by Kit Alloway
“We were all immobilized,” Feodor pointed out. “She could not have opened an archway.”
His head was tilted as if in confusion, which reminded Josh that he didn’t know she was the True Dream Walker.
We aren’t going to be able to hide that from him if we want to get out of here, she thought.
She dismissed the thought. What did it matter if Feodor knew her secret? Hopefully he’d be dead again in a couple of days. Assuming they could get out of here.
Even so, she waited until Feodor turned away to peer out the window before extending her arm and trying to open another archway. A handful of Veil dust glimmered in the air, then vanished.
“Bash must be stopping you,” Mirren said quietly. “Maybe we can reach the archway to the World. It’s in the stables.”
“We should move now, before Bash comes back,” Josh said. “Which way, Mirren?”
“Left at the door.”
But the living room door was as far as they got. Josh tried to walk through and cracked her face so hard on an invisible barrier that she was knocked back. If Whim hadn’t grabbed her shoulder, she would have fallen to the floor.
“Easy now,” he said.
“There’s something there,” Josh told him.
They took turns banging on the invisible obstruction in the doorway. Their blows didn’t even make a sound.
“Try another archway,” Will said.
With no choice but to ignore Feodor’s presence, Josh threw another archway. This time a shimmer like sunlit mist burst from her palm, but it faded away almost instantly.
“I am unclea—” Feodor began to say, but he was interrupted by Bayla’s appearance at the doorway.
“That won’t work,” she said, and she giggled.
Bayla looked as bad as Bash, and all the worse because she normally appeared so put-together. Her designer jeans were stained with grease and soot, and she wore a dress on top of them, a color-block day dress that she’d zipped up only partway. Papery skin revealed bulging veins crisscrossing her face, and all her fingernails had turned purple. Her former beauty was almost unfathomable now.
“What happened to you?” Deloise asked, as though her shock had overcome her animosity.
“This is Peregrine’s castle now,” Bayla said. “He’s going to make me a princess!”
Then she tried to do a little spin, but she lost her balance and careened into the hallway wall.
“What’s wrong with her?” Mirren asked.
“I’m the star of the play!” Bayla told them. “I play Princess Mirren.”
“She was fine last week,” Whim said, swallowing.
“We traded, but not anymore. No more trades,” Bayla said, frowning at him.
“Trades?” Whim sounded baffled.
“Secrets,” she said, swaying from side to side like a little kid who couldn’t stay still. “Secrets for kisses.”
She made a loud smacking sound as she kissed the air.
“You were just using me to find out about Mirren?” Whim demanded. “You were spying on us for Peregrine?”
Bayla smiled as though he’d complimented her. “He wanted to know about Josh. But then I told him about Mirren and he got all … excited.” She shivered at the word.
Josh cringed. Her grandfather had always wanted to know for certain that Josh was the True Dream Walker. He must have sent Bayla to seduce Whim, knowing that Whim was close to Josh and incapable of keeping a secret. But instead of dishing about Josh—or perhaps in addition to dishing about Josh—Whim had told Bayla everything about Mirren.
“But why are you helping Peregrine?” Whim asked. “It doesn’t make sense!”
Bayla shrugged. “I had a dream.…” She picked at a scab on her arm. “I had so many dreams.…”
Will laughed queerly. “He staged nightmares for her.”
“Who? Peregrine?” Deloise asked.
“Yes. He staged nightmares until he had control of her, and then he told her to seduce Whim and get him to talk about Josh.”
Bayla stage-whispered, “He’s my real father!”
“Your father!” Whim burst out. “He’s not your father! I’ve met your father! He yelled at me for forty-five minutes once! You know who your father is, Bayla!”
“Shh,” Deloise said, putting her hand on Whim’s arm. “Calm down. She’s not rational right now.”
Deloise coaxed him to sit down on one of the white brocade couches. He was trembling, and his face and neck had flushed the way they did when he was really upset. Josh could count on one hand the number of times she’d seen him flush like that.
“She was fine a week ago,” he repeated.
“Staging would have allowed Peregrine to control her,” Feodor said, “but it would not have led to this level of mental confusion. Obviously she has been wearing the devices.”
Josh had already guessed as much. The burns down Bayla’s forearm, the wounds that resembled leech bites, the black-and-red skin at her temples—they had all been inflicted by the devices. Josh touched one of her own burns in recognition.
“It’s my turn next,” Bayla said proudly. “After Bash.”
“Those things are going to kill her,” Whim said. “We have to do something.”
“We’ll be lucky to get out of here alive—” Will told him, and then broke off at the sound of footsteps in the hall.
Bash and Peregrine strode through the doorway as if the barrier didn’t exist, and Bayla followed in her bare feet.
Peregrine smiled broadly at the sight of his guests. Although Josh had seen him only two weeks before, she was always startled anew by the painful imbalance of his features—the oversize lips and bulbous nose, the frighteningly large eyes. His face lit up when he saw Feodor.
“Kajażkołski!” he cried. “I didn’t believe it when Bash said you were here!”
He offered his hand, but Feodor ignored it and opened his arms.
“It has been too long for a handshake, old friend,” he said.
Josh watched in disbelief as they embraced.
“What?” Will burst out.
Feodor smiled coyly. “‘Don’t praise the day before sunset,’” he said, quoting an old Polish proverb.
“I knew we couldn’t trust him!” Will cried.
He turned to Josh, his gaze blazing with fury, and she shook her head helplessly.
I thought I knew Feodor so well. I thought that since I had his memories, I had the upper hand.
But she hadn’t remembered his friendship with Peregrine.
Greater than the shock she felt was the fear that she had once more incurred Will’s wrath by making a bad decision. She had agreed to this plan for him, not for Feodor or for herself, but she knew that all Will would see was another example of her doing the wrong thing.
“How is this possible?” Peregrine asked Feodor.
“You may thank your granddaughters. They went so far as to fetch me from Death.”
Peregrine released a laugh like the bark of a hyena. “My granddaughters,” he repeated. “They’re as impertinent and cocky as Dustine.”
Feodor shrugged. He had an elegant shrug, as small and tidy as everything else about him, and Josh hated him for it. “How is Dustine?” he asked.
The question stunned Josh. She stepped backward again, bumping the backs of her knees on a coffee table, and she sat down on it.
Peregrine’s spare eyebrows drew together. “You should know,” he told Feodor. “Your man killed her, you bastard.”
Feodor’s smile faltered. “Pardon me?” he asked, his voice weakened.
“When your friends with the canisters attacked my family, the old bird’s heart popped.”
Josh watched the news register on Feodor’s face. His breath quickened. “I am truly sorry, old friend.”
She didn’t know if she could trust his regret or not. Was every word he spoke, every flash of expression, every gesture, a lie?
Peregrine shrugged off the apology. “She had it coming.”
Her grandfather looked at her and laughed. “Haven’t you figured it out yet? Bash controls everything here. And I control Bash.”
“I hate you,” Josh said.
Peregrine smiled. “I don’t care.”
But Josh watched as a fresh drop of blood appeared at Bash’s temple and rolled down his cheek, leaving a wet, red trail. An idea began to form in her mind.
Peregrine clapped Feodor’s shoulder. “This jewelry Bash is wearing—you built that, didn’t you?”
Feodor responded with a modest nod, which only confused Josh more. She’d built the devices, not Feodor. If he and Peregrine were such great friends, why would he lie?
Whose side is he on? Josh wondered, but the answer came to her almost immediately. His own. Always his own.
“I knew it!” Peregrine cried. “The whole thing stinks of your piss.”
“What is it you want, Peregrine?” Mirren asked, her voice as calm as ever.
Josh inched behind Will, whispering as she did, “Stay there.”
Peregrine smiled at Mirren. Unlike Feodor, with his small, calculated amusements, Peregrine had a sloppy, slovenly grin. “I want your secrets.”
Josh maneuvered herself far enough behind Will that her left arm was hidden from Peregrine’s and Feodor’s sight.
“What secrets?” Mirren asked.
“All of them,” Peregrine hissed, and his face darkened with long-held rage. “I want every secret your parents and your grandparents and your great-grandparents wouldn’t give us because we weren’t worthy, we weren’t smart enough, or wise enough, or good enough.”
Moving her arm as little as possible, Josh tried to open an archway. Nothing. She tried again. Nothing. But over Will’s shoulder, she saw another drop of blood forming at Bash’s temple.
“You think you’re so goddamn special!” Peregrine ranted at Mirren, his crazed brown eyes swelling. “You could have changed the World a hundred times over, but all you did was sit on your secrets. You’re a coward, just like your parents!”
Archway, archway, archway. The drop of blood rolled down the side of Bash’s face, leaving a trail of pink on his ghostly skin.
“Do you truly think we should have molded the World to our liking?” Mirren asked. “What right did we have to make decisions for all of humanity?”
“What right did you have to deny them the choice? And you!” Peregrine snapped at Josh. “I know you’re trying to open archways where you think I can’t see. But it won’t work. Bash!”
Josh went numb. She froze with her arm stretched out before her, a measly half breath left in her lungs.
Feodor leaned sideways, trying to see around Will. “How is she opening archways?”
Deloise, who must have caught on to Josh’s plan, ran to the doorway and began kicking the invisible barrier. Bash froze her, too.
“Supposedly she’s the True Dream Walker,” Peregrine told Feodor.
Feodor looked back at Peregrine with an expression halfway between ridicule and wonder. “Is that so?” he mused.
Archway, archway … Josh closed her eyes and tried to open an archway with only her mind, but like in the Dream earlier, she was helpless as long as Bash had her immobilized.
“Didn’t you Temper her?” she heard Peregrine ask. “She’s alive, so she must have passed.”
“Passing is not how I would describe it,” Feodor said. “If she is the True Dream Walker, I would enjoy a demonstration.”
Glass shattered. Out of the corner of her eye, Josh saw that Will had used a stone-topped end table to break one of the windows, forcing Bash to freeze him as well. Mirren rushed at Peregrine at the same moment, holding a peacock-colored vase over her head, and Whim tried to clobber Feodor with a porcelain ballerina.
Bash froze them all, and the room went still.
“Get Whim and Deloise out of here,” Peregrine told Bayla. “Put them with the others.”
Blood began to pool in Bash’s eyes. Bayla picked up Whim’s stiff form as if he weighed nothing and tossed him toward the hall. He bounced along the floor like a balloon filled with day-old helium, and Deloise followed.
“Leave the others,” Peregrine ordered Bash. To Feodor, he said, “You want a demo? Let’s give him a demo. Bash, unfreeze Josh. Come on, Josh, show us what you can do.”
With air moving through her lungs again, Josh said, “I don’t have to prove anything to you.”
Peregrine smirked. “Don’t you?” he asked. “Bash, why don’t you provide a little incentive? I hear she’s very fond of her apprentice.”
Bash took in a deep breath, so deep that Josh expected him to shout or scream, but Will was the one who responded, releasing a choking sound and grabbing at his own neck.
“Will?” Josh asked.
He grabbed at his neck and shook his head.
He can’t breathe, Josh realized.
“All right!” she said. “I’ll do it. Watch.”
“Bash, let her try.”
She thrust her hand out again, this time in full view of her grandfather, and an archway exploded in front of her. Josh fought the temptation to go running through it. “Tell Bash to let Will go,” she said.
Will’s face reddened. Indents from invisible fingers marked his throat. But Bash closed the archway almost before Josh finished speaking.
Peregrine shifted from one foot to the other as if bored. “Do something else,” he told Josh. “Alter the Dream.”
Josh opened another archway, and then a third.
“Will, go through!” she shouted, but his knees buckled at the first step and he fell to the floor. His face had darkened to the color of a raspberry. Bash closed those archways, too.
“Something else!” Peregrine repeated.
“I can’t!” Josh shouted, panic making her voice tight and high. “I can’t do anything but open archways!”
“Bullshit!” her grandfather shouted back.
“Let him go, Bash!” Josh pleaded, and she heard the tears in her own voice.
But she also saw Bash put a hand on a china cabinet to steady himself. Blood ran from his ears. Every time he had to close an archway, the effort required chipped away at him.
“Come on!” Peregrine shouted at Josh. “Save your little boyfriend!”
Josh swung her hands out again, throwing archways like she was throwing punches, and Bash counterpunched by closing each one. She felt her energy begin to wane, her strength weakening. “I can’t!” she repeated. “This is all I can do.”
“Then you aren’t the True Dream Walker, are you?”
“I don’t know!” Josh admitted, as much to herself as to her grandfather. “I’m sorry. Maybe I’m not the True Dream Walker. I’ll do whatever you want. Please let Will go.”
She threw another archway even as she felt something within herself beginning to break down. Throughout the room, archways shimmered, the Veil revealing a dozen different nightmares. When Josh lifted her head, she saw that Bash’s face was ghastly white, with stark red rivers of blood running down it.
He’s going to die, she thought. Maybe before Will dies.
The realization of what she had to do hit her so hard that she stopped breathing.
I have to wear Bash out until he dies, and I have to do it before Will suffocates.
“What an interesting standoff,” Feodor said conversationally, and Peregrine laughed.
Josh didn’t know if killing Bash was fair or reasonable or moral, or even if Will still truly loved her, or if he would be able to love her once she became a murderer, and she didn’t have time to find out. She just knew that she would never forgive herself if she didn’t do everything in her power to save him.
Closing her hand around the plumeria pendant she wore, she said a silent prayer to the Dream. I’ve tried so hard to be a good dr
eam walker, she thought. Please don’t fail me now.
She was already exhausted—from opening archways, from the drama, from the guilt. She had very little energy left, but she gathered up what she could, a meager harvest of what was left of her. Take everything I’ve got, she told the Dream. Just save him.
She thrust her palms out to either side, releasing a cry as she did so, and dozens upon dozens of archways appeared throughout the room. They overlapped one another, stood within one another, crisscrossed the room like mirror images of one another in a fun house. Josh felt archways beyond archways open up—into the Dream, into the World, into the World beyond the Dream. Briefly, images of her basement archroom appeared, but they faded after an instant, and the arches collapsed, leaving behind a fine layer of fairy dust across the room.
Josh couldn’t hold them open. She’d felt the power leave her, but something else as well, something important. Something vital. Something she shouldn’t have given up. She fell to her knees, hollow and dizzy. As she did, she watched Bash mirror her fall on the other side of the room, heard his knees crack when they hit the floor. He reached out with his unencumbered arm toward the doorway, where Bayla stood watching with a confused smile on her face. For an instant he swayed as if praying, and then blood began to pour from his every orifice, and Josh knew he was dead before he landed on the marble because he made no attempt to soften his own fall.
Someone gasped, a sound like mud sucking at a boot, but Josh didn’t know if it came from Will or Mirren.
Peregrine calmly removed a gun from the back of his waistband and pointed it at Mirren. Josh tried to stand, but she felt like she was trying to rise beneath a heavy blanket, and she didn’t even have the strength to look behind her and see if Will was breathing.
“Bayla,” Peregrine said, “it’s your turn to wear the devices.”
Bayla smiled brightly. She walked barefoot through the pool of her boyfriend’s blood and wrestled his corpse for the vambrace and circlet. As she did so, she turned his head so that Josh could see his bloodstained teeth and slack jaw. All the capillaries in his eyes had burst, turning the whites of his eyes a solid, bright red.