I don’t wait to make my escape. I dash toward the open wooden door that brought us to the dungeon, running as fast as I can to the hallway—and run right into an aether-plated chest of armor.

This armor is more than tunic and mail; bright, shining, and silver-blue, it could only be cast by a knight after Merlin enhanced the Table’s blood with magic. Strong arms grip me at the shoulders, lift me up, until I am eye to eye with Sir Lancelot.

“Who are you, girl?”

I do the only thing I can think of. “None of this is real!” I shout in his face. Startled, he opens his mouth to reply, only to be interrupted by thunder shaking the walls around us. He drops me, and I run down the hall searching for a door, any door that will let me out of this dream.

Lancelot is close on my heels, shouting. And Merlin’s aether signature claws at the insides of my nose. I hear his mage flames as he sends his power rushing along the walls of the narrow hallway.

I spot my exit up ahead and throw my shoulder into it, pushing the door outward—and land in the middle of a bright summer day in an empty, sawdust-covered courtyard bordered on all sides by racks of wooden practice swords and, beyond them, towering trees.

I twist back, expecting to see the door disappear as the other one did, but Lancelot and Merlin burst through behind me, weapons in each hand.

“This isn’t real!” I scream. “You’re not real!”

Thunder claps overhead, breaking the sunlight into night. Lightning strikes all around me, and torches bordering the courtyard bloom to life with smokeless fire. Lightning flashes again, blinding me temporarily—all is white, bright spots across my eyes, and sawdust thrown in the air—and I scamper backward, crabwalking and coughing, waiting for my vision to return.

I immediately sense that I have pushed the dream’s boundaries too far. If I keep going, the world will fall apart around me, if the lightning doesn’t find me first.

“Come out, demon!” Lancelot calls to me. He too is coughing in the smoke; somehow he evaded the lightning. He can’t possibly see me. “We know you are of the Shadow Court.”

I dash for a rack of weapons and hide behind them, clasping both hands over my mouth, pushing my root down and down until it fades. Merlin is half demon—does he move like Valec did? If he hears me, will he be at my side in a blink, ready to kill me without mercy?

The wooden weapon rack behind me is wrenched up and away. I dart toward the trees—but a hand grabs my collar and holds me fast, lifting me up and around until I am facing Merlin’s fierce gaze beneath bushy brows. “There you are, little Cysgod.”

“I am not Shadowborn!” I shriek.