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She studied that bit assiduously, bringing the light very close to the page to be sure that he hadn’t started to write “Eminence” and had broken off or failed to finish in some way. Blowing out a breath, she took a moment to ponder, folding the note and putting it in her pocket. She had to think about this and not dash off a similarly playful reply. Stearanos couldn’t possibly beflirtingwith her, could he? Her own fascination came from having an idea of who he was, at least on the surface, catching glimpses of his life and dreams. And from their long relationship, distant and manufactured as it had been. Still, they’d been colleagues of a sort.

Well, and his library was terribly seductive.

But for all that Stearanos knew from his side, she could be anyone at all. A lethal enemy, even, though she hadn’t attacked him directly, not beyond a little extra sleep inducement. Still, he couldn’t know she wouldn’t escalate as she continued to evade his defenses.

Reconsidering, she mulled the possibility that the note’s apparent playfulness was a subterfuge to lure her in, to lull her into lowering her guard and yielding clues that would reveal her identity. Stearanos had a reputation for being a master strategist, a puppet master beyond compare, so she needed to consider her reply very carefully.Ifshe replied at all, which she shouldn’t. Truly, if she were being smart, she would nip this in the bud now, leave both books behind and never return.

Still, even given that, she could leave a quick note, a thank-you for the books—she still had coin in her pocket, she could leave payment for all of them, which ought to stick in his craw—and end this odd “correspondence” forever. Resolved on this course of action, the wise thing to do, she went to his desk for the paper and quill he’d surely left out for her.

Only to find the desk piled high with books. This wasn’t like him, to leave books out and unshelved, an untidy monument to the chaos he loathed. Why would he depart from habitual behavior now? Unless this too was a message.

Perplexed, intrigued, perhaps a bit nervous, she held the light close to examine the spines. And gasped aloud in horrified astonishment.

They were all books on the Southern Lands. Her realm, where she’d dwelt and worked all her life. Did this mean Stearanos suspected her identity, that he’d piled up all of these tomes as an accusation, a mocking hint to show that he’d found her out?

But that made no sense. If he had an idea of who she was, he could have gotten an oneiromancer to ward his dreams. Itwouldn’t have worked to keep her out, but she would have noticed the warning.

Or, more likely, and a smarter move for him, he could have learned of her location. It would be simple enough for a sorcerer with his resources to find out. Where she’d chosen to build her house was discoverable information, if only because she’d warned everyone to stay far, far away from it.

Early on in her plans to walk away, she’d contemplated keeping her location secret, but ultimately decided it would be more work to disappear and stay disappeared than to simply make an unassailable fortress and promise annihilation to anyone who tested her boundaries and patience. She was a battle sorceress, after all, with a fearsome reputation. Her strengths lay in intimidation and the threat of violence beyond imagining, not secrecy and vanishing.

And yet, the Stormbreaker hadn’t come after her. The thought of him appearing on her doorstep—perhaps invading her home as she had his—had her heart hammering.

He hasn’t, she reassured herself mentally.If he knew who you were, he’d have come after you, and he didn’t. Therefore, he doesn’t know. He’s only guessing.

Even though it couldn’t be an accident or coincidence that he’d collected books on this exact topic and that he’d left them out for her to see, an obvious wink at her. Hastily, she revised her estimation of him—hadn’t she cautioned herself not to underestimate the man?—along with her plan of action. Removing her remanence from it, she left the new gardening book on top of the nearest pile, so he’d know she’d been there. She was too flustered, too caught off center to choose which book or pile.

She would reply to him. Oh yes, she couldn’t leave this unanswered. But she needed to muster all her wit to do so. Sadly, none of her imagined correspondence with him could be repurposed.He’d surprised her too entirely. She couldn’t be flip or clever in that moment.

She would borrow the novel, read it, and take her time composing a reply with diligence and cleverness. Stearanos could never have bested her on the battlefield and he wouldn’t best her now. Certainly he wouldn’t send her into hiding, afraid to even meet his note with her own.

No, she would answer this sally with something better. She would give him words that would suss out his strategy. Two could play this game of pretend flirtation. Perhaps she would even deliberately mislead him, offer him clues that would point him at someone else entirely. She’d have to decide which of her enemies most richly deserved to have the unwitting wrath of Stearanos turned upon them. Fortunately, that was a long list.

Satisfied that she retained the upper hand, and that she would indeed best him, Oneira lifted the enchantment from the castle, allowing its denizens to slide into a more natural sleep.

Except for Stearanos.

As she stepped back into the Dream, Oneira couldn’t resist poking at him just a little bit more. Lightly touching his dreams, she inserted a bunny holding a book in its mouth, rabidly chewing it up with sharp, pointy teeth, froth and paper fragments flying in a blizzard.

Let him make of that what he would.

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Of course, she immediately regretted her impetuous move. Even before she stepped out of the Dream and back into the safe confines of her white walls, she was kicking herself for succumbing to that wild, irrational impulse. Inserting an image into his dreams, of all the stupid ideas.

“What iswrongwith you?” she muttered to herself, speaking her thoughts aloud as she almost never did. Clearly she was losing her mind. Perhaps this was the next stage in her decline. First, her sudden and shocking retirement, then the crazy behavior in building her fastness with a decorated bier at the fulcrum, then stalking her ex-enemy and wandering about the Dream in search of extinct roses that bloomed only when no one could see them, and finallythis.

Whateverthiswas.

It certainly wasn’t any kind of calculated strategy. Quite the opposite in that Stearanos should be sorcerer enough to know that the scene she’d inserted into his dreams hadn’t been anything that came from himself. An ordinary person, yes, might assume the book-devouring monster bunny had morphed from their recent experiences, but most magic-workers, let alone a sorcerer of his caliber, would be alerted by the peculiar vividness of a scene inserted by an oneiromancer.

“Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!” she railed at herself, stomping around the midnight garden, kicking up clods of dirt and detritus left over from the precipitous snowmelt. At least she retained thepresence of mind to stay clear of the new rose bed, careful not to adulterate her hard work with contaminants she’d just have to dig out again. Her tantrum exhausted, she sank to sit on the roots of a tree, the chill damp of the sodden ground immediately soaking through her skirts. She remained where she was, knees drawn up, back against the tree, gazing up through the spiderweb of still bare branches at the star-smattered sky beyond. The moon had set in her part of the world, leaving the stars to shine with uninhibited radiance.

Briefly, Oneira considered going back. She could extract the dream from Stearanos’s mind again. People, even sorcerers, remembered dreams in fragments anyway. It would be easy for her, and he would never know the difference.

It was also something she’d sworn never to do.

Taking away people’s memories was a violation of the most extreme and intimate violence. She would—and had—killed people before she’d consider cutting away a piece of themselves like that. Oneira had no perspective into the realm of death; she knew no more than anyone else. Despite the tales and poems that depicted dreams and death as intertwined, they were not.