“What the hell?” someone said, and I thrashed up out of unconsciousness, snapped free of wherever I’d been like a rubber band popped off expert fingers, and came out swinging.

The window was open. Cold air drenched the room. Christophe twisted my wrist, deflecting the punch; Graves let out a high-pitched cry and the room was full of the sound of beating wings for a moment. But not soft, feather-baffled wings—no, this sound was leathery, rasping against the air.

Christophe and I tumbled to the floor while Graves wrenched the window closed. “Jesus Christ!” Graves kept repeating, in that same high-squeaky voice. It would have been funny if my entire body hadn’t been pinned-and-needled, every square inch of skin stinging. “What the hell was that? What was that thing?”

I froze. Here I was in my own room, it was cold, and I was still in my thermal bottoms and tank top. My bed was thrashed out of all recognition, Graves’s cot was overturned, and the room was full of a dry rotting scent, like molding feathers.

“Revelle,” Christophe said, grimly. His eyes burned blue, and he kept his hands clamped around my wrists, lying on top of me as if it was the most natural thing in the world. His skin was warm, and he was heavier than he should have been. All the breath left my lungs in a huff. “Dreamstealer. Hush, little bird, just a snake in the nest.” This was whispered into my hair, a hot circle of breath against my shivering scalp before he raised his head. “Is it clear or snowing?”

“Snowing.” Graves locked the window and shuddered again, wrapping his arms around himself so his elbows and shoulder blades made sharp-shadowed angles. “Jesus. It just came in, and Dru—”

The hollow between Christophe’s throat and shoulder moved slightly, and the tingling heat coming off him drowned me. “Shush. Dru? Talk to me. Are you all right?”

I suppose he was asking because his face was in my hair, his legs twisted with mine, and he was holding onto my wrists so hard it hurt, like he had steel bands in his fingers. “Get off me!” I managed, before I was well on my way to suffocating.

“Yeah, she’s okay.” Graves cocked his head, looking at us both.

“Perhaps.” Christophe let go of me—not fast enough, I might add. The pins and needles running through my skin peaked, and I curled into a ball on the floor, whooping in a gigantic, never-ending breath flavored with the ghost of apples fighting through the moldy feather-scent. The hall light was on, a rectangle of warm yellow on the floor, and I began to dry-retch.

It didn’t feel good.

“Damn it.” Christophe made it to his feet in a single curling, fluid motion. His hair was slicked down against his head, dark and sleek. “God and Hell both damn it. I didn’t think he’d send that.”

“Who? Who would send—someone sent that?” Graves’s knees were all but knocking together. It sounded like his teeth were chattering, too, but his eyes burned feverish-green. “Holy shit. What the hell was it?”

“A wingéd serpent, come to rob the nest.” Christophe shouldered him aside and checked the window. “She must have let it in, thinking it was someone else. Or . . . What I wouldn’t give to know—” He halted, staring at the glass and the river of snow whirling down, some of it brushing the pane with little spidery sounds. “He must think she’s close to blooming. But I didn’t know he had access to a dreamstealer—only the Maharaja breed them.” Frustration pulled his tone taut, edged each word with steel.

Can I die now? I dry-retched again. It felt like all my innards were trying to crawl out the hard way. I thought I was outside. I know that house. That was where we lived Before.

Before the world changed. Before Mom—

Could I find it again? I probably could. The memory wasn’t fading like other dreams. Instead, it was sharp-etched, each individual owl feather shaded just so, every twist of the oak’s branches easily remembered, burned into the space behind my eyelids. But my body folded up on itself in revolt, each muscle locking down. God, what’s happening to me?

Christophe drummed his fingers on the window. The sound went straight through my head and I curled into a tighter ball. “If it was clear, I could track it. Especially now that it’s wounded.” He cast one bright glance over his shoulder. “That was a smart move, skinchanger, to hit between them.”

“Thanks.” Graves didn’t sound like he accepted the compliment.

I coughed, swallowed, and hoped I wouldn’t throw up for real. Would someone mind cluing me in? But it seemed pretty obvious—something hinky had come up to the window, and I’d mistaken it for Granmama’s owl.

Or had I? I’d been gone, not here at all. I knew Gran’s owl, and I knew that house. “It was from Before,” I managed, through teeth tight-locking together. I was cold as if I’d been wandering out in the snow.

Hadn’t I been?

“Get water.” Christophe grabbed Graves, shoved him toward the door, and shook his hands like they had something icky on them as soon as he let go. “Get a glass of water. Hurry.”

Graves bolted, his curlywild hair all but standing up. I heard him bouncing down the stairs far too quickly, careering off the walls.

Christophe turned away from the window and dropped to his knees beside me. “Stupid,” he hissed. His eyes were burning, and when I managed to tilt my head and look up there were dimples in his lower lip—where the fangs slid out from under the top lip and touched, ever so gently.

I couldn’t even care. I was too busy.

What, me? What did I do? My heart gave an amazing leap and settled into pounding in my chest. It was getting harder to get air in through the retching, little sips of apples mixing with the fading cloy of rotting feathers. It was funny, it didn’t seem like my body was rejecting dinner. It was more like a full-body spasm forcing a dry little sound up through the pipe of my throat and out of my mouth.

Christophe leaned down. His hands cupped my face, twisting my neck awkwardly. “You will breathe,” he said calmly. Those eyes glared blue at me, colder than a thin winter sky. Snow hissed against the window, and Graves cursed downstairs. A cupboard slammed shut. “You will breathe, and you will live. I’m not having it any other way, milna. Breathe.”

I tried. My eyes rolled back into my head. Darkness descended, a deep star-spangled night. My head pounded, excruciating pressure building behind my nose and eyeballs. Little spackles of light squeezed down as even my eyelids spasmed. Pain like a silver spike went through me, from the crown of my head to my soles, running down each branching nerve channel.

Graves galloped back into the room, cursing under his breath. Christophe’s hands left my face, and my head thumped onto the floor a second before he shouted and threw the glass of water straight into my face.

The seizure stopped. Spluttering and choking, I twitched like a landed fish on the floor and drew in another deep heaving breath, hitched, and let it out with a torrent of cussing that would have done Dad proud, even during truck-fixing sessions.

“Yeah,” Graves said, breathing heavily, when I ran out of air enough to curse and just sputtered. “I’d say she’s okay.”

“Idiot.” Christophe handed him the glass as I tried to wipe water off myself. My muscles were weak as overcooked noodles. “That was too close. Get a towel.”

“How about you get one? I already ran downstairs, and you’re the one who threw water all over her.” Graves leaned forward, eyeing me. “Hey, Dru. You were French-kissing a winged snake. Creeptastic.”

“It was stealing her breath, imbecile. Go get a towel.” Christophe shoved him, and Graves shoved back. The floor groaned sharply as their weight shifted. If I could have gotten in a smell through my nose it would have been the slightly oily dryness of pure macho.