Oh, God. Now Ronan was playing it all back in his head. He was going over everything Bryde had taught him. He was trying to recall the first time he’d seen Bryde. The first time he’d heard Bryde. He was trying to remember how he’d decided the game of finding him was worth playing. The promise of another dreamer had been so tantalizing. The promise of another dreamer who’d actually known what he was doing had been even more tantalizing. He could have generated that in a dream, just like those talons and claws. He’d wanted a teacher. He got a teacher.

No.

Ronan tried to think if Bryde had ever told him anything that Ronan himself didn’t already know, that Lindenmere, as a forest situated on the ley line, able to see other events along the ley line, wouldn’t have known.

Oh, God. Bryde getting his information from the trees. Bryde often knowing what Ronan was thinking before he spoke. Ronan looking at Bryde and thinking he looked familiar, or something, and shying away from what he actually already knew. The rabbit hole kept leading down. He couldn’t find bottom. He was still falling.

The dream was now an Irish shoreline. An ancient hawk flew over the black ocean. Ronan could taste the salt in his mouth. Cold shot through him, a damp cold that made it all the way to his bones. It didn’t feel like a dream. It felt like reality. It felt exactly like reality. Ronan could no longer tell the difference between them.

Bryde said, “You wanted me.”

“I wanted someone real.”

Reality doesn’t mean anything to someone like you. Bryde didn’t have to say it. Ronan already knew it. He knew everything Bryde knew, deep down.

“It’s harder than I thought,” Bryde said. “Being out here. I thought it would be simpler. I thought I knew what I wanted. But it’s so much louder. It’s so, so much louder. I get … confused.”

Ronan’s heart was breaking.

“Your quest,” Ronan said.

“Your quest,” said Bryde.

Ronan closed his eyes. “You’re just a dream.”

Bryde shook his head. “We already know what you think about that, because I told you. What do you feel, Ronan Lynch?”

Betrayed. Alone. Furious. He felt like he had nightwash even though he didn’t. He felt like he couldn’t stand to look at Bryde for one more second. He felt like he couldn’t stand to be in his own head one more second. He felt like he couldn’t tell if he had ever woken up from that worst dream.

The black ocean boiled and then burned. Ronan’s mind boiled and then burned. Everything could burn if you hit it hard enough.

“Nothing,” Ronan said. “I can’t feel anything.”