It can’t be. Ensi is still nervous, licking his lips, his eyes darting from side to side. He furrows his brow, and the blade that he conjured earlier is back. It’s his weapon of choice, like Mia with her scalpel and Malka with her sword. The steel gleams.

Ensi comes closer, until he is scant millimeters from me. He brings up the knife and holds it against my throat. He nicks it, and I wince at the pain. Blood trickles down my neck.

I look to Nazarin, but he can’t help me. What does it mean to be unconscious in an unreal world?

Think, think, think. I try to remember all I learned while in Mia’s Verve world, and when I experienced Ensi’s earlier Test.

If I kill him in here, maybe I can defeat him. If I can kill him.

My first experience in Mia’s dream, I managed to make the crime scene go away, even if I couldn’t do anything else. And although the Test scared me, I passed.

I can lucid dream, too.

I focus on building my own barrier. I put all my terror into it. The barrier grows over Ensi’s, pushing the knife back from my throat. Ensi’s face twists into a snarl. What will unnerve him most? What will give me the upper hand?

I focus. I have the barest bones of a plan, but it’s my best chance. My only chance. The air around Ensi ripples, like I’ve thrown a rock in a still pond.

“I know who you are,” I say. “I know your dreams and desires. I know what you’ve done.”

I imagine Ensi wearing the face he was born with. I imagine Ensi as a young child. I imagine him as the man who has just joined the Ratel, hungry for revenge and power. The three acts of his life: child, Brother, King.

The true Ensi drops the knife. It disappears before it hits the ground. He feels the dream warping, wrenching away from his control.

The air vibrates with energy, and green, crackling lightning flashes overhead. A bolt comes down and hits me, and I scream as it sears my skin. Where it struck my shoulder, fractal burns appear, snaking down my arm like tree branches. The energy travels through me.

Three more bolts of lightning hit the floor of the chapel, creating rents in the fabric of the dream. The sulfur smell of the swamp returns, mingling with the ozone scent of lightning and thunder. The holes in the dream widen.

Child. Brother. King.

I bring forth the three versions of Ensi from the dreams. Ensi, a small boy of eight, his arms spindly. Ensi as the Brother, about to leave the Hearth. Ensi as he looks now, just after he killed a man and left the persona of Veli Carrera behind. None of the three do anything. They stand, waiting for my instruction.