Chapters (53)
- Front Cover
- Letter from the Author
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Contents
- • One •
- • Two •
- • Three •
- • Four •
- • Five •
- • Six •
- • Seven •
- • Eight •
- • Nine •
- • Ten •
- • Eleven •
- • Twelve •
- • Thirteen •
- • Fourteen •
- • Fifteen •
- • Sixteen •
- • Seventeen •
- • Eighteen •
- • Nineteen •
- • Twenty •
- • Twenty-One •
- • Twenty-Two •
- • Twenty-Three •
- • Twenty-Four •
- • Twenty-Five •
- • Twenty-Six •
- • Twenty-Seven •
- • Twenty-Eight •
- • Twenty-Nine •
- • Thirty •
- • Thirty-One •
- • Thirty-Two •
- • Thirty-Three •
- • Thirty-Four •
- • Thirty-Five •
- • Thirty-Six •
- • Thirty-Seven •
- • Thirty-Eight •
- • ∞ •
- • Thirty-Nine •
- • Forty •
- Epilogue
- Acknowledgments
- Excerpt from Be Dazzled
- One
- Two
- About the Author
- Back Cover
There were things Kane did not share. He did not tell the Others about Dean, who he could not fit into anything so far. He did not tell them the reason Poesy had come to East Amity: the loom. And he did not feel bad about it. Poesy had been miraculous for Kane, an advocate and a mentor when everyone else who loved him had treated him as a liability or a prop. Poesy had given Kane knowledge, insight, and tools to understand the reveries. She had kept her promise, and she had saved them all, using just a teacup and a well-manicured nail.
Kane knew power when he saw it, and Poesy was power. He also recognized Poesy’s violence, but wasn’t her violence used to dismantle something far more dangerous and malicious than herself? Helena’s world had tried to kill them, and if Poesy had not retaliated with force, Helena’s world would have succeeded. Kane didn’t think he could trust the Others to understand this cost of survival. He wasn’t even sure he understood it himself. What he did understand was that he had called upon Poesy for help, and she didn’t deserve betrayal for showing up and saving them on her own terms.
Whatever wrong she had committed, it was on Kane to right it. But had she committed a wrong?
“I have some questions,” Elliot said at the end of Kane’s story.
“Same,” Adeline said. The way she looked at Kane made him wonder if she could trace the outline of all the memories he had omitted. He took care not to look her in the eye.
“Same,” Ursula said through a mouthful of scone. “Like, was she really tall? I saw a drag queen once who was like, eight feet tall. It was the hair.”
“Nine feet at least,” Elliot said. “What does she want, though? She’s got to have a goal for showing up. Is she after the reveries? She turned it into a charm. She clearly had a few on her bracelet, already. Is she some kind of collector?”
Kane had thought about this. She had said she would fix what happened with Helena, implying she had a plan to undo all the twists the Others had caused. This spurred Kane’s own question.
“Why do you guys give the reveries back?” Kane asked. “If they’re so dangerous, wouldn’t it just be easier to keep them? Or erase them completely?”