by Ryan La Sala
“Don’t,” she whispered. “This is the plot. You have to let us go.”
Kane shook his head. No.
“The other pocket,” Sophia said. “Quickly.”
“Adeline,” Kane begged. “Please don’t leave me.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. Then her eyes went wide as her hand found something in Kane’s coat. Sophia noticed and pulled Adeline away, snatching the item from her. It was the small velvet pouch with the stolen charms that Dean had given him, and Sophia thrust it at Kane with heartbroken triumph.
“Don’t. Don’t open it,” Kane managed, but Sophia was dumping the charms into her hand. Kane saw what she saw: Artifacts. History, smuggled from a lost era. And proof that her own brother had never been worth her hope.
“I wanted so badly to be wrong about you,” Sophia said.
“It’s not real!” Kane pushed himself onto his side, then gained a knee. Spit fell from his numb lips.
“Don’t,” Adeline warned.
But Kane couldn’t lose his sister again. She had told him once that she was a smart girl, and that she could stay lucid if she knew she was in a fake world. Kane curled himself into his reckless desire to free her, and the selfish desire to save himself. He needed to not fail her again.
“None of this is real, Sophia. It’s a reverie. You’re in a reverie,” he cried.
The lights flickered. The forest flinched.
“Reverie.”
Sophia said the word as though trying out a new language, one with words that scalded the tongue. Kane saw the lucidity settle behind her gaze as she took in her false world, her sharp mind reorienting itself. But it didn’t last. The airships had finally found them, and their hurricane breaths swept Sophia back into her fantasy.
Except now the reverie was twisting. Kane could feel it building.
“Sophia, this is your world to control,” he shouted over the winds. “You can make it stop.”
But Sophia was lost to reasoning. She clutched the charms in one hand. Her other hand pushed the gun between Kane and the advancing soldiers. “You lie, Kane. You’re always lying!”
Shock waves rippled out of her, into the fabric of the reverie. Kane felt the agony of his sister as her fantasy began to turn acidic in her mind. He felt, physically, the ripple pass over him, and his uniform became that of a soldier.
“Kane,” Adeline murmured. “The charms.”
The charms smoldered in Sophia’s grip. If any of those reveries were activated…
Kane crawled toward Sophia. “You need to give those back. They’re not safe. I was protecting you from them.”
“What are they? A trap? Incendiaries? Nano-tech?”
She wasn’t waking up, so Kane dove into his knowledge of the reverie. Of tropes. He attempted a reasonable tangent. “They’re dangerous to the Committee. A secret weapon developed by Headmistress Smithe that I stole for you.”
“Headmistress?”
Sophia blinked rapidly, seized by an inner storm that sent another ripple through the reverie. It washed over the city in fractious echoes. The airships looming over the plaza bobbed dangerously, as through magnetized. Their cannons swung toward Kane, Adeline, and Sophia, electric energy crackling in their barrels.
This was it. This was how Sophia’s mind would murder her own brother. Revenge, for all the lies he’d fed her and all the mistruths he’d forced her to live within. It was a just and horrible fate, but it would kill Sophia, too, and Kane couldn’t allow that.
The cannons fired. Kane fired back. He flung his hands toward the assault, releasing a pure and singular hope, a formless yet torrential explosion of energy. He felt the etherea rip from him like rocket fire, then pushed himself to give more. To give everything he had.
Just as the ethereal blast was set to collide with the fleet, it hit something. A shield that had been waiting there to protect him.
Ursula’s shield, there all along.
She must’ve been close. There wasn’t time to look because suddenly, Kane was facing his own attack as it reverberated back at him, crushing him in a prismatic riot that swept over Adeline and Sophia. They screamed, and the reverie screamed with them.
Then, there was only the rising, discordant whisper of the charms as they began to sing the song of their waking worlds.
• Thirty-Two •
POLYCHROMATIC
When the ringing finally stopped, Kane lay beneath drifts of blue steam and lemony sunlight. Dawn had surged over Everest all at once.
He sat up in the center of a scorched crater the size of a tennis court. Water gushed from snapped pipes jutting from the earth, filling the crater with hissing pools. His whole body was one giant ache, blood gathering in his eyebrows and turning his eyelashes sticky.
Find Sophia. Save Sophia.
Kane tore through the rising tide, still dizzy. A moment later Adeline punched up through a turbid pool, sputtering and gasping, her ruined dress clinging to her like a second skin. She grasped for Kane, and he heaved her up.
“Sophia!” Kane shouted. “Sophia!”
Adeline wrenched him around. “There!”
Sophia was hunched at the top of the craters’ edge. Kane stumbled up the steaming walls, with no regard to the new blisters that kissed his palms. Reaching her—seeing her—he halted.
Sophia faced the city, her whole body an expression of awe.
Kane turned.
Sophia’s reverie was gone. In its place was a maddening, kaleidoscopic chaos. Six reveries, combined. Everest, and the five charms Kane had awakened.
The sky was a patchwork of dawn, night, and day, shared between two suns, a moon, and a looming planet that looked like Earth. Mountains swelled on the horizon, shifting from craggy cliffs to hills ribboned in waterfalls to dunes of silky ochre. The stoic buildings of futuristic dystopia had distorted into a buffet of architectures: contemporary castles, medieval office buildings, and rococo skyscrapers plated in glass, iron, and filigree. They leaned over the plaza, over Kane, capturing his spellbound reflection a thousandfold in their crystal facades.
And the plaza… It was a scene Kane knew; a garden choked with roses and poplar trees, with a gazebo at the center. The fallen soldiers at its edge were recovering slowly, finding their uniforms now came with bow ties and coattails. The aircraft sputtered and wheezed as they attempted to regain flight that had been possible in one reverie, but not another.
Kane could feel the chaos of it all, as though he himself were a single strand coiled tight within this polychromatic knot. He could not even begin to understand how to unravel this.
“Sophia—”
Kane turned to her just in time to see Sophia pick something off the ground. Something black and shiny. She raised the whistle to her lips, her eyes dim with wonder.
“NO!”
Kane tackled her. The whistle bounced into the crater and Adeline lunged for it, but no sooner had the silent tweet emitted from the charm when, with slapping abruptness, the reverie halted, and the black doors appeared.
Nothing happened. Kane held Sophia and let himself believe Dean had been successful.
Then the doors burst open, catapulting a spiky shadow into the reverie. The Dreadmare, a mutilated mess of twisting legs, slid to a stop at Kane’s feet. It was coated in a dark substance.
Blood.
No.
Poesy was in the doorway, her whole body furious with magic as she strode into the reverie. She wore a velvet leotard as black as her doors, thigh-high platform boots, and a cropped jacket thick in opalescent fringe. It flashed like armor as she lowered her hand. From her posture, it was clear she had literally just slapped the Dreadmare into this dimension.
Poesy swept a gloved hand over her bald head, as though looking for her hair.
“That wig was expensive,” she seethed. Then she noticed the rest o
f the scene. “Oh my, another mess, I see.” She beckoned with her hand, and the whistle zipped to her bracelet.
Alarms erupted in Kane’s mind. He had to do something. He had to distract her.
Kane flung Sophia behind him and in the same motion burst toward Poesy. His fists swarmed with etherea, and for a moment Poesy raised an eyebrow. Then she simply sneered, and Kane felt the crack of her hand against his jaw. He spun out and collided with the gazebo, and before he’d even hit the ground, she was in front of him, her fingers around his throat. His back bristled with splinters as she ground him up against the ruined post. Poesy’s painted face filled his vision.
“Such a crude way to welcome,” she said, “the person who is about to save your life.”
Kane tore at her sleeve. “Leave my sister alone,” he choked. “Please. I am begging you.”
Poesy clucked maternally. “Oh, no, I am afraid it’s too late for Sophia Montgomery. Perhaps if you had summoned me sooner we could have made a deal—her world for the ones my homunculus of an assistant stole—but it’s too late for that. Teasing these apart would be tedious, meticulous work, and I’m in no mood for tedium or meticulosity.”
Black dots burst in his vision. He was losing consciousness. The muscles in his neck popped as the grip tightened, and Poesy moved so close Kane could pick out the flecks of black that swam in her cobalt eyes.
“And what to do with you, Mr. Montgomery? I do admit, I am quite disappointed. A power like yours comes once in a generation; I had hoped together we could conquer this reality and bring forth the next. Something better. Something beyond. But what good is a power like ours if we’re too afraid to use it?”
“I’m not afraid of you,” Kane spat. He tossed his weight into a punch, which she caught by the wrist.
Poesy leaned in. “Not me, Mr. Montgomery. The world. It takes a certain bravado to confront, claim, and take control of the things around you. A bravado that you have always lacked. The very ability to manipulate the fabric of reality—of all realities—and you choose to throw a punch? You have devastatingly bad taste. We could never work together.”
Kane begged his arms to move, his feet to kick. He couldn’t. Didn’t. Nothing. He reached for his power but it wouldn’t come to him.
Poesy smiled. Her voice gave way to a rattling, insect drone as she whispered, “Feckless child, how do you intend to save the world if you’re too unimaginative to change it? Could it be that you have finally realized that yours is a world not worth saving?”
A fist collided with Poesy’s right cheek, driving her off, and Kane was being dragged away. The person dragging Kane was Elliot. The person who had landed the punch was Ursula.
“Ogress,” Poesy sneered, circling her.
Ursula didn’t talk back. She swung into a roundhouse kick and sent Poesy flying into one of the fallen aircraft. The machine ground backward with the impact. Before it even settled, Poesy shot out—an arrow of sparkling malevolence—and thrust her bladed nails toward Ursula’s throat.
Ursula got her hands up just in time, magenta energy blossoming between them as Poesy’s strike pressed her back. Ursula dug her heels into the ground, leaned into her defense. Her shield strained, redoubled, strained harder, but Poesy’s edge lost no momentum.
“Give…up…” Poesy hissed.
“Screw…you,” Ursula spat back.
With a shout, Ursula drove her shield over Poesy, throwing the sorceress away in a shattering of rosy light. The shock wave burst the windows of the nearby buildings, forcing Kane and Elliot to cower in the gazebo. When he finally looked, Ursula stood upright before Poesy, but barely. In another second she would be finished.
Though her glasses were bent, Poesy put them on her nose to assess. She snapped her fingers, and the teacup appeared.
“NO!” Kane screamed, struggling against Elliot.
Ursula burst forward, accompanied by a blur of gray—Adeline. Together they danced with Poesy. Ursula’s strength and Adeline’s speed kept pace with the sorceress, until Poesy shot into the sky with her teacup raised.
No.
Kane could feel it—the vicious magic that hid in the perfect porcelain bowl—as it liquefied the buildings of the plaza. Kane could feel it. The pull that would swallow Sophia and take her away forever.
Then, as silent as a blade of night, the Dreadmare appeared behind Poesy. For a moment they were framed beautifully against the patchwork sky, and then the Dreadmare snapped its beak over the drag queen’s arm, severing it at the elbow.
What happened next happened quickly.
First, the Dreadmare teleported away.
Second, Poesy fell and did not get up.
Third, Sophia snapped out of her stupor. “Kill them,” she ordered. The cowering soldiers swarmed into the wrecked courtyard and the airships turned their cannons downward.
The rest was chaos as the soldiers quickly overwhelmed the Others. Ursula tore through the battle to get to Kane, reaching him just as a hail of bullets pitted the ground. Her rosy shield dulled their racket, but Kane knew she was exhausted.
“Go!” she commanded.
“I’m not leaving you,” Kane shouted. The guns let up to reload, and Ursula backed up toward Kane. She was pushing them sideways, toward the black doors.
“Ursula, I’m not running!”
Ursula blocked another round of gunfire. “You’re our only hope of unraveling this. You need to recover. Regroup, and then—”
The soldiers had reached them, and they swarmed over Ursula. Kane went to help her but found she had placed a shield right between them.
“GO!” she yelled, her voice muffled.
Kane pounded the shield. “NO! Don’t do this!”
Ursula tore against the soldiers who had her arms. For a dazzling flash the shield vanished, but it was only so that Ursula could plant a sturdy kick into Kane’s stomach. Like a rag doll he crashed backward, right into Poesy’s sanctuary, slamming into the desk headfirst. His vision went gray, and the sight of the doors closing was the last thing he saw before unconsciousness claimed him.
• Thirty-Three •
SANCTUARY
Something cold and wet prodded Kane’s eyebrow. It made a high-pitched whine.
Kane’s lurched awake. He blinked at his surroundings, momentarily dazzled by golden brightness. Was it sunset? Why was everything soft and sparkly? Was this heaven? Why was there a black dog in heaven?
Ms. Daisy pawed Kane’s knee impatiently and let out another whine. Like a playful sheet of ocean surf, Kane’s memories pulled away, then swished over him all at once.
The merged reveries. Poesy’s dramatic arrival. The crumpled Dreadmare. Shattering glass and spitting gunfire and…
Had Ursula drop-kicked him?
Wincing, Kane felt new tenderness on his stomach. His collarbone. He focused on the pain, afraid of what came after, but the horror didn’t wait for him to be ready. It dragged him under itself and pressed the breath right out of his lungs.
Kane rushed to the doors and forced them open. There was nothing on the other side except the second half of an empty room. Kane was by himself. Cast out. Banished. Alone, with no way to return and nowhere left to run.
He sank back to the floor.
Ms. Daisy barked. A curious bark, aimed at the boy who had just tumbled into her house and was now hiccup-sobbing on her stoop. She nosed an empty bowl at his feet.
Kane swiped away his tears. She was hungry. How long had he been unconscious?
Ms. Daisy distracted him from crying by nudging his hand and then her bowl again, which was about the only thing not tossed about the room. The sanctuary was an utter mess. Most of the carpet had gone crunchy with glass. Charms and artifacts were everywhere. Kane’s backpack was here, vomiting its contents where Kane had dropped it. The chandelier dangled from the top of the black doors like a popped-out e
ye.
Dean had certainly put up a fight. That much was clear.
The dog seemed a little embarrassed about the mess. She gave Kane low looks full of eyebrows as she navigated through the destruction, leading him to a closet just outside the main room. There he found many coats, canes, and leashes. Slumped at the bottom were bags of dog food, like you’d find in any store. Their normalcy felt eerie in the surreal space.
Water was easier to find. Poesy had left a carafe of water on her desk. Kane drank from it, then poured the rest out into a teacup for Ms. Daisy to share.
He dropped down beside her and wondered what to do next, though he tried not wonder too hard, not entirely sure he wanted to reach a conclusion. There was no way out of this place. Not without the key on Poesy’s wrist or Dean’s power to pass through in-between spaces.
He scooted over to the doors and pressed his head against the cool varnish like a prayer. Maybe he slept like that. The urgency had vanished, but the tears had not. Darkly, an old and familiar urge opened within him. There was no way out of this place, sure, but maybe out wasn’t the way to go.
Maybe escaping didn’t mean leaving this place at all.
Kane turned to the room of stolen dreams, and he recalled the library of his childhood. The feeling of thick air and soft spines, of tilting your head sideways to read the names of authors. Mostly, Kane recalled the intoxicating potential of it all. For a child like Kane, potential was his forever friend. The promise of something else—or somewhere else—where Kane could start over and actually belong. It wasn’t just about finding a world that would tolerate him. It was about imagining a world that loved him back. That enjoyed him.
Kids like Kane weren’t often enjoyed.
There was a charm at Kane’s feet. A moon. From it emanated the caress of hemlock on a winter night, the iron smell of blood on frostbitten blades. From another charm Kane sensed a world of carnivorous flowers, dynasties, and revenge. Then there was a reverie about football and family betrayal. A reverie of black and white with smoke sifting through drawn blinds. Then a scorched planet, completely hollow, life teeming on the curved pith of its interior. A reverie loud with carnival jingling, and a reverie with no sound at all.