The Children of Hypnos

Chapter 32: Doppelgänger

"Are you okay? Did it cut you anywhere?"

Emery patted Wes's chest and stomach, checking for holes in his armor. He frowned at her, then down at himself, then said, "No, I don't feel anything anywhere. I should be fine."

Emery spun him around to check his back. Clean, no punctures in the armor. Her heart thumped her ribs, the blood rushing through her ears. She kept one eye on Morrigan, who watched with impatience from afar.

"I don't think we should go with her," Wes whispered when he turned around again.

"Neither do I," Emery said, "but I have to know what she means about Edgar."

Jacqueline appeared beside them. "Can we go, please? Quickly? I'm over this place, and Emery, I am done with your freaky-haired doppelgänger."

"I've only got two shots left," Emery said. "So you both know."

She'd already started focusing on her dream-window, pulling it close to her. It took longer this time, either because she was tired or because it had to reform after they'd gotten spit out of it before. Morrigan watched her closely. Emery reached out for Wes and Jacqueline when she felt the tickle of the window at her back, and she pulled both of them through it with her.

Once again they stood on the snow-covered field before the long grounds of the palace, Moscow twinkling in the night, too far to ever reach. Morrigan appeared behind them a moment later. The moment she stepped inside, Emery's sense of her disappeared against the backdrop of the dream, like camouflage. Morrigan started toward the palace.

"If she attacks," Emery said under her breath to Wes, "get out of the way."

His hands choked up on his hammer.

Morrigan led them past the tall shrubs, between Grandpa Al and Edgar standing watch over the front doors, and into the entry hall. The pictures here were the same; seemingly endless portraits of Emery missing parts of her face. Morrigan didn't stop to look. She walked fast enough that her hair trailed behind her in one long black smokelike stream. Emery kept her hand on her Peacemaker wondering if Morrigan knew how many times Edgar had made her practice the quick draw.

She probably did. Doppelgängers were supposed to have shared memories with their dreamhunters dating back until the time the doppelgänger became active, when it split from its hunter. Morrigan had only said she'd been active for a while—surely that couldn't have meant years.

There was a wriggling voice in the back of Emery's head that said to shoot Morrigan now. It would be easy; just aim at the center of all that hair and pull the trigger. Screw the war. Forget what Morrigan had said about talking to other doppelgängers, about both of them being able to live. Solving the mystery wasn't worth the risk.

But Edgar was. Keeping Edgar safe was worth trouble with a doppelgänger.

It was worth a whole Insanity Prime.

Morrigan swept through the doors into the ballroom. The guns of the columns were raised to the ceiling, the chandelier hung back in place. Emery's parents swayed beneath it again.

Morrigan didn't go to them. She hugged the left hand wall and walked along the tall windows, stopping before one that turned out not to be a window at all, but a door. It led into the courtyard outside. Emery paused before following her through; she'd previously thought the courtyard to be an unreachable area of the dream, like Moscow. But there it was, large enough to be the back yard of a house in the suburbs of the Sleeping City, lined with more tall shrubs. A layer of snow coated everything. Morrigan was already starting down a stone path that wound through the greenery, her floating hair disappearing around the corner.