His eyebrows rose so high they almost touched his hairline. "Wolves? You're out of your gourd. There are no wolves here." He dropped his voice to a whisper. "But say, have you seen any outhouses? I've really got to piss bad. Thought I found a few places—a few trees to water, if you will—but everywhere people are looking at me, and I can't piss with anyone looking at me." He winced and danced around. "Damn it, I got to go, or I swear I'll explode. I—" He reached down to his crotch, then froze. "It's . . . Oh, stars." He paled, trembled, and reached into his pants.

"Dorvin!" Maev groaned. "That's disgusting, even for you."

"Mammoth Arse, be serious!" He rummaged inside his trousers. "It's gone. My manhood. It's been cut off." Tears filled his eyes.

"You had a manhood?" she asked.

He fell to his knees, trembling, pawing at himself and blubbering. Before Maev would say more, Alina raced toward them from an alleyway. Her arms were crossed over her chest, and she panted, knelt, and trembled.

"Maev, a cloak!" she said. "Please. My clothes just vanished. They can all see me naked." The druid looked up with entreating eyes. "They can all see me."

A chill washed over Maev's belly. Alina was still wearing her flowing, lavender robes. What was the woman talking about?

Maev understood.

"Dreams." She growled and clutched her head. "We're asleep. We're dreaming!"

Before Maev could say more, the loose tooth in her mouth fell out. She reached up to touch her gums, and more teeth fell, crumbling to the touch. No. It wasn't real. It couldn't be real.

"Maev, help me!" Dorvin begged, reaching toward her. "Help me find it. Help me sew it back on."

Alina trembled. "Please, Maev, a cloak."

"Listen to me!" Maev said. "We're just dreaming now—all of us. We're having a nightmare. Maybe we're asleep or maybe . . . maybe something in this city has us dreaming when we're awake." She grabbed the siblings by their collars and yanked them up. "Hurry up. We must find the Vir Requis who live here, then leave this place. Follow me and remember: Whatever terrors you see are not real."

As they kept walking through Bar Luan, Maev forced herself to ignore the nightmares: the growling wolves, her falling teeth, her arms dwindling to rubbery strands, and the visions—more terrible than any other—of her family burning, dying, begging for her. Tanin crawled along the cobblestones, cut off below the ribs, his entrails dragging through the dust. He reached out to her, pleading for death. Her father hung from a tree, his neck stretched, his tongue hanging loose, his eyes staring at her with condemnation, blaming her for his death. Her little sister, fallen Requiem, was still alive here, still only a toddler, racing toward Maev only for arrows to pierce her flesh.

Just dreams, Maev kept telling herself. Just waking nightmares.