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Back Reverie Save as PDF
Chapters (53)
  1. Front Cover
  2. Letter from the Author
  3. Title Page
  4. Copyright
  5. Contents
  6. • One •
  7. • Two •
  8. • Three •
  9. • Four •
  10. • Five •
  11. • Six •
  12. • Seven •
  13. • Eight •
  14. • Nine •
  15. • Ten •
  16. • Eleven •
  17. • Twelve •
  18. • Thirteen •
  19. • Fourteen •
  20. • Fifteen •
  21. • Sixteen •
  22. • Seventeen •
  23. • Eighteen •
  24. • Nineteen •
  25. • Twenty •
  26. • Twenty-One •
  27. • Twenty-Two •
  28. • Twenty-Three •
  29. • Twenty-Four •
  30. • Twenty-Five •
  31. • Twenty-Six •
  32. • Twenty-Seven •
  33. • Twenty-Eight •
  34. • Twenty-Nine •
  35. • Thirty •
  36. • Thirty-One •
  37. • Thirty-Two •
  38. • Thirty-Three •
  39. • Thirty-Four •
  40. • Thirty-Five •
  41. • Thirty-Six •
  42. • Thirty-Seven •
  43. • Thirty-Eight •
  44. • ∞ •
  45. • Thirty-Nine •
  46. • Forty •
  47. Epilogue
  48. Acknowledgments
  49. Excerpt from Be Dazzled
  50. One
  51. Two
  52. About the Author
  53. Back Cover

“Poesy recruited me last winter. My instructions were to watch over the Others as she experimented on their powers and to follow you closely. Your powers are connected to the loom, somehow, and Poesy believed that your abilities would eventually lead you right to it. She told me that looms are like wishes; they appear to those who are desperate enough to need them. In that way, you were her key to this loom, but also her competition. She needed me to watch you. And keep you safe. She gave me my powers and the Dreadmare armor as protection and told me to never interfere in the reveries unless your life was in peril. I kept to the shadows, only watching, until one day you found me out. We fought. You won. You forced me to tell you everything I knew. Somehow, we became friends.”

“And the Others never knew?”

“I think they suspected something. They became very suspicious when we began…”

“Began what?”

Dean looked dizzy. His voice was strained.

“Searching. We used to sit up here and talk about what we’d do if we had the loom’s power. The worlds we would create. The wrongs we would right. But then, when we did find the loom…when you found it, in Maxine’s reverie, you…” Something shook Dean’s voice, a fissure breaking open in him. “You didn’t wait for me. You took it for yourself, and the ensuing blast tore Maxine’s reverie apart. It nearly tore through reality itself, but then Adeline—”

“I know,” Kane cut in. “I know what Adeline did. But this doesn’t make any sense. I would never take that power for myself. I would never ask Adeline to…to…”

“You gave up,” Dean said, suddenly loud. “You made the choice to take that power for yourself, and when it was too much, you decided it was easier to start over than to finish what you began.”

Kane was stunned. This whole time, Dean had never raised his voice. Dean stood, swaying in the wind like the fall couldn’t kill him. Then he hiccupped—a strange, strangled noise. Kane realized he was trying to stop himself from crying.

“You forced Adeline’s hand. You took yourself away. Like it was easy. Like everything was just a game to you that you could reset when you weren’t winning. You ran away, like you always do.”

“I’m sorry,” Kane said, defensive. “But I’m not that person anymore. I’m not the one who left you.”

Dean rubbed at his eyes. “Funny, you have his smile.”

Kane watched cars glide beneath them. Black holes were heavy, right? He wondered how a bridge of thin metal bars could withstand the weight of the void opening within him. Dean was right. He was the same, lost person, always running, always failing.