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A girl comes back from the dead, salt water sluicing from her clothes.
She slogs out of the ocean and sea monsters watch her go. She staggers up the beach and past the knot of watchers, ignoring friends and strangers alike. They follow her, heartbroken but relieved she has finally seen sense.
That girl is not me.
I refused to turn my back on those who needed me. I would not abandon my city and my people to escape to safety and comfort. I promised myself I would fight until my last breath to save the ones no one else would.
And so, in the dark of the night, a girl creeps from the midst of the sleeping camp and races back to the shoreline. She enters the water once more, unbothered by monsters and unrestrained by friends or the needs of the few survivors on this far shore, now a safe distance inland and untroubled by her fate.
She swims with purpose and skill, cutting a clean line across the inlet to the malevolent shell of the barrier. And then she dives, deep into the dark and the cold.
She crosses that barrier like stepping through a whisper, striding with confidence into a wasteland of death.
That girl is still not me.
Because the moment I made my deal with Cadence, the world slipped away.
***
I AM ELEVEN AND STRONG. Strong enough my parents are willing to take me along on their mission. Few dreamwalker children are allowed out so young, much less our rare and precious dreamweavers.
But my skills are exceptional, and my family is both influential and legendarily strong.
The journey starts out exciting—and gets boring fast. There is a lot of sitting and way too many chores and not nearly enough fighting for my taste. Dad wants to teach me about the land every time he lets me off the back of his quad, but after a while, it’s just a blur of stinky old plants and dusty ridges that all look the same.
Mom wants me to train, but I’m too distracted and worn out by the end of each day. I can tell she is too by the way she lets it go more days than not. That would never have happened at home. Even in the rain, she used to take me out into the forest to build my skills.
And that was before and after regular sparring sessions with my squad. Ash and I even get to train with the older kids sometimes. We’re that good—that close to being ready to go out on our own. But when the older squads get sent out on training missions, we have always had to stay behind. Until now.
I can’t wait to take down my first monster on my own—and tell him all about it.
But I don’t get to fight for days, not until we’re out of the mountains and picking our way across the crumbling, fog-shrouded flats toward the target. And even when we run across monsters, mom and dad won’t let me take one alone. They expect me to stay back and observe while they clear our way together.
Just watching is a lesson in grace and power. Dad is a master with all kinds of bladed weapons—though he’s a dreamspeaker at heart—and mom’s shimmering threadwork is brilliant and a little intimidating at the same time. But even these lowland monsters aren’t much of a challenge, and it always ends all too soon. Only once do I get to throw a blade and, worse luck, it almost hits mom. My own threads can barely reach the monsters, they make me stay so far back.
Dad consoles me by saying these monsters are weak and starved anyway. He says they’ll definitely need my help once we reach the target, but I know he’s really just teasing. They probably wouldn’t actually have brought me along if it were that dangerous.
And, as everyone loves to keep reminding me, dreamwalkers aren’t trained to fight monsters, we’re just taught how to defend ourselves so we can get on with our real work. The world won’t fix itself—or maybe it will.
That’s what all our measurements and samples and missions are about. We’re ecologists. Scientists with a little extra magic to spend trying to bring the world back to balance, or magicians with the benefit of the scientific method trying to perform the greatest working of all time, take your pick.
I do wish mom and dad would at least give me a chance to get some proper combat practice in, though. I mean, I’ll definitely need to be able to fight a monster on my own one day, so why not let me start now?
The fog is thicker than ever when we finally reach the ocean, but even the infested water can’t dampen the way I fall in love with it. I’ve only visited the ocean in the dreamscape, when Ash and I play there. But it’s not the same.
The sea monsters scatter so fast we don’t even have to fight, and for once, I don’t mind. I’m a little in awe of the barrier around the city, too. Mom keeps her arm around me as we approach and cross, sheltering me from its greasy chill.
It’s not an easy crossing—not for any of us. The barrier does something to us, making us sick and weakening our magic at the same time.
Even aside from that, I didn’t expect to hate the city this much. It feels heavy and wrong. The fog-filled air is so thick and sour I walk around with my mouth screwed up, trying not to spit.
The few people we encounter are either cringing with fear or hostile to the point I think dad will have to draw his blades. If it comes to that, I’ll help keep mom safe with the one he lent me. We’re not allowed to use our threads against humans.
There are a few scattered fights against the monsters here and there. Mom even lets me join in a few times, but we defeat them pretty quick. It’s weird, though, because even though these monsters seem weak and we win every battle super fast, mom and dad grow more and more tense. They bicker with each other and snap at me as we move through the crumbling streets, and its nowhere near as fun as I’d thought it would be.
It’s probably the fog and the damp at fault. We all develop a cough. The city is more than half-flooded. We have to improvise bridges from the crumbling bits of buildings, or find floating bits of rubble to make rafts, and even swim while fending off monsters in some spots.
But it’s not until a bout of coughing wakes me to their whispered argument that I find out what mom and dad are really worried about. There is more to this mission than I had realized. It’s not just about collecting data and maybe rescuing a few survivors—if they’d even follow us out.
It’s way bigger than that: the Council of Nine sent us to take down the barrier.
Only, it’s not that easy. They figured it had something to do with the monsters being different here, a little more dangerous, maybe, but the monsters they’ve fought so far seem too weak. And fighting them doesn’t seem to have any impact on the barrier so far.
Mom wants to stay and investigate a rumour about a hidden settlement somewhere among the crumbling towers. Dad agrees it’s worth checking out—but wants to send her back home with me and go on alone. The air is poisoned. I’m too young to withstand it much longer. They shouldn’t risk my health. They argue, mom wanting us to stay together, more afraid of us splitting up than I’ve ever heard her, dad reluctant to give up on the mission.
I muffle my coughs and strain my ears for every word, miserable at the thought of being the reason our mission fails. Miserable at being sent home before doing anything.
I’ll barely even have anything to brag to Ash about when I get home.
Mom and dad fall silent, finally asleep, but I lie awake scheming. They underestimate me. Sure, I might have a bit of a cough, but it’s not like I’m helpless. And I’m not scared.
I pull on my jacket and boots and sneak out of bed, careful not to splash as I wade into the foggy gloom. I’ll find that hidden settlement and be the reason our mission succeeds.
It almost works. I’m good at sneaking up and listening without people noticing. I find that one special tower in the midst of the crumbling forest of towers. Only, the closer I get, the sicker I become.
I stagger across the rubble until the coughing sends me to my knees—and brings a coarse-voiced cluster of white uniforms to investigate.
Their faces are covered by smooth masks and bulging goggles, their hands gloved. At first, I’m relieved to be found by people and not monsters. Then they start to drag me toward the tower.
My energy gutters, eyelids fluttering with the effort to stay conscious. I’ve screwed up—bad. Mom and dad won’t know what happened to me. I could end up in trouble for getting captured, instead of getting credit for saving the mission—But then I hear them shouting in the distance.
The uniformed strangers put me down and turn to watch my parents approach.
I’m exhausted and ill, but the sight still makes me smile. They are fierce and strong and beautiful, and when they’re with me, everything is good.
Only, their steps slow well before they reach me, feet dragging, legs straining as if running through syrup. Their faces redden, the silver mist of a dreamwalker’s magic thin and patchy over their skin. Dad drops into an offensive stance. I can’t catch my breath enough to tell him it’s fine—the strangers aren’t hurting me. Mom places one hand on his back, but it doesn’t look like she’s trying to calm him as much as brace herself.
Threads coalesce around her fingers—and slip through her grasp.
I try to get up and go to them instead, but start coughing harder, lungs seizing, throat burning. Tears roll down my cheeks with the force of it. What happens next comes in the snapshots between blinks, fuzzy-edged and smeary.
The uniformed strangers leave me where I am and approach my parents. Only, something goes wrong. They start fighting. Whatever is affecting me seems to be hurting mom and dad too. They’re too slow, too weak. Their connection to the dreamscape is the slightest sheen on their skin instead of the glittering cloud it should be, and they can barely hold on to their weapons.
I can’t see what the strangers hold, but it knocks dad down first. And then mom is screaming. I would too, if I could just catch my breath.
Dad’s just lying there on the ground, not moving. The strangers seem to be arguing, but I can’t hear between the coughing and the screaming and the rushing and—then it’s later. I’m being carried through a strange building.
Then it’s later still, and the walls and ceiling have gone from dusty and grey to shiny and gold. Mom is there, but she’s hurt. The uniformed strangers are there, too, and a really fancy dressed up lady with eyes the same shade of gold as the walls.
I can’t hear her over the roaring, but she seems angry. My attention snags on a gold-eyed, black-haired boy staring at me from around the edge of a curtain.
This isn’t right. We have to break the barrier. We’re here to save the city
They should be welcoming us, helping us. Why are they angry? Why did they hurt mom? And—and dad. Where’s dad?
Mom lies on the floor, not moving. Her power swirls, a dry, brittle-looking silver.
Then it drifts away.
***
I SURFACE FROM THE memory, reeling. It wasn’t the Mara’s or even the mayor’s fault my parents died, at least not entirely.
It was mine—Cadence’s, I correct immediately.
We’re the same, idiot, she thinks, chewing one ragged nail. You’re as much to blame for their deaths as I am.
How could she keep this from me? Had she known the truth all along?
She shrugs. I needed you to want to come back. I couldn’t finish our mission without you.
Our mission—I look around, disoriented at the way the world is visible in every direction all at once. The dimensions are all wrong. Flat yet somehow tilted and—when I focus—it’s like I can see through things that definitely should be solid. The colours are wrong too—kind of faded and off-balance.
Her lips curl. You’ll get used to it. I did.
Where are they? Did no one come back with us? For that matter, where are we?
There’s been a change of plans.
Now I’m panicking—I think. It’s harder to tell without all the usual signals. The itchy prickle of cold sweat, the dry mouth, the speeding pulse . . .
She sighs. Bodies do have their inconveniences. I’d almost forgotten how gross dirt feels. You suck at basic hygiene, by the way.
Did Ange make it? And the others—Did we save them? What happened?
She walks around a corner, and I realize what’s been bothering me ever since I surfaced from her memories.
We’re not surrounded by grit and grey concrete. Instead, we move through a landscape almost identical to the one I just left behind: all gilt and shimmer, polished mirrors reflecting golden light and opulent furnishings. We’re in Maryam’s domain.
What did you do?
She laughs, a low and bitter rasp. Just completing the mission.
If I had skin, I would have shivered at that laugh.
Our mission was to get back to Refuge and save as many as possible—first the refugees, and then everyone else we could reach, taking them across the barrier in any way we could manage.
There are only two reasons I can think of for her to be on this floor, and that’s because she’s saved everyone else while I was unconscious and come back to rescue Maryam as well—or there’s no one else to left to save, and she’s here to check one last room for survivors. Or, I suppose, to take revenge.
Wrong mission, Cadence thinks in an eerie singsong.
Then she swans into the glittering throne room of an audience chamber and takes the hand of the exquisite mayor of Refuge, who guides her into a chair at her side.