hands weren't stained with blood and ichor. Love was for people who would live past the age of twenty.

    "You're mixing up your movies, Vally."

    A hoarse laugh bursts from Valerie, too loud in the quiet room, and Eloise stirs in her sleep. "Sorry. The end."

    Clara is silent for a few moments. And then, when she speaks, it's hesitant. "You love him?"

    "More than I'm capable of saying out loud."

|

    Once Clara has drifted off, wrapped in a secure cocoon of blankets, Valerie slips out of the bed, creeping on tip-toeing feet out of the bedroom and across the hall, tapping one nail against the wood of the guest bedroom door.

    Travis opens it, rubbing his tired eyes, and looks down at her. "Did they kick you out of bed?" He asks, a hand reaching out to trace the thin strap of her tank top.

    Instead of answering, she pulls him in by the neck of his shirt and kisses him softly. "You know," she mumbles against his lips, praying he understands what she means.

    He smiles. "Yeah, V. I know. I love you too. Sleep tight."