“You want to torture me,” Kai said. The spider may have vanished, but the silk remained. She was balled in the center of a web, bound to herself by strands that stretched but would not break.

“Torture you.” Ms. Kevarian smiled. The effect was not reassuring. “This is your nightmare. I can do nothing here that does not come from your own mind.”

“My mind scares me.”

“You’re a wise woman,” she said, and set the spider head down beside her. She sat, though there was no chair in the dream, and leaned forward, elbows on legs, so her face was level with Kai’s. “You have no Craft to speak of.”

“Not everyone who matters does.”

“But most people who use the nightmare telegraph do. Craftswomen are warded against the nightmare’s dangers in ways ordinary people aren’t.”

Kai pushed against the spider silk again. It did not give. “If you don’t want to hurt me, why not set me free?”

“This is your fear,” Ms. Kevarian said, and raised a cup of tea that hadn’t been in her hand before. “Everything here comes from you. I’m just an echo of a dream.” She stood, and approached Kai. Her body passed through the spiderweb strands as if she were a ghost. “Would you like some tea?”

“How can an echo of a dream offer me tea?”

“I can manipulate unimportant aspects of your dreamspace, so long as you don’t fight back. The color of the moon, say.” She snapped her fingers three times, and the moon changed from green, to silver, to purple, and back to green again. “Or the presence or absence of a cup of tea.” She took another sip. “But those bonds are not a detail. They’re the substance of this dream. I can’t break them. Only you can.” She held the mug to Kai’s mouth. “Would you like some? I’m not physically here; you don’t risk catching my germs.”

“No thanks.”

“Suit yourself.” Ms. Kevarian walked away. “So. You want to find your friend Mara. And you were desperate enough to seek her through nightmares, even though you have no power here. What made you so desperate?”

“You were waiting for me.”

“Hardly. I also seek your friend, as I said. Our paths crossed.”

“I don’t have to tell you anything.”

“I have been unable to contact Ms. Ceyla. You are also, apparently, disturbed by her absence. If you have anything to share, I hope you will tell me. Perhaps I can help.”

“This is a trap.”

“Life is a trap,” she said. “As you have learned this evening.”

“I didn’t do this to myself.”

“Who did, then?”

“I can think of a likely candidate.”