Burn the Skies E-Book

K.A. Wiggins

• Herausgeber: Snowmelt & Stumps
• Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
• Serie: Threads of Dreams
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 407

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

In the City of Nightmares, death is far from the end . . .

"The edges of this world's map are not bordered with monsters but with ghosts."
Losing her magic was one thing, but getting bodyjacked by the ghost of her past self? That’s a whole new low for teenage dream-weaving threadwitch Cole. And when sea monsters shipwreck her hard-won backup, there’s only one hope left to contain the nightmares and escape a bodiless purgatory of eternal torment.
"I'm afraid I'll go mad long before Cadence breaks."
But sacrificing the life of a child—however eerie and backstabbing—is too great a price to pay, even to save her friends and her city. As her remaining allies fall and resistance mounts, Cole fights to hold back the monsters at the cost of her own rapidly draining life force.
Can she bring herself to destroy her body-snatching young frenemy for good before everyone she loves goes up in flames?

In this explosive conclusion to the Threads of Dreams trilogy, the spark of revolution is lit—and even a drowned city can burn.

Read Burn the Skies for a red-hot finalé today!

Leseprobe

Burn the Skies

K.A. Wiggins

Snowmelt & Stumps

For the ones who are learning to let it go

Copyright © 2021 by K.A. Wiggins

Second Edition: August 2022

A Snowmelt & Stumps book

This book has been published in Canada and adheres to Canadian grammar and spelling rules.

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not be circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Under no circumstances may any part of this book be photocopied for resale.

This is a work of fiction. Any similarity between the characters and situations within its pages and places or persons, living or dead, is unintentional and co-incidental.

Requests for information should be addressed to [email protected].

ISBN 978-1-990842-01-6 (second edition paperback)

ISBN 978-1-990842-02-3 (second edition ebook)

ISBN 978-1-7775174-2-7 (first edition paperback)

ISBN 978-1-7775174-0-3 (first edition ebook)

Printed in Canada.

Chapter 1: Paradise

THE EDGES OF this world's map are not bordered with monsters but with ghosts. Or maybe they’re just nightmares.

Don’t get me wrong—in many ways my life, such as it is, has never been better. I was always a little jealous of Cadence’s altered existence. Nothing could hurt her. Nothing could reach her. No one looking at her and judging or wanting or demanding or expecting or . . .

Anyway, what I’m trying to say is: being disembodied has its perks.

No sweating. No acne. No barriers between me and whatever I want to do, wherever I want to be, whoever I want to be with.

Just so long as I don’t mind being completely powerless to affect the waking world, or having to dodge those grasping, howling things that line the border between here and there whenever I want to cross, or the way almost no one can hear me. Or even knows I’m here.

Which is less of a problem than you might think when you have a near-limitless world all to yourself—one you can shape at will.

It starts with the familiar, the known. The formless mists clear to reveal an empty room. Look for a door and open it to let in the light. Step into a rainbow field of wildflowers and make your way to the welcoming trees beyond. Stand at the edge of a towering cliff overlooking a churning grey sea that comes alive with the salt-tinged scent of flowers and crushed herbs as it floods with sunlight. Ignore the edge—the edges don’t mean anything anymore—and keep walking out over the now-sparkling waves until you’re ready to dive. Part the waters without a splash, without even the need to hold your breath, and wander the playful kelp forests that soon give way to the buzz and bustle of coral reefs. They twist and spiral into a fantastical underground kingdom just for you, populated by colourful inhabitants that want nothing from you, expect nothing from you. They exist simply for your pleasure and can be undone in a single, guiltless glance should you wish for solitude once more. Let yourself bask in the coolness of the deeps, and when you’re tired of floating and breathing through new-grown gills just for the alien thrill of it, shake off the feathery touch of newly candy-coloured waves and step onto the ever-changing land. It forms itself to your will, instantly and seamlessly responding to your slightest whim.

This is the dreamscape: more than just a passageway, a space between, it’s another world where the rules don’t apply. The most perfect paradise you can imagine. Just so long as you imagine perfection.

Which is why I think the ghosts must be nightmares. My nightmares.

The forest isn’t so sure.

“It talks to you?” Ash plucks a series of berry-flavoured notes out of the air and sets them spinning in a jaunty tune. They cast cheerful kaleidoscopic beams in every direction.

I brush my fingertips over the knotted lump of wood in my lap and shiver when the grain shifts under my touch. “Not quite. It’s more like Victoire. No words, just . . . feeling.”

Not that he’d know; that attention-hungry creature never came out around him. I’ve only ever been myself in his presence, even at the beginning, before he understood I wasn’t his Cady. And I’m still not entirely sure if Victoire really is something other—like Cadence—or just a name and a face for all the things about myself I can’t accept. I flinch away from a particularly alarming beam of chartreuse. Ash dismisses his radiant music with a wave.

“If you don’t like it, you know you can just change it, right? I won’t be offended—I already know you lack the capacity to appreciate my musical genius.” He smirks, teasing to cover how uncomfortable he is with my . . . restraint.

Apparently it’s not normal to be so unwilling to shape the world to one’s whims. At least not to him. But he didn’t grow up in a city where desire was deadly and dreams were a sure path to death-by-Mara. His whims don’t call up tortured ghosts from the space between.

The forest’s gift trembles in my hands. Ash’s dream-bright form wavers as a layer of mist slides between us. I stroke the smooth grain of the living wood, and it settles.

The knotted ball acts as both an anchor and a bridge, mooring my disembodied consciousness to this reality while spanning the vast spaces between the body Cadence stole, this dreamscape, and the ancient forest outside Nine Peaks where Ash’s physical anchor waits with both hands pressed against mossy bark.

“Cole?” His lines are crisp once more, his touch warm as he reaches out in concern.

“It’s nothing. What did the council say?”

“Oh, you know what they’re like . . .” He leans over to pluck at the soft grass beneath us, drawing it up into a swaying line of extravagantly and improbably patterned flowers. They hum a low, gentle chorus scented, oddly, of spruce. “I’d rather see what you’ve been up to. I’m sure whatever you’ve chosen to dream is as beautiful as you are. Why don’t you show me?”

I wrinkle my nose. The flattery, I’m almost certain, is an attempt to cover up his guilt for leaving me behind. Even though every disastrous choice I’ve made has been mine and mine alone.

Besides, he doesn’t need to see my clumsy attempts at creation. Those are private.

I swat his distracting blossoms down into prickly, purple-barbed spears. How’s that for beautiful? “Don’t change the subject. What did the elders decide?”

He shifts his weight gingerly, wincing at the ungentle groundcover. “That reminds me—Grace wants to visit, did I tell you? She’s been bugging me about it all week. You won’t believe how much more fun you can have over here with a group. If we can get her and Banshee tapped in at the same time, you’ll see some real fireworks—”

“Ash. The council. When can we expect their help?”

He plucks at his old, disreputable scarf, brighter and cleaner beneath his jacket than I know it to be. Ash likes to dream things unbroken. “It’s not that they don’t care, it’s just . . .”

“They don’t believe us.” I wait for a response, but he’s busy rearranging the scarf in lieu of the landscape, hesitant to dismiss my spiky contributions after insisting that I participate in the shaping. “We’re running out of time. Just tell me already.”

Ash meets my gaze and the weight of it is more than I can bear. He gestures. The sunny meadow becomes a cozy little cabin; wooden beams overhead, fire crackling at our feet. In the way of this place, there is no sense of movement, no conscious choice, between staring him down and finding myself curled against his side, his arm slung around my shoulders, holding me just a little too tight at an angle where he doesn’t have to meet my eyes.

I dig an elbow into his ribs, trying and failing to spring to my feet. His dreaming is the stronger, though he has said that was never true of him and Cadence.  And she’s not here to test how things have changed.

He whispers into my hair, his voice low to cover the shaking, “Isn’t this enough? Just be here with me.”

But for all his strength—of will, of vision, of magic—I’m still holding the forest’s gift. I could let it go, break the bridge linking us through the dreamscape. I will if he doesn’t release me.

As if he can sense my resolve, his grip slackens. I pull away, the ceiling and walls crumbling as they shift up and out, light breaking in dust-thick golden beams through the bare shards of high stone arches.

“I’m on your side,” he says into the cold, echoing ruins—and I even believe him. “Always have been. Always will be.”

It would be nice if that were enough. Once upon a time, maybe it could have been.

“They’re not going to help, are they?”

“You know we can’t risk it.” He flicks a murky-hued bench into and drops onto it; his shoulders bow in surrender to that unconscious “we.” He’s not talking about me.

I’m not the only one who struggles to throw off years of submitting to authority. But he still thinks of himself as part of Nine Peaks, even if he doesn’t agree with the elders’ orders. I have learned very well that I don’t belong. Not there, nor in the city I’ve trapped myself in, nor even in this paradise of make-believe.

Ash continues, “I don’t know that we could take the Mara anymore, not at our current strength, not with enforcers attacking at the same time. Crossing that barrier takes too much of a toll.”

“Not on me. Ravel didn’t seem too bothered by it, either. Isn’t there a way to, I don’t know, shield yourselves or something? Nine Peaks literally teaches people to put down monsters. What’s the point of all that training if you guys won’t actually fight when it matters?”

“Self defense is one thing. But you know we’re not an army. Our training and missions are about restoring the Earth, not battling those that inhabit it.”

I roll my shoulders, impatient. The crumbling stone hall disappears, along with Ash’s bench. By the time he hits the ground, we’re on a familiar simulacrum of Refuge’s gravel-strewn rooftop, overlooking the drowned city. “We’ve been over this. Just tell me what the council is willing to do.”

Ash, gravel biting into his elbows, glares. I tighten my grip on the anchor-knot, ready to ask the forest to fight him if he tries to run away. But he just blows out a frustrated breath and flops back.

“What was that?”

“You’re not going to like it. You already know their answer. You really have to make me say it?” He pulls an exaggeratedly pouty face and reaches a lazy hand towards me as if I’ll let myself be pulled down to the rooftop, which is suddenly and improbably covered in soft-looking grass. As if I’ll be cajoled into indulging in a few moments of escape . . .

I stamp, the grass rippling away from a clattering hail of gravel. I can ignore his outrageous attempts at distraction all night if I have to.

He sits up, wincing. “Fine. The elders said what they always say. Too many lives wasted already on a lost cause. They’re not sending an army—not that we have one to send. But the Council of Nine has made it clear no one will be permitted to volunteer this time, either. Everyone who helped before you left us, they—we—are all grounded. Grace included. They barely let me out to talk to you.”

I nod. None of this is a surprise. It still hurts. “What else? What about Susan? Surely she had something to say about them abandoning Cadence and me out here?”

“Your grandmother was released from her seat on the council. The other elders declared her overwrought. They sent her away to mourn the loss of her granddaughters in seclusion.”

“We’re not dead.” And I’m still not convinced she’s my grandmother.

“That’s the spirit.” He laughs, sending the gravel rippling in joyful clattering waves. “Get it? ‘Spirit?’”

“Really?”

He stops. “Sorry.”

The sky wheels from hazy afternoon through a lurid sunset to icy starlight.

“There has to be more,” I insist. “Something I can try, if they won’t act. Something—”

“There is nothing else.”

Too fast. He’s nearly as clumsy a liar as I am.

I lean in to force a confession—and my vision doubles.

Cadence just woke up.

“We’ll pick this up later. I’m not letting it go, Ash.”

He nods, eager to wriggle off the hook for one more day. “No problem. Happy haunting, C.”

I loosen my grip on the anchor, snapping the bridge out from under him and hurling him back into his world before he can retreat under his own steam. It’s petty—and amazingly satisfying.

Might as well flex what little power I have here while I can—because the next item on my agenda is about sixteen hours worth of harassing the heck out of a duplicitous body snatcher in an almost certainly futile attempt to save the world.

Chapter 2: Nagging

RELENTLESSLY PESTERING SOMEONE full-time turns out to be yet another one of the skills Cadence is just naturally better at. I’m running out of ideas. I’ve already sung through every one of Ash’s marching songs I can remember, a dozen times each, fabricating words as needed. Staying on tune is not aligned with my goals, so that part’s fine.

Cadence is scowling. It’s unclear if that’s a result of my pitchy efforts or just her face. Our face. Whatever.

When even I can’t stand my singing anymore, I revert to peppering her with questions about everything she sees, or does, or says. It kills a few more hours. I like to think her heavy pauses before responding to anyone who speaks to her are due to my efforts. But it’s more likely that she’s just trying a little too hard to seem intimidating.

Which gives me an idea.

“Why do you look constipated?” I chirp in her ear, swinging around to the other side to stage-whisper, “Do you need to go to the bathroom? Go ahead—say, ‘May I please be excused to use the toilet, Your Worship.’ You know there’s no bathroom break in the schedule, right? The mayor is like nine thousand years old. She probably wears diapers. Wait . . . Are you wearing a diaper?”

Cadence glowers at the fawning supplicant  “You heard me. It wasn't a suggestion.”

The witless Division Head grovels. “Of course not, Your Worsh—Hon—Majes—Lady?” He darts a glance at the mayor’s inhumanly lovely face, trying to guess the correct honorific from the slightest variations in the curve of her full lips. When he gets a delicate moue of disapproval, he whimpers.

“There is no need to address us,” Her Worship Maryam Ajera, Mayor of the Towers of Refuge, Chief of the Council of Guardians, First Mother to the Citizens, Breath of Tower Regulation, kidnapper, murderer of our parents, purloiner of memories, and agency, and freedom, and all that’s good in life—says in a dangerously throaty purr. “This is my Right Hand. Her words are as my own and will be obeyed as such.”

The man bows his dual-banded hood to the golden floor of the opulent receiving room and cowers.

“See? He’s not even looking. You could totally sneak off for a little private time. It’s not good to hold it in, you know?” It would be impossible to tease her like this straight-faced—if I had a face.

Cadence emits a faint, low noise, almost a growl. The man prostrate at the feet of the two ornate, throne-like chairs whimpers. “You waste our time,” she says after too long a pause, her voice thin and pitchy next to the mayor’s. “Patrols won’t arrange themselves. Or do I need to handle this matter personally?”

“No, your . . . your Handliness. Enforcers will be posted. Immediately. Without fail.”

“If he pees himself, do you clean that up?” I’m genuinely curious—and also committed to this new bathroom-themed torment strategy. I can see a vein throbbing in Cadence’s flushed forehead. “Or is there a housekeeper lurking somewhere? How does it work? I mean, someone’s got to do the chores, right?”

Cadence scoffs. The division head darts a panicked look from her to the mayor and back again. At a sign from Maryam, he scuttles off to execute his orders.

“Embarrassing,” Cadence huffs. “Is there no one better to put in charge of Refuge Force? It’s not exactly a low stakes job.”

Maryam hums amused agreement. “You clearly haven’t had the misfortune to learn, child, that putting clever and powerful men in charge of your armed forces can backfire. Much better to have a predictably venal and spineless puppet to use or dispose of as needed.”

“And what does that make you?” I snicker, finally coaxing a futile swat from Cadence. “Gotcha.”

“The other one is here, I take it?” Maryam flutters elegant, bejewelled fingers vaguely in our direction. “Hello, darling. I do wish we’d had more time together. I understand my boy was quite smitten with you.”

Cadence pouts. “I hate it when you do that.”

“Yes, dear. I’m aware.” Maryam reaches over and digs manicured nails into Cadence’s sleeve until blood mars the fabric.

The girl wearing my body hardens her jaw and glares back, refusing to flinch.

A warm glow of pride flickers despite my best intentions—she’s stubborn, but oh is she strong.

“I heard that, stupid,” Cadence thinks smugly.

I blow a raspberry in her ear and follow it up with a series of inventive mouth noises despite not actually having a mouth. It works better when you don’t think too hard about it. And it’s one of the irritating activities that repetition makes worse for her and easier for me.

Maryam peers at Cadence. I freeze mid pop.

It’s as if she’s staring past Cadence to me. Which is impossible.

I pop my lips at her once in defiance. Her eyes narrow.

I shudder and hurriedly direct my noises back at Cadence—just in case.

“I’m going to change,” Cadence announces.

“No need.” Maryam licks one wet red nail and smiles.

“I don’t like you very much.” Cadence’s fists tremble at her sides, ever so slightly.

“Hurry back. We still have so much to do.”

Cadence turns on her heel, muttering, “I chose to work with you, stupid-head.”

“What was that, dear?” Lazy. Amused.

I almost feel sorry for Cadence. Almost. “‘Stupid-head?’ What are you, four?”

There’s no need for the dig. I’ve clearly already pushed her over the edge. But it’s hard to turn off the harassment once I get going.

“Like you could do better.” She stomps so hard her heel snags on the carpet. She barely manages to get her hands up in time to keep from face planting.

“Now who’s the clumsy one?”

“Whatever. At least you had time to get used to it. The last time I walked in my own skin my feet were half this size.” She waggles one foot to emphasize her point and has to scramble for balance again. “Uh. . . that sounded creepier than I meant.”

I snicker, but the truth is her complaint lands a little too close for comfort. She’s not the only one who lost years to this place. To Maryam.

“The difference is I’m a real person,” Cadence sneers, eavesdropping again. “I don’t know what you’re whining about. This was never your body to begin with. My parents were the ones who died. My life was the one ruined. You’re just in the way.”

I sigh heavily as if exasperated. I can’t let on how terrifying her words really are. Because if she is wrong, if I’m not some kind of mistake, some half-formed remnant or ghost, that means she is.

And while she might be the one with memories of our past, I’m not the one stuck in it. She can’t seem to move on—

“Save it,” she snaps, throwing open the door to her dressing room. “You know you can’t hide anything from me, right? I’m not stuck in the past. I’m just trying to fix it.”

“By working with a murderer?”

“By doing whatever it takes.” She strips off her bloodstained top and tosses it in the corner.

I look away, absurdly. Not like it’s anything I haven’t seen before, though the clusters of small, dark bruises and the long, pale scratches are new. “I spoke to Ash while you were sleeping. He reached Nine Peaks. Everyone made it. They’re doing well. Susan—Gran said to say hi.”

“Liar.” Her voice is muffled behind a fresh tangle of glittery fabric.

“Um, I don’t think it’s meant to go on like that . . .”

She struggles for a full ten count before hurling the offending item to the floor. “Whatever. Didn’t want to wear it anyway.”

I grant her a few moments to pick through the complicated, ornate garments in peace.

“Did Ash ask about me?” she says, nose buried in the closet.

“Of course.”

She knots her fists in fabric and rips everything within reach from the hangers, casting it down at her feet. “You’re a worse liar than he is.”

“He didn’t have to ask, okay? Of course I told him. You’re all we talk about. You, you, and only you. Happy?”

“He’s my friend, not yours.” She stamps a foot, fists clenched, face flushed.

I take a deep breath, absurdly reminded of a small child throwing a tantrum. “He’s worried about you. We both are.”

“Stop it. Leave me alone. I don’t want you.”

The tantrum is escalating—which would be great if I were trying to distract her right now instead of convince her to switch sides.

“I hate you. Just die already.” She flails, teary-eyed and red-faced, entirely ridiculous.

Somebody needs a nap. The fact that she’s wearing my face makes it all the more uncomfortable.

“Not yours! Mine!”

You’d think switching places would finally get her out of my head. No such luck, apparently. “Cadence—”

“Mine!”

“Yours,” I soothe. “You’re right. You are the original. You are the one with all the power. You’re the one Ash cares about, and Susan—Gran. Everyone.”

The insane thing is she’s the one I care about too. More than I should, after her betrayal. I think it’s force of habit keeping me from strangling her, as much as anything, but I just can’t shake it.

“Mine?” She peers suspiciously into the middle distance—not that she can see me any more than I was able to see her when our places were reversed.

“Which is why I need to talk to you.” Like adults, preferably. This kiddie behaviour is giving me the creeps. “You’re in charge. What you choose to do matters. So—so the Council of—I mean Susan—Gran, and Ash, they wanted me to pass a message to you.”

Cadence sniffs, rubbing a careless arm across the damp mess she made of her face. “Ash has a message for me?”

“And your gran. They miss you. They don’t like that you’re so far away. They want to see you.”

She nods. “’Course. But I’m busy—tell them to wait a bit.”

“That’s just it—they can’t wait. They need your help. There’s, um, monsters attacking Nine Peaks.”

She snorts, her childish tones flattening suddenly to adolescent derision. “What do you think I am, three? Ash did not tell you he needs me to save him from monsters.”

Oops.

“What’s that about monsters, dear?” Maryam lounges in the doorway, elegant and deadly.

Cadence plants hands on hips and glares. “I’ll be out in a minute.”

“Oh, don’t go cutting me out of the girl talk,” the mayor pouts, her head tilted just so. “Especially when it’s about boys. Especially mine.”

“Mine,” Cadence snaps back automatically—and then flushes.

“Hmm?” Maryam’s eyes glitter wickedly, but she wafts away in a cloud of cloying gilt chiffon without further comment.

I have to stop wasting time. Maryam isn’t likely to leave us alone together for long. “Fine, you’re not a kid. So here’s the truth: you screwed up. You made a stupid mistake way back when you were little and it cost you everything. Now you’re trying to fix it, and only making things worse. You can’t work with a monster to stop the monsters. You can’t bring mom and dad back from the dead. And bringing down that barrier is only going to put more lives at risk. You don’t have to give me back my—your—body. Keep it. Keep Ash, too. It’s your life—take it. Just run away before it’s too late.”

“If it’s my life—which it is—I don’t have to take it from you. I already have it, stupid. Besides, since when have you ever known what to do? If it weren’t for me, you’d still be mindlessly plodding along like the brainless drone you are.”

I choke on a dozen different comebacks at once, giving Cadence time to wrestle her way into halfway decent attire and stalk out into the corridor. Thankfully, Maryam isn’t lurking around waiting for her.

“She doesn’t lurk,” Cadence huffs.

Does so—but . . . “Look. I don’t want to fight. But if you destroy that barrier, sure the Mara won’t be trapped here anymore. Instead, they’ll be able to go wherever they want. Eat whoever they want. If you keep working with Maryam, it’s only a matter of time before they kill everyone you care about. Susan. Grace. Lily. Ash. Come on, Cadence. You don’t really want Ash to die.”

She huffs. “You can’t trick me. The Mara are only dangerous because they’re trapped. I’m saving the city like mom and dad wanted, not destroying the world.”

This is where the conversation always breaks down. Every time. “Cady—”

But she takes off, dashing back to the audience room to plot destruction with her volatile new bestie. And there’s nothing for me to do but tag along and be as disruptive and distracting as I can manage until she’s too worn out to be any use to Maryam.

But if Ash doesn’t have a better strategy for me tonight, I’m afraid I’ll be the one to go mad long before Cadence breaks.

Chapter 3: Murder

“I DON'T LIKE it.” I turn my back on Ash and his marching band of uniformed woodland creatures. The chipmunks are particularly shrill. “And that is not helping.”

He dismisses the adorably fuzzy little musicians with a gesture, but the music still trips along in the background, as if a sufficiently jaunty tune can make this better. “Sorry. I just—I don’t know. I wanted it to sound less scary than it, uh, does. It’s not that bad—”

“Really? ’Cause it sounds like an assassination to me.”

“That’s hardly fair. I just said there could be some risk.”

“Of dying. ‘Risk of death’ means murder.”

“No, it means there’s some risk involved. This isn’t exactly well-charted territory. Things could turn out. Or, um, not.”

“I’m not killing a kid, Ash.”

“Technically, she’s our age. Practically an adult. Probably. Anyway, it wouldn’t be like that—”

“I’m not murdering Cadence. Period. Not even to save the world.”

“And I wouldn’t ask you to. I don’t want to see her hurt either. But we don’t exactly have a lot of options here.”

Lightning crackles. A tree bursts into flame. I watch it burn—until the anchor knot squirms under my touch, emitting an ominous rumbling. The forest doesn’t appreciate this show of temper. I nod a downpour into existence and watch it flatten fire and foliage alike.

Ash took his sweet time getting here tonight, too. I had been tossing around the idea of showing him what I’d been working on, but now . . . It’s not like it really matters. I mean, I’d even gone to the trouble of reproducing a patch of wasteland so I could test different ways of restoring it while I waited, never mind those improvements on Nine Peaks’ layout that the forest had nudged me toward, but now . . .

I blink, and the half-finished structures in the distance are gone as if they’d never been.

Ash shoves dripping hair out of his eyes and swirls up a clear dome to deflect the rain. “See why I didn’t want to bring it up?”

I cut a dark look in his direction. The rushing water has finally drowned out that gratingly cheery tune of his. “Explain properly this time.”

“They’re not even saying it’s what you should do. It’s just one option.”

“The only option they’re willing to share, at least.”

“That’s—”

Lightning strikes in quick succession, a ring of flames springing up in defiance of the downpour. “Seriously? What else are you hiding? How much worse could it get than murder?”

He makes a fist, suffocating the wildfire out of existence. “It’s not murder. No one is saying you have to do anything you don’t want to do. I mean, the council would really prefer you just hang out here and stop stirring up—”

“Not an option. Did you explain properly? Putting aside the elders’ willingness to sacrifice a whole city of innocents, if Cadence and Maryam bring down the barrier and set the Mara free, no one will be safe. You did mention that part, right?”

“They don’t see it that way. Grandfather said there’s no reason to believe your Mara are especially dangerous. If anything, the majority opinion is Cadence might be onto something. The Coles were sent to remove the barrier in the first place. She might even manage to save a few lives if left to her own devices. I’m not”—he holds his hands up to forestall my protest—“saying I agree. Just relaying the message. It was your gran who brought up the idea of taking back control from Cady and switching places again.”

“That was Susan’s idea?” I pace, shrugging the rain away.

Ash doodles a few sunset streaks across the watery-pale sky. I glare. He stops guiltily.

“You’re saying Cadence’s own grandmother suggested I risk her life?”

He shrugs. “Your gran didn’t put it like that. I would have brought her to explain, except the council has really cracked down on gate access since we all snuck down to the coast, and she’s supposed to be holed up getting over grief-induced insanity or something. Technically, I wasn’t even allowed to be talking to her.”

“Uh huh.”

“She didn’t seem insane, though. Sad, sure, but no more crazy than usual.”

“Murder seems pretty crazy. Not to mention, if it was that easy to switch places with Cadence, don’t you think I would’ve done it by now?”

“So you have tried? Can you use your powers at all like this? You know, on the other side? Maybe—”

“It doesn’t matter”—the forest’s gift squirms at the evasion—“I’m not doing anything that could put Cadence at risk.”

Ash chews his lip, peering at me. I turn to examine the misty clouds chasing each other in the distance.

“Cole, you know I—I care about both of you, right? I don’t want Cady hurt any more than you do. But if she brings down that barrier and it is as bad as you say . . . maybe it’s worth the risk, you know?” He digs a toe into the dirt, continues, “After what she did to you?”

I heat with sudden anger at the reminder of Cadence’s betrayal, at the way she used my desperation against me to steal back her body, but the flush cools before I can even muster a response. The sensation is almost alien, distant and unfamiliar, as if the fury is being stolen from me before it can fully ignite.

I look past the clouds, beyond the vast sea of unreality to the very edges of the dreamscape. To the place where my ghosts wait for me, drowning in their darkness. The tortured victims of the Mara: the ones I failed to save and the ones I never had a chance of saving. If it were within my power, is there anything I wouldn’t do to keep their ranks from swelling?

Every night I look into that void and count the names of those I desperately hope not to see tortured within. Ange never made it out of the city—it can’t be long now until she joins her partner Cass’s ruined shade in the darkness in-between. And when the barrier hemming in the Mara falls, how long until she’s reunited with her sister Amy in death? Her young niece, Lily? The thought of stubborn, fearless, pixie-faced Lily sucked dry by the Mara makes me almost physically ill.

This is the nightmare that lurks at the edge of the dreamscape, and I would do anything to keep it from becoming real. Anything—except trade one child’s life for another’s. And in my nightmares, Cadence doesn’t wear the gawky, spotty, nearly grown body I left behind, but a form not much bigger than Lily’s . . .

“Everything could go back to normal,” Ash lies. “You don’t know for a fact that anything bad would happen. You might just switch places again.”

Or I might wipe one or both of us from the face of all worlds at once. I know I should be angry at her, furious at her betrayal, but . . . “I took the chance to grow from her once, without meaning to. I won’t take it away again, even if I could. Besides, I think I’m making progress getting through to her. It’s not like she’s evil, just stubborn and stuck in the past.”

“None of this is your fault, C.”

I blink. Then I swirl up a couple of straight-backed chairs with a scratched-up table. The legs sink into the damp earth when I sit, so I waft the whole setup a couple inches into the air and glare until Ash hoists himself into the opposite chair. “What else are you hiding?”

He drums his fingers against the top, studying me. “What do you know about the dome?”

I narrow my eyes at the change of topic. “It keeps the monsters in. Keeps everything else in too. Something about it is toxic to dreamwalkers. Not deadly, but damaging. And it burned when I touched it, crossing with Ravel. I didn’t have access to any magic at that time, so the barrier may or may not burn regular humans, too. That’s about it.”

He reaches across the table, palms up, hands open. “I hate that you keep getting hurt by all this.”

I shrug and pointedly cross my arms. It’s not like I love getting hurt either. Where’s he going with this?

“I want you to listen, okay? Just listen and don’t interrupt.” His eyes are wide and dark, his gaze too steady, too intent for me to meet for more then a moment at a time. “You do not have to go back there. You don’t have to do anything that hurts ever again. You can just stay here. With me. If you want to. Because I want you to. Stay here. With—with me. Wow,” he lets out a shaky breath, grimaces. “I sound kinda lame, huh? But for real, Cole. Or C. Or whatever. I’ll call you what you want, be happy with whatever you want to be, and do, and have me be. Just . . . just stay.”

He isn’t supposed to lay it all out there like that. Dancing around it is one thing—that, I can bear. But this—this is unfair. Cruel, even.

In another world, if I were another me, maybe I’d feel differently. That other me might want to reach back—and even know how. Maybe she would be able to find the right words to give back to him. Maybe she’d be able to make a different choice.

I could say something like, “You have dreamed of me for years—”

“Decades,” he’d interrupt, staring at me with those wide brown eyes brimming with adoration.

And I would gaze back, maybe a little teary with the emotion of it, maybe bashfully glancing away, saying something like: “While I have only just begun to dream again.” Or maybe something more like, “While my dreams have only just come back to life.” Something eloquent. Restrained. But I would leave the door open to more. Maybe he’d kiss me. Maybe I’d want him to. Maybe it would be enough to help me forget all worlds but the one we’d make together . . .

But the me that I have become, that I choose, only has the capacity to care about one thing right now. And it’s not him.

“Don’t.” I let him see the fantasy dying in my eyes, my tone flat with finality.

He flinches. Closes his eyes. His hands tremble as if he’s only just stopping himself from covering his ears.

“If you care about me at all, Ash,”—he starts to respond, but I cut him off before he can embarrass either of us further—“If you want to help me, you’ll help me save them. Now: the dome. Impenetrable to monsters and to most humans. Burns on contact, probably. Toxic to dreamwalkers. Cadence’s target, and apparently Maryam’s. Am I missing anything?”

He shakes his head, draws his hands back and braces them against his knees, knuckles whitening. “ No, that sounds about right. I’m not sure anyone knows much more than that. But the elders—let me back up. You knew I ran away from Spectre to come find you, right?”

“Not that you told me, but yeah, if that’s what you call your little team or whatever, then that’s the story I heard.”

“Did anyone ever mention what we were doing on that mission?”

“Does anyone ever explain anything to me?”

He shrugs. “It’s hard to remember what you know, sometimes.”

I drop his chair into the mud so he has to peer over the table.

Ash rolls his eyes. “Abuse of power. I’ll take that as a ‘no.’ And also a ‘hurry-up.’” He tries for a grin but doesn’t quite pull it off. “Here’s what you need to know: most large bodies of water are infested with creatures who are none too fond of anything that looks human, so we obviously try to keep our distance.”

He holds up a hand to quell my protest. “Stay with me, that is not the important part. The thing is, my squad came across the rumour of a boat—a ship, really—crossing between our shores and an island off the coast. And the source of that rumour claimed to have encountered a dreamwalker crew. Her descriptions were dead ringers for some of our missing-presumed-killed parents. You know you weren’t the only one to lose most of your family when you were young, yeah? Nearly all of us have lost at least one parent, if not both, in missions gone wrong.”

I blink. That is news, actually, but . . . “Where you going with this?”

He leans forward, tapping the table in emphasis. “Look at it this way: how does the council know what to expect from a barrier dome when yours is the only one anyone’s ever heard of—and the only mission to crack it failed?”

“I don’t know, how do they know anything? Mystical dreamwalker libraries?”

“. . . Okay, sure, maybe. But there were never many big cities around here in the first place, and I’m telling you, yours is the only one I’ve ever heard of that ever had a barrier like that put up around it. It’s also one of the only ones still inhabited. But that island I mentioned? On the old maps it’s huge. Once it held the biggest city in the region, next to yours. If my parents are still alive, there’s nowhere they could have survived in hiding all this time . . . except, possibly, across a sea-monster infested ocean.”

“And?”

“And what? That’s like—like—it’s the biggest news in pretty much forever. It could change everything. Just imagine: a whole generation of fully-grown dreamwalkers out there somewhere. What have they learned since they left us? What skills have they honed? I mean, there’s your army!”

I flick the landscape past until we’re standing on the edge of the cliffs staring out to sea. Not the sea he’s talking about, but my pulse still ticks up as if a ship will appear on the horizon.

Forces unconstrained by Nine Peaks’ elders. Adult dreamwalkers who could fight and choose their fate—instead of a bunch of teens on the edge of childhood with half-manifested powers and more enthusiasm than sense. Surely they could save my city, defeat the monsters, even rescue Cadence from her misguided quest . . . But—“Why didn’t you bring this up sooner?”

Ash kicks a pebble off the edge of the cliff and watches it fall, mumbling.

“What was that?”

He dangles his legs over the edge and flicks another pebble. “Spectre didn’t actually find anything. No traces of boats run up on the shore. No pier for a ship to dock at. No more survivors to corroborate the story. Just one traumatized little kid with a wild story. That was when I left my squad behind to look for you, and all they found while I was gone were swamp monsters and gnawed bones.”

He hangs his head, intent on rolling a stone between finger and thumb. I snatch it away and hurl it into the shimmering ocean. “So? Those guys suck. I mean, have you met them? I did—hardly confidence inspiring.”

His eyes spark at the insult to his friends, but I keep going without pausing for his protests. “You’ll do better this time. You’ll find the way across, I know it. How far are you from the coast? You know what—doesn’t matter. Just get going. I’ll do my best to stall Cadence until you find the ship. Bring me that army, Ash.”

“It’s not that easy—”

“And killing Cadence is? Look, it’s not like—ugh.” My vision doubles. She’s waking up. Back to harassment duty. “Look, I don’t care what it takes. I’ll stall her as long as I can, but I’m counting on you to find that ship. You promised not to bring Nine Peaks’ forces back to the city, but you never said anything about other dreamwalkers, right? You owe me this.”

I leave him on the cliffs overlooking the dreaming sea, still protesting, and hurl myself through the ranks of nightmares at the edge of the dreamscape with barely a sideways glance.

Chapter 4: Unweaving

THE UNEARTHLY MAYOR of Refuge rarely descends from her golden perch at the top of the tower—or so I’ve always imagined. As it turns out, she just has her ways of moving unseen. They’re called “guards” and “elevator keys.”

“Can I have one of those?” Cadence points to the unassuming little slip of metal.

“When you’ve earned it.” Maryam holds the key card against a panel until it beeps, then presses the button for the lowest level with the very tip of her pointed nail. When the disc fails to light up, she frowns and stabs harder, cracking the age-fogged plastic.

“When will that be?” Cadence whines.

Maryam whirls in a tinkling of gold chains and grabs the toddler-masquerading-as-a-teen by the chin. “When you’ve learned to block out that traitorous ghost. No offense, darling.”

I don’t know how she knows I’m here. Unless she just assumes I’m always lurking—accurate, if so. Maybe it’s all just a ploy to get under Cadence’s skin, but it works. Cadence subsides into sullen scuffling and heavy, pointed sighs, while I do my bit with an assortment of lip pops and inane questions like: “Why did she send her guards on ahead? I mean, the B.O. was bad but it’s not like she can smell it over that perfume, right?” and “I do kind of like her fashion sense. You should try harder, you know. You’re not a kid anymore.”

But when the elevator doors slide open, my brain goes numb.

Once, I thought the lower levels of the Towers of Refuge abandoned. When the ocean rose, they were supposed to have flooded, but obviously, by the time Ravel turned them into his sprawling playground of hedonism, they had been reclaimed. Probably with the help of Ange’s Underfolk, now that I think of it. Their engineers had all sorts of clever pumps and turbines and such that could have made it possible. But the last time I saw these halls, they’d been a disaster zone.

Now they’re gleaming.

The bloodstains have been scrubbed away, the gouges in the floors and walls filled and smoothed, the fallen-in ceilings replaced. Everything is painted in blinding white with the strongest lights I’ve ever seen bouncing pain-bright rays off the sharply bland surfaces. Sanitized.

“Oh, Ravel is gonna hate this,” Cadence crows, earning from Maryam what would have been a smirk on any lesser visage.

But, “It was getting a little dingy,” is all she deigns to say.

Her enforcers stalk ahead of us; the distant tromping of their boots and the flickering hems of their uniforms always just at the edge of human senses as they clear each new hall ahead of us. Which begs the question: who is it that still inhabits these sanitized spaces? Not Ravel—presumably under house arrest in far away Nine Peaks with a flock of traumatized refugees to look after. And surely Ange and whatever is left of her flock must have been imprisoned or sacrificed to the Mara by now.

So, why bother with guards? Are they here as a snack? An offering to the hungry monsters? Cadence seems unconcerned when I bring it up.

Maryam laughs when I finally nag Cadence into asking. “Well, I wouldn’t want to eat them, dear, but I suppose it’s possible.”

This makes Cadence uncomfortable enough it feels safe to give her a break from the constant irritation I’ve been so diligently supplying. After all, it’s not as if she’s being particularly useful to Maryam right at this moment. And I’m a big enough person not to indulge in undue harassment just in petty revenge for all she put me through.

Probably.

More to the point, I want to have a look around. I can see through walls. And floors and ceilings—yet another advantage of turning ghost. But it does take some focus.

There’s no one behind us, which isn’t all that surprising. Above—nothing for the first couple floors. Not that there would be. Below—no one nearby, at least. The lack of inhabitants gets more concerning the further we go. Ravel hadn’t managed to free that many in those desperate final hours of our ill fated rescue—probably more of Ange’s folk than his own since so few of Freedom’s dancers were permanently in residence. Most snuck down night after night from Refuge to seize a few hours of escape and would have fled back to its “safety” at the first sign of enforcers. But there should still be someone around.

And then there is—in the distance. A flickering of life at the edges of these tunnels. Someone survived. More than one someone.

“Probably just enforcers on patrol,” Cadence says carelessly.

“What was that, dear?”

“Nothing.”

“Is your ghost curious about the remnant? She is, isn’t she? She thought I’d have used them all up at once.”

Cadence trips, catches herself against a too-white wall, and flinches when Maryam slips an elegant arm through hers.

“Don’t you think me silly, dear,” the ancient hisses into her ear. “I didn’t last this long being wasteful.”

Cadence swallows hard—and yanks her arm free. “Stop screwing around and just tell me what we’re down here for already. Do you want my help or not?”

Maryam cocks a full hip and tilts her head. “So sure of ourselves, aren’t we? What if it was never your help I wanted?”

Cadence is too belligerent to back down, but if I had blood, it would have been rioting to escape by now. I don’t know how sacrificing us would be of any particular use to Maryam—but I’m not at all eager to find out either.

“Oh, you’re just so much fun!” The sharp pinch leaves fading white dents on Cadence’s cheek. “I’m not going to eat you, child. I don’t play with my food. Often. And you, my dear, are much, much too valuable to waste.”