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
It was a clear and bright night in the Cobalt Complex. Moonlight drenched everything, icy and pure, so that the gutted buildings were carved from luminous ivory and encrusted in silver. The fog of Kane’s breath wreathed his neck as he pedaled over bleached concrete. Frogs and loon-song told him he was nearing the river. It was one o’clock in the morning.
Kane skidded to a stop. A second later, so did Ursula.
“I can’t believe we’re here,” she huffed. “I can’t believe you tricked me into doing this.”
“I didn’t trick you. I just told you I was doing it one way or the other, and you’re a good enough friend to recognize a request without making me beg.”
“Yes, Kane, that’s what we humans call a trick.”
Kane gave her a wry smile. It had actually been Ursula who called Kane after their meeting, which had left them both restless. And as soon as Kane knew Ursula also felt the need to do something, to take actual action, his mind was made up. Ursula’s mind, he sensed, was made up, too, but she’d complained the whole way here. Probably to balance out the guilt she felt about sneaking behind Elliot and Adeline’s backs. That, and her usual nervousness. This was not a great idea, and they both knew it.
They weren’t being stupid, though. Kane had left a note for Sophia with instructions to call Adeline and Elliot if he wasn’t back by sunrise. Then he’d packed a bag with his red journal, The Witches, some chalk, and an old aluminum baseball bat he found in the garage. Just in case. Then he and Ursula met near the bridge, dressed in all black, the reflectors on their bikes taped over as they careened toward the complex’s eastern edge.
Biking through it, Kane thought about how the complex was, in some ways, its own reverie. An entire city imagined into being, then abandoned to the slow melt of neglect, then forgotten altogether as the world folded over it. Connecticut was full of these lost worlds, and the more Kane thought to look for them, the more certain he was that they slumbered everywhere. Just across this river, or beyond that hill, or behind that curtain. In many ways, the Cobalt Complex was the perfect place to bait nightmares into the light.
They reached the mill, Kane’s chosen spot.
“You sure he’s gonna show?”
“I’m sure,” Kane said.