“But, he said, do you have someone who is a poet and a swordsman and a smith and a wizard all at once?

“They had to admit they did not, and so they had to let him in. And he took over the castle on the hill and changed the world.”

Bryde turned back to them.

“We are that young man. All of us together. This is about your mirrors and her art and his feelings and my weapons. This is about being a poet and a smith and a wizard so they will have to let us in. People who are one thing have never known what to do with people who are more than one thing. They seize existing towers and build them higher. They make the rules. They think the people who are many things are outliers. The people who are many things believe them. So they keep begging for entry to the great house. And the lords and the ladies keep building up the towers to keep you out. You and every other thing they cannot understand.”

Rhiannon touched the corner of her eye in that fast way people do to strike away a tear. Ronan was trying to remember exactly what Bryde had said when he listed their skills. Rhiannon’s mirrors, Hennessy’s art, Ronan’s … feelings? But that was not what Ronan would have said he was good at dreaming at all.

“And you, Rhiannon, have been keeping yourself small,” Bryde said. “You have done well in this world because you have made yourself one thing, stayed in this place where you are one thing. And even if you never dreamed anything more than your mirrors, you would make a difference, because neither of these two dreamers can see themselves clearly without them. But you could do more. You’ve been dreaming with one hand tied behind your back. Ronan, tell her what it is like when there’s actual power running through the ley line.”

Ronan was surprised to be called on, but he was even more surprised to find he wanted to make her believe in what Bryde was saying. He wanted to be one of her mirrors, but showing her the dreaming instead of her face. He struggled. “It’s—I don’t know. It’s French fries from the freezer section, and French fries from the county fair. They’re called the same thing but they aren’t. Because one of them you want to eat and the other is just a thing with the picture of the thing you want to eat on the front.”

Hennessy laughed merrily.

“Would you like to contribute, Hennessy?” Bryde asked.

Hennessy stopped laughing. “You want me to convince her to leave her family?”

Bryde and Rhiannon both looked at Hennessy.

Bryde said, “Her family is dead.”

They all looked at Rhiannon.