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
This surprised Kane. Not the flying but the openness with which Dean mentioned their past, as though asking Kane to ask for more. And Kane found he couldn’t. What if it wasn’t what he wanted? What if the fiction in his head was better?
The bridge wasn’t falling; the feeling of collapse was within him. Kane focused on the cold metal beneath him, and not the gathering warmth held in his hand. He grabbed for the next question he could think of.
“How does the whistle work?”
“It’s a beacon. It beckons the threshold—those large doors.”
“And it always leads to that place with all the charms and artifacts?”
Dean nodded. “Poesy’s sanctuary.”
“Are all those charms made from reveries? From people?”
“I’ve never had the courage to ask. I assume so.”
Kane’s heart clenched thinking of all those stolen lives. He veered again. “Your eyes. Are they actually that color?”
Dean laughed. “No, my eyes are brown. Like yours. They turn when I use my second sight, and I guess I use it all the time now. I’ve gotten so used to seeing things from every angle, it’s hard to just be stuck with my own point of view.”
“Ursula’s eyes turn pink when she uses her powers. Elliot’s turn yellow. Adeline’s go all gray.”
Dean shrugged, committed to letting Kane rule this conversation.
“Poesy said she made the Others by turning pain to power. What did she mean?”
Dean considered this. “Poesy is a master manipulator of etherea. Her expertise is crushing ethereal power into new forms, like when she crushes reveries into charms. Like the Dreadmare armor I wear. That was an early attempt, I think.”
“At what?”
“At weaponizing etherea in a way she can control. Etherea needs to be channeled through a form, so she tried creating armor like the Dreadmare. It was once some sort of shape-shifting abyss of terror, but she basically turned it into a pelt. And now she’s working on channeling etherea through people. Through us, I guess.”
“But wouldn’t that create a reverie?”
“With a normal person, yes. But we’re lucid. It means ethereal manifestations—reveries—don’t overtake us like everyone else. That’s why she chose to grant us powers. To see how people who are always between worlds, and never within them, might manifest power. She’s been watching you and the Others for a long time.”
“Can she control us?”