Al, I thought again, hope growing since I hadn’t gotten a do-not-disturb notice. Just no response. Algaliarept.

My eyes closed as the unholy chaos of the collective dissolved into the rushing sound of water or wind, and I felt the lofty sensation of having doubled my mind. Relief coursed through me, and I took a slow breath, sensing green trees, old and damp. I’d found him. I think.

In my thoughts, there was a pool of water among the tree roots, only a few inches deep and looking like glass. The air was moist and warm. I could hear water dripping and smell both moss and fog. There was no wind. No grit, no stink of burnt amber. Dancing over the still water were tiny blue butterflies the size of my thumb. It was a forest pool primeval, the light barely making it through the leaves. On the far side of the stone-and-moss-wreathed pool was a black figure hunched and sitting on the largest smooth boulder, his back to me. Al.

At least . . . I thought it was Al. He didn’t look right. He’s dreaming, I thought, but he must have heard me as he turned, scrabbling to hide whatever he was doing on the rock.

“Al?” I said in our shared dream, remembering having done this once before. I wasn’t sure it was him. He was thin—almost malnourished, like a fairy—his skin very dark and his hair a tight curl. He stood, and I realized he had leathery wings draped down over his back like a cloak. His eyes were red-slitted goat eyes, but so wide they looked black. I’d never seen him this thin and spindly, the angular sharpness even in his face, narrowing down to a very small pointy chin. He looked like a creature of the air. Alien.

“Rachel,” he said, his voice the same as I remembered, even if it was a shade embarrassed and deeper than it should be for such a slight frame.

Nervous, I focused on his eyes. “Are you okay?” Is this what demons originally looked like?

Apparently not hearing my dream thought, Al turned around to look sadly at the rock he’d been sitting on. “I broke it,” he said. “They can’t leave until I fix him, and if they stay, they’re going to die. They need the sun . . . too.”

I edged closer, wondering how long this shared dream might last. On the rock was a handful of blue and silver shards as sharp as glass.

“I’ve been trying to put her back together,” Al said, gesturing, “but the pieces don’t match, no matter how turned.”

“Oh.” Okay, this was really weird, but no weirder than the last dream we shared about blue butterflies vanishing into the walls of a maze grown from wheat.

“The edges are torn,” he said, gesturing. “I don’t remember when I broke it.”