Michael frowned. "Even if we do get in, we can't go blundering around checking every broom closet. We need to know about the inside of the house."

Thomas shrugged. "I'm sorry. I'm tapped."

I waved a hand. "Don't worry. We just need to talk to someone who has seen the inside of the house."

"Capture a prisoner?" Michael asked. "I don't know how much luck we'd have with that."

I shook my head, and glanced over at the sleeping figure of Lydia, who hadn't stirred in all that time. "We just need to talk to her. She was inside. She might have some useful insights for us, in any case. She's got a gift for it."

"Gift?"

"Cassandra's Tears. She can see bits of the future."

I got dressed, and we gave Lydia another hour or so. Thomas went into the bathroom to shower, while I sat out in the living room with Michael. "What I can't figure," I said, "is how we managed to get out of there so easily."

"You call that easy?" Michael said.

I grimaced. "Maybe. I would have expected them to come after us by now. Or to have sent the Nightmare to get us."

Michael frowned, rolling the hilt of the sword between his two hands as though it were a golf club. "I see what you mean." He was quiet for a minute, and then said, "You really think the girl will be of help?"

"I hope so."

At that moment, Lydia started coughing. I moved to her side, and helped her drink some water. She seemed groggy, though she started to stir. "Poor kid," I commented to Michael.

"At least she got a little sleep. I don't think she'd had any for days."

Michael's words froze me solid.

I started to push myself away from Lydia, but her fingers reached out and dug into the sweater I was wearing. I jerked against them, but she held me, easily, not at all moved. The pale girl opened her sunken eyes, and they were flooded with blood, all through the whites, scarlet. She smiled, slow and malicious. She spoke, and her voice came out in a low, harsh sound totally unlike her natural tones, alien and malevolent. "You should have kept her from sleeping. Or killed her before she woke."

Michael started to his feet. Lydia rose, and with one arm she lifted me clear of the ground, bloody eyes glaring up at me with wicked exultation. "I've waited long enough for this," the alien voice, that of the Nightmare, purred. "Goodbye, wizard." And the slender girl flung me like a baseball at the stone of my fireplace.

Some days, it just doesn't pay to get out of bed.

Chapter Thirty-two