“We don’t have time for petulance,” Bryde said. He was more agitated than Hennessy had ever seen him. “Imagine you were lost in your Lace, and there was no one to find you, ever. That is where he is. Deep. We might not get him back, even if there’s enough ley power to reverse the nightwash. Do you understand? He won’t have any use for this body the way he is now. He just goes out and out and out, a ball of yarn thrown into space.”

“Still don’t get why you need me, mate.”

“He’ll be drawn to you more than to me.”

“That would be a first in the history of the world.”

Bryde snapped, “If he dies, this is the last time you’ll see him and then all of this was for nothing.”

Hennessy brought her mask.

Hennessy dreamt of the Lace.

She dreamt of the Lace, its checkered edge, its simmering hate, and then—

She was climbing through the dark.

The Lace was gone. It was gone so thoroughly it was difficult to remember it had ever been there.

Instead there was the dark, and there was a full moon right above her, bigger than any moon she’d ever seen before. She couldn’t see its face but it seemed upset.

She was climbing.

It was too dark to see what she was climbing over, but she could feel rocks and stones sliding beneath her feet.

She was not alone.

She was aware of a companion making their way beside her, although she could not see them. She could hear their process, though, the scrabble and skitter of feet on the rocks. Her companion seemed lighter than her, different than her, although the sound might have been distorted by the hidden landscape. It seemed more like a body hopping and flapping, talons or claws finding purchase before lifting off. But it could not be a bird, she thought, because a bird would fly. Unless it was just suffering alongside her to be companionable, she thought. To appear more like her.

She didn’t know where they were going, apart from up, where it was a little lighter. She could see it, a suggestion of gray. Not dawn, but the promise of dawn, the best that dawn could do in the current situation.

Up. Up. Up they went and her legs were heavy, but it felt crucial to get out of the dark. It was getting lighter up ahead, she thought, light enough that she thought the sky might even have some pink to it. Light enough she thought she might see an edge to the bare rock they climbed.

The edge was just shattered enough to remind her of—

“I know this is not my dream,” Hennessy said. “Because it doesn’t have—”