The grass was also burning now. The flaming waves had lapped the pebbly shore, which caught fire, and then the ascending cliff face had caught fire, and then the strange flames had wicked over the edge and caught the dirt and then the grass. The fire whispered to itself as it did its work. Its language was secret, but Ronan got the gist. It was starving.

Bryde said, “Right now, Hennessy is trying to dream something to shut down the ley line for good. Can you feel her? We can go stop her, or I can go stop her, or you can try to stop me and let the ley line be shut down and kill all of this. Either way. You have to make a decision. Is this my quest, is it your quest, or is it nothing? For once in your life, stop lying. Stop hiding behind me. Ronan Lynch, what do you want?”

In the dream, sweet Aurora’s voice came through gently. She was telling Ronan he had to bury it.

He took a deep, shuddering breath. The fire was burning everything except for them.

“I want to change the world.”

Chapter 37

When the ley line disappeared, it was a very nice day.

All of New England was experiencing an unseasonably warm afternoon, but it was a good kind of unseasonably warm. Not warm enough to make all the conversations center around anything unpleasant like climate change and the growing price of avocados. But warm enough that residents could shed their coats and gloves and get some of the ol’ steps in, take the kid for a walk, knock the spiders off the badminton set in the garage.

Days like this, they said, remind you what it’s all about.

Three Zeds were dreaming busily on this unseasonably warm afternoon and thus not able to enjoy it. Two of them, Bryde and Ronan Lynch, slept just a few yards away from a car that was very difficult to see. They had not been dreaming long, but already dried oak leaves had flickered from the woods around them and lit upon their clothes. There is a certain wrongness to seeing leaves settled on a body. It is not the same as leaves drifting over a rooftop or a fallen log. It makes one anxious to see it. It is wrong. Opposite.

The third dreamer, Hennessy, dreamt on an oversized beanbag in a small room in a tea shop. Two women watched her closely. One of the women, a woman so old that numbers no longer felt relevant to describe her age, gently brushed her fingers across Hennessy’s forehead as she slept. The other woman stood watchfully at the door, her hands on a dreamt sword with the words from chaos etched on the hilt. She was ready to swing it at once should Hennessy wake with a nightmare instead of a dream to save them all.