The studio was as good as reality. It smelled wonderful and productive, earthy and chemical. Multiple easels displayed canvases in all sizes. Paint glistened on palettes. Brushes stood on handles like bristled bouquets. Drop cloths covered the old wood floor. Bryde sat in a chair next to a wall of windows, his legs crossed casually, arm across the back of the chair. Jordan would have said he’d make a good portrait subject. The view beyond him was a city of historical buildings and close-set trees and invading highways. A distant storm mounted, the clouds tattered and checkered.

The dream was trying hard, in the way that dreams do, to imply that Hennessy had been to this studio before, although she knew she hadn’t.

It’s Jordan’s studio, the dream said. If you don’t recognize it, it’s only because it’s been too long since you’ve seen her. Why don’t you keep up with her like you used to?

Hennessy disagreed. “She doesn’t keep up with me.”

“There you are. Found your voice,” Bryde said. “You are not two things. You are not Hennessy, asleep, and Hennessy, awake. You are more than the sum of your feelings, your id. You are also the things you have learned to do about them. Dreaming, waking. They’re the same thing for you; when will you believe it? Put something on that canvas. The ley line is listening. Ask it for what you want.”

Hennessy stood before a canvas as tall as herself. In her hand was a brush, which was also a knife. She could picture the feeling of the blade piercing the canvas, the way the weave would shrink back from the wound. How splendidly and dramatically it would ruin the perfect flat expanse of the canvas.

“Let’s have Hennessy the artist,” Bryde said sharply. “The Hennessy who creates instead of destroys. What would she do if she could do anything?”

“Jordan’s the one you’re talking about,” Hennessy said. “She’s the artist; I’m the forger.”

“There are not two of you.”

“You need glasses, mate,” Hennessy said.

“You were an artist before you made Jordan.”

But Hennessy couldn’t remember that far back. Not in a meaningful way.

“Fine,” Bryde said, annoyed. “Show me what she would do right now. I assume she listens better.”

How would Jordan use this dreamspace? What if Hennessy were the dream and Jordan were the one with all this incredible power instead?

Art, Jordan had told Hennessy once, is bigger than reality.

The knife disappeared; Hennessy was already painting. Beneath the brush’s soft bristles was a rich stripe of gorgeous purple, a purple no human had ever seen before.

Jordan would love it. Tyrian purple looked dowdy beside this color.

Why hadn’t Jordan tried harder to come with Hennessy on this latest adventure?

You know why, the dream snarled.