After that, the dreamers destroyed an underwater transmission line, a 230 kV line that at once connected generators on opposite sides of a riverbank and also completely disordered the local ley line. As night fell, a school, a swarm, a hurricane of pitch-black dolphins had snaked toward the line. They were difficult to see in the water, since they reflected light in nearly the same way as the river water all around them. They were, after all, made almost entirely of dark ice. They were melting even as they swam toward their dreamt purpose, but not fast enough to ruin their mission. Only enough to chill the river as they dug through the silt and sediment down to the transmission line. Only enough that they could no longer swim at speed as they parted their bottlenoses to reveal shining hungry teeth. Only enough that by the time they had chewed through the work that had taken many months, there was nothing left to see of the dolphins but a few melting hearts at the bottom of the river.

The dreamers traveled hundreds of miles each day to put distance between themselves and their latest crime. Over and over they drove to a destination, planned how best to destroy it, dreamt the tool of destruction, unleashed it, and then lingered long enough to make sure they’d left no trace of their dreaming behind. They disrupted a convoy of trucks carrying transformers. They aerosolized two acres of unused concrete parking lot outside a dying mall. They filled canals and emptied swimming pools. Everywhere they went looked different when they were gone. Or rather, it looked less different. More like it had before humans arrived.

When they dreamt, Ronan dreamt of Ilidorin. He dreamt of the stump, and he dreamt of a slowly uncurling green shoot growing from its interior. It was getting stronger.

Ronan was getting stronger, too.

“What do you feel?” Bryde asked.

They sat on the roofline of an abandoned Victorian, looking out over the battered town around it. It was just at sunset, and there was barely enough light to see shapes by natural light. The dreamers would’ve been visible on their perch if anyone had looked up, but no one in this town had looked up for decades.

“Ronan,” prompted Bryde. “What do you feel?”

Ronan didn’t answer. It was the kind of night that made him want to run and run and run until he couldn’t catch his breath, but that wasn’t the kind of feeling Bryde meant.

“I feel like I can still smell that mill,” Hennessy said. “I will smell like it for the rest of my life.”