The sky was a patchwork of dawn, night, and day, shared between two suns, a moon, and a looming planet that looked like Earth. Mountains swelled on the horizon, shifting from craggy cliffs to hills ribboned in waterfalls to dunes of silky ochre. The stoic buildings of futuristic dystopia had distorted into a buffet of architectures: contemporary castles, medieval office buildings, and rococo skyscrapers plated in glass, iron, and filigree. They leaned over the plaza, over Kane, capturing his spellbound reflection a thousandfold in their crystal facades.

And the plaza… It was a scene Kane knew; a garden choked with roses and poplar trees, with a gazebo at the center. The fallen soldiers at its edge were recovering slowly, finding their uniforms now came with bow ties and coattails. The aircraft sputtered and wheezed as they attempted to regain flight that had been possible in one reverie, but not another.

Kane could feel the chaos of it all, as though he himself were a single strand coiled tight within this polychromatic knot. He could not even begin to understand how to unravel this.

“Sophia—”

Kane turned to her just in time to see Sophia pick something off the ground. Something black and shiny. She raised the whistle to her lips, her eyes dim with wonder.

“NO!”

Kane tackled her. The whistle bounced into the crater and Adeline lunged for it, but no sooner had the silent tweet emitted from the charm when, with slapping abruptness, the reverie halted, and the black doors appeared.

Nothing happened. Kane held Sophia and let himself believe Dean had been successful.

Then the doors burst open, catapulting a spiky shadow into the reverie. The Dreadmare, a mutilated mess of twisting legs, slid to a stop at Kane’s feet. It was coated in a dark substance.

Blood.

No.

Poesy was in the doorway, her whole body furious with magic as she strode into the reverie. She wore a velvet leotard as black as her doors, thigh-high platform boots, and a cropped jacket thick in opalescent fringe. It flashed like armor as she lowered her hand. From her posture, it was clear she had literally just slapped the Dreadmare into this dimension.

Poesy swept a gloved hand over her bald head, as though looking for her hair.

“That wig was expensive,” she seethed. Then she noticed the rest of the scene. “Oh my, another mess, I see.” She beckoned with her hand, and the whistle zipped to her bracelet.

Alarms erupted in Kane’s mind. He had to do something. He had to distract her.