“WHAT’S WRONG?”
Archer glanced up from the lunch table and found Amy’s owlish gaze surveying him. “Nothing,” he mumbled, again letting the buzz of the cafeteria—teachers droning on the PA, staccato bursts of laughter, the clatter of trays, the slurp of milk, and a hundred conversations—wash over him like a tide.
“Nothing?” Amy echoed. She put her lunch tray down on the table. “I’m not buying it, Archer. You look like you just swallowed a sea urchin, yep. So what’s the deal?”
He exhaled deeply and said nothing. He didn’t mean to be rude to Amy, didn’t mean to stare, but he couldn’t help it. Kara and Rigby sat at the corner table where they always sat at lunch. Today, like always, they were deep in conversation. And, like always, there were grins, laughs, and knowing glances. It made Archer sick. It was—
“Excuse me?” Amy’s voice pierced the cloud. “Earth to Archer. I’m right here, y’know.” She followed his gaze. Behind her round wire-rim glasses, her eyes narrowed. “Oh, oh, I see it now. You’re still nursing an old crush, aren’t you?”
“What?” Archer snapped suddenly from his thoughts. “Wha-a-t crush? Me? No. Of course not.”
Amy put a hand on her hip and tilted her head to the side. “As if I weren’t here all last year? C’mon, Archer, you were totally crushing on Kara Windchil. I mean, who could blame you, really? Long, perfectly straight, silken black hair . . . dark eyebrows and lashes . . . those weird but alluring blue eyes?”
“Stop it, Amy,” Archer said. “You make her sound like a goddess.”
“She is,” Amy replied. She smirked. “Or at least she thinks she is.”
“Cut it out, would ya, Amy? You’re just as pretty. And I am not still crushing on her. I’m—”
Amy picked up her lunch tray and walked away. It was a strange walk, slow and measured. And then, the look. Amy turned her head just enough for Archer to see a glimmer from her left eye. There was profound happiness in that eye: a kind of joyful lightness and a kindling fire of hope.
What did I say? he wondered frantically. She was the one describing Kara like some kind of gorgeous movie star. I didn’t . . . That’s when Archer got it. I told Amy she was just as pretty.
Archer gave himself a wicked facepalm. “I can’t believe it,” he muttered crossly. He had to admit it was true. Sure, Amy was pretty in a mousy kind of way, but still . . . And her personality, her heart was so much kinder—
Stop. Archer dropped a nuke on those thoughts.
When he looked back at Kara and Rigby, he had a completely different mind-set. Archer shook his head and wondered how he ever could have trusted either one of them. He glanced up at the clock. Five minutes left of lunch. He hadn’t even touched his food. That was something of a tragedy for Archer because food . . . well, food was glorious. But the churning in his stomach warned him that eating something now . . . would not end well.
But, Archer reflected, he had trusted them. His decision. Thanks to his Uncle Scoville’s groundbreaking research, Rigby had learned to Lucid Dream. He could enter the Dream consciously, just like a Dreamtreader. And he’d taught others: Kara . . . and a whole team of kids from his old school. Archer had called them allies, and together they’d routed the Nightmare Lord from his fortress at Number 6 Rue de la Mort.
Routed, he thought. Not quite. The Nightmare Lord had tricked them all. He’d tricked Archer most of all, tricking him into a foolish, tragic move that cost the lives of his Dreamtreader allies, Duncan and Mesmeera. Still, in the end, the Nightmare Lord lost. Archer took some solace in that.
But even that victory felt hollow because Rigby and Kara had claimed the rulership of the Dream. And worse still, they’d begun to market Lucid Dreaming . . . as a business venture. They’d begun taking some of the world’s richest and most privileged on Dream safaris and making buckets of money from it.
Safaris. Archer rolled his eyes. How could Rigby and Kara be so shortsighted? Taking more and more private citizens into Lucid Dreams as if it were no more dangerous than watching lions and gazelles from a touring bus?
They pretended to be just advisors to the company, Dream Inc., but Archer knew better. Rigby Thames was too ambitious, too controlling to let others manage what really amounted to his family’s secret heritage. Rigby’s Uncle Scoville had begun the research and had discovered the methods and most of the rules to Lucid Dreaming, but he’d paid a hefty price for it. His consciousness remained trapped in the Dream, while his body stayed hooked to life-support machines in a wing of Rigby’s basement. No, Rigby was the brains and the will of Dream Inc., and Kara had become Rigby’s right hand.
It’s their fault, Archer thought. Their fault the breaches are multiplying like they are. And if someone doesn’t stop them, they’re going to tear up the Dream so badly that a rift forms.
“No,” Archer muttered. “I’m not going to let that happen.” He stood up, left his tray where it was, and headed for the corner of the cafeteria. On the way, he reached into his jacket pocket and tested Master Gabriel’s scroll. It was still sealed tight. Figures, Archer thought. Well, while I’m waiting for Master Gabriel to get things ready for the new Dreamtreaders, I’m going to take care of things here.
Just then, the bell rang. Rigby and Kara were already moving, taking their trays to the lunch line window. Archer cut them off.
“Hey!” Rigby jerked his tray to the side. “What’re you doing, Keaton? You almost got painted with barbecue sauce.”
“We need to talk,” Archer said. He glanced at Kara. She looked away.
“The bell’s rung,” Rigby said, his voice still spiced with England, where he spent most of his life. “You ’ad to wait until the end of lunch, did you?”
Archer stood his ground, glanced over his shoulder, and lowered his voice. “Look, Rigby, this Dream Inc. stuff has to stop. You’re ripping too many breaches in the Dream fabric.”
Kara gasped. “Archer!”
Rigby was suddenly there in Archer’s face. “Shut up, Keaton!” he hissed. “Or I’ll—”
“Or you’ll what?” Archer challenged. And that was a risk. Rigby was dangerous. He’d once taken down David “Guzzy” Gorvalec, the school’s worst bully, with one punch. But Archer knew how to defend himself. He figured he could pretty much hold his own with anyone.
“The teachers are watching,” Kara warned.
Rigby’s brown eyes smoldered. Archer did his best to match, fiercifying his own glare. Their faces were just inches apart. Finally, Rigby looked away.
“Fine,” he said. “We’ll talk. But not here.”
“Where and when?” Archer demanded.
“My house. After school today. Be there at four. Don’t be late.”
Scoville Manor perched like a gargantuan gargoyle on a hill a few blocks away from Archer’s street. It was a towering Victorian mansion: three stories, two protruding gabled roofs, two tall brick chimneys, some kind of attic sub-roof with a widow’s walk, and the whole thing was topped by a dark wrought-iron weather vane in the shape of a galloping horse.
Archer trod up the slushy uneven walk, with Kaylie rushing up onto the porch to push the glowing doorbell button. They waited, puffs of breath appearing and vanishing like ghosts in the unseasonably frigid air. The bell triggered the usual ruckus of barks, squawks, chirps, and growls—the welcome from Rigby’s basement full of exotic animals—until the door eased open.
“You’re early,” Rigby said through the crack in the door. “Kara’s not even here yet. And . . . what’s she doing here?”
Archer put his hand on Kaylie’s shoulder. “She wanted to see the pets,” he said. “Kaylie loves your little zoo so much. She even considers several of the meerkats to be family. And Doctor Who, of course. You don’t mind, do you? She volunteered to feed and clean all the animals.”
“You’ll feed and clean, hmm?” Rigby asked.
Kaylie nodded vigorously, and Archer saw her blue eyes widen and her tiny button lips go to level five pouty. He knew Rigby had no chance.
“I guess it would be all right,” he said. “C’mon, then.”
He led the way down the hall to the kitchen and turned to the basement door. He turned the knob but paused, a wily look in his eyes. “Wait a moment. You aren’t playin’ at something now, are ya?”
“What are you talking about, Rigby?” Archer asked.
Rigby remained undaunted. “Listen both of you,” he growled. “You best not be thinkin’ of trying to visit Uncle Scoville. I’ve rigged a new system on his door. If you so much as touch it, I’ll know about it.”
Kaylie blinked, little beaded tears forming. She shook her head. “I wouldn’t go near him. Never. He scares me.”
“She’s going to see the animals,” Archer said, lowering his voice an octave. “That’s all.”
“Right then,” he said. “Down you go.”
When Kaylie was safely in the basement, Archer turned on Rigby. “If you ever threaten Kaylie, I’ll—”
“You’ll what?” Rigby asked, a cruel smile forming. “You Dreamtreaders have some sort of code, don’t you? An oath to do no harm or some such?”
“That’s for doctors,” Archer said. He waited a few heartbeats for Rigby to get the point. “Dreamtreaders may have something similar, but my family comes first.”
Rigby turned and went to his fridge. He pulled out a can of soda, sat at the kitchen table, and popped it open. He didn’t offer a drink to Archer, and they waited in silence for several awkward minutes.
At last Kara arrived. She joined Rigby on his side of the table, crossed her arms, and avoided Archer’s eyes.
“So what’s all this about, Keaton?” Rigby asked.
“I told you,” Archer said. “Your company, Dream Inc. You’ve got to shut it down.”
“Shut it down?” Rigby echoed. “Are you mad? It’s the entertainment sensation of the century. Besides, we’re making a killing.”
“Why do you want it shut down, Archer?” Kara asked.
It was the first time she had spoken directly to Archer in months, and to his surprise, there seemed to be a touch of kindness in her voice. That threw him off stride for a moment. “The Dream,” he said, “it’s not for sightseeing.”
“Why not?” Rigby asked. “We’re doing good there, Archer. We’ve set all of the Nightmare Lord’s other captives free. They’ve gone back to their dreamy little lives.”
“While you took the Nightmare Lord’s throne,” Archer growled. “You used me to get rid of him, and then you took over. How can I trust you? You might just turn into the new Nightmare Lord and his queen.”
“Archer, that’s not fair,” Kara said. “We weren’t using you. We stormed his castle together.”
“And left the Nightmare Lord for me to finish off.”
“Is that all you see, Keaton?” Rigby asked. “You think the Nightmare Lord was the only remaining threat? What about the rest of his hounds and henchmen, eh? Who do you think took them out?”
Archer’s words stuck in his throat.
“Yeah, that’s right,” Rigby said. “And it was no easy task, let me tell you.”
“In your wildest dreams, how could you imagine us becoming a Nightmare King and Queen?” Kara asked, an odd tremble in her voice. “Nightmares are the last thing either of us would ever want. Ever.”
Rigby glanced thoughtfully at Kara, but she said nothing else. Archer stared too. He hadn’t heard that vulnerability from Kara for a long time. He studied her. Her expression seemed honest and sincere, but something about her words felt wooden . . . kind of hollow.
Undeterred, Archer pressed on. “We had a plan: finish the Nightmare Lord. That was it. That was the whole thing from the beginning. There wasn’t a step two: take his throne for ourselves. At least there wasn’t one that I knew anything about.”
“The plan changed, Archer,” Kara said. “If there’s anything we know about the Dream, it’s that things can change in an instant. When the Nightmare Lord took us captive, I saw his other prisoners. They were desperate for help . . . we couldn’t just leave them.”
“Your compassion is touching,” Archer quipped.
“See here, Keaton, there’s no call for that. We made a choice in the heat of the moment. So did you.”
“In the heat of the moment?” Archer replied. “Right.”
“That’s exactly right, Archer,” Kara added. “We wanted you to stay with us, remember? You might have chosen that path with us. Then, when the Nightmare Lord returned for his castle—and you know he would have—we could have defeated him together.”
“I needed your help against him,” Archer said, his words simmering. “And you left him to me alone. I could have been killed. My family could have been killed.”
“We couldn’t predict that,” Kara said. “We didn’t even know that physical things could already pass through the Dream fabric, much less that the Nightmare Lord himself could come through.”
“But no one died,” Rigby said. “Your family ended up fine, right? The Nightmare Lord is gone, his captives are free, his hounds are run off, and best yet, there are no more nightmares.”
“What?” Archer blurted. “Of course there are still nightmares. I had one . . .”
Rigby snickered at that. “When?” Rigby leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms. “When was your last nightmare?”
“It was . . . I . . . I can’t remember,” Archer said.
“When you took out the Nightmare Lord and we took over Number 6 Rue de la Mort, we stopped nightmares from forming. Forever. Do you know what incalculable good we’ve done?”
Archer was truly speechless. No more nightmares? Ever? He thought back. No one in his family had reported a nightmare. And, now that he’d thought it over, Archer was reasonably certain he hadn’t had a nightmare.
“Are you sure about this?” Archer asked.
Rigby glanced sideways at Kara and grinned. “Not a single one. Ask anyone you know. Anyone. Dreams are free from fear now. Thanks to us.”
An eerie muffled howl halted the conversation. Archer tensed, remembering the three-headed monstrosity in the Dream.
Rigby laughed. “That’s just Licorice,” he said.
Archer lowered his eyebrows evenly. “Licorice is a candy. It doesn’t howl.”
“It does when it’s a rare black coyote,” Rigby said. “Mum and Dad got a call from a collector and had her sent over.”
“Your mother and father are home?” Archer asked.
Rigby glanced sideways. “No,” he said, “they’re still in England, doing what they always do.”
“Their loss,” Kara said. “They’d be proud of you, you know.”
Rigby sat up stiffly. “To use an American idiom: as if.”
“Well,” Kara said, “they ought to be. You’ve done great—no, amazing—things with Dream Inc.” Kara put a hand lightly on Rigby’s forearm and made eye contact with Archer.
That’s it, Archer thought. She’s totally gone now. “You know,” he said, anger simmering in every syllable, “it would be nice to think that all’s well that ends well. It’d be nice to think that we all did something heroic and deserve a little payback. But I can’t join you in this delusion.”
“Delusion,” Rigby spat. “Is that what you think about—”
“I know. Not think. Know. Dreamtreaders have been around since the dawn of time, and our job is to protect the Dream and the Waking World. My Dreamtreading commander tells me that now—right now, as we’re talking—the breaches are spreading, threatening to decompose into a full-on rift. Do you even know what that is?”
Rigby sighed, and Kara shifted uncomfortably in her chair.
“You really don’t get it, do you?” Archer asked. “The Dream fabric is in the worst condition it’s ever been in. Do you hear me? It’s damaged more than anytime in history. Damage the Nightmare Lord began and damage continued by Walkers.”
“Walkers?” Kara blurted.
“Lucid Dreamers,” Archer explained. “Dreamtreaders call you Lucid Walkers. And each and every time you go skipping through the Dream on your ‘safaris,’ you tear new breaches into the Dream fabric. I know. I’ve seen them. I’ve had to patch up most of them myself. But breaches are appearing and growing at a rate that even the Dreamtreaders can’t keep up with forever. If you don’t shut down Dream Inc., you’re going to destroy the world.”
“Don’t be so blasted dramatic, Keaton,” Rigby chided. “You think you’re the only one who knows about the breach problem?”
Kara turned and gaped at Rigby. “You knew?” she asked.
“Of course I knew,” he said. “Uncle Scoville knew, and he passed it on to me. It’s not a big deal.”
“Not a big deal?” Kara practically spat. “Archer says it might cause the end of the world.”
“Look, love, Keaton here is right that there’s a danger,” he said. “But I’ve got it under control. It’s all about equilibrium.”
Archer had just about had enough of Rigby’s nonsense. “Explain.”
“It’s like this,” Rigby said. “The Dream fabric is real and all, but it’s much stronger than you let on. Sure, Lucid Walking causes a bit of damage, but so what? The fabric handles it, heals, and moves on. If it survived for centuries with a Nightmare Lord actively punching holes in it, surely it can survive a little Lucid Walking.”
“It’s not that simple,” Archer countered. “With multiple Lucid Walkers going in and out, the number of breaches increases exponentially.”
“Again with the drama, Keaton. The Dream fabric can sustain damage and still hold strong. We just have to maintain the equilibrium, the balance. Not too much Lucid Walking so that we avoid a rift and not so little that we have to shut down Dream Inc. Look, every time I go, I take readings and collect data. When I get back I feed the information into an application I created on my computer. It tells me where the balance is, and I make sure I schedule the Dream Inc. safaris when it’s safe to do so.”
“Wait,” Archer said, “you have an app for that?”
“Sure,” Rigby replied. “I’ll e-mail it to you, if you like.”
Archer crossed his arms. “Yeah, please do,” he said quietly. “But does it show readings in real time? I mean, suppose the readings show that the Dream fabric is not in any danger. How do I know what I’m looking at isn’t old data?”
“Would it work if I said you just ’ave to trust me?” Rigby asked.
Archer glared at him and muttered, “No.”
“Ha! I didn’t think so. Look, the data I enter makes it as real time as each and every visit I take into the Dream. It’ll be listed by date.”
Archer chewed over this revelation. Was it really possible to monitor the condition of the Dream . . . by computer? Even with dozens of new Lucid Walkers doing the tourist thing in the Dream each week? Archer frowned. “Wait,” he said, “how do you keep track of all the Lucid Walking?”
Rigby frowned back. “I don’t follow you.”
“I mean, how do you know how many Lucid Walkers are in and out over time?”
“Carefully controlled, Keaton,” Rigby replied with a dismissive wave of his hand. “At Dream Inc. we have a meticulous schedule. We know just how many Walkers the Dream can tolerate at any given moment. We never let in any more than acceptable.”
Archer blew out an exasperated breath. “That’s not what I mean. What if your clients go to the Dream on their own time?”
“Archer,” Kara said, squinting, “you’re not making sense.”
“Your clients,” Archer repeated. “Once they learn how to Lucid Dream, what’s to keep them from going in any old time they want to? What’s to keep them from teaching their friends how to Lucid Walk? They could overwhelm the equilibrium before your data readings can catch up. They could trigger a rift without any warning.”
Rigby opened his mouth and shut it with a snap. When he spoke, his words had a thick, wet quality to them. “As I said, Keaton: carefully controlled. Successful corporations do not give away their secrets.”
“I’m going to talk to my Dreamtreading Master about this,” Archer said, getting up to leave.
“You can do what you want, Keaton,” Rigby said. “I’m not shutting down Dream Inc.”
“You should have come down to see Licorice, Archer,” Kaylie said, stomping slush with each step she and Archer took as they walked home from Rigby’s. “She’s such a sweetie-fluffer-muffin!”
“She’s a coyote,” Archer muttered. “She could eat you.”
“Licorice would do no such thing!” Kaylie said indignantly. “She’s just a pup.”
“Uh-huh,” Archer replied distantly. He was unhappy about the icy water seeping into his shoes. He was unhappy about a lot of things.
“Archer, are you listening to me?” Kaylie asked.
“Yeah,” he replied. “I’ve heard everything you said.”
“Hearing and listening are two distinct entities,” Kaylie said, switching on genius mode.
Archer said nothing.
“Boy, Rigby must have really made you mad,” Kaylie said.
Archer walked the rest of the way home with his mind churning. Yes, Rigby had made Archer angry. So had Kara. Part of him had secretly hoped he could salvage their friendship, but that seemed out of the question now. He felt like he didn’t know Kara anymore. She was too hard to read, too hard to understand.
And there was something she’d said, something that Archer found intensely curious. Kara had said, “We didn’t even know that physical things could already pass through the Dream fabric, much less that the Nightmare Lord himself could come through.”
Archer had confronted Rigby and Kara about the Nightmare Lord’s intrusion into the Waking World, but he’d never said anything about physical objects coming through. And what had Kara meant when she used the word already, as if she’d been expecting things to come out of the Dream for a long time?
Everyone has secrets, Archer reminded himself. Rigby had his Uncle Scoville, among others. But Archer knew almost nothing about Kara’s secrets. Archer wondered if that would come back to haunt him.
“Take her?” one of the raspy voices asked.
Rigby stood in front of his basement door and stared down into the darkness. “I hadn’t wanted to begin with something so extreme.”
“You said to distract,” whispered another voice.
“Taking her would distract,” came still another.
Rigby was silent for several moments. Archer was getting way too curious, and he wasn’t stupid . . . not in the classical sense. He needed other things to keep him busy.
“Go ahead,” Rigby said, shutting his basement door. “Take her but don’t hurt her.”
“We hears!”
“And we obeys!”