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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

The stars returned. Whatever. No time to wonder. Kane pushed through the plants. The forest floor was carpeted in glowing moss, and Kane quickly identified a trail of blood. His heart burned. He forced himself to take calm breaths as he pushed apart fanning leaves that hid a clearing at the forest’s edge. Within it lay Dean, unmoving.

Dean.

Sensing him, Dean’s hand tightened around something—the Dreadmare charm clutched in his bruised knuckles—but then Kane had him in a hug.

“It’s you,” Dean whispered, as though this was the last thing he expected.

“Can you move?” The question was warm against Dean’s neck.

As an answer, Dean’s arms tightened.

“What hurts?”

“All of it,” Dean whispered.

He was in and out of consciousness after that. Kane pulled him up as gently as he could, talking to him to keep him focused.

“We’re in some sort of spaceship,” Kane said as he dragged him through the forest. The doors had vanished. “How did you get here?”

“Teleported.”

“Can you see where the Sophia is?”

“No.”

“What about the Others?”

“No.”

Kane already knew the answer, but he asked anyways. “Are you able to teleport?”

“Not from space.” Then, as explanation, Dean added, “Space is so big. Too big. And I can’t account for the velocity. It could kill us.”

Kane began to wonder about the sheer size of these combined reveries, but again stopped himself. No time to wonder. They stumbled through a copse of palm trees and entered what Kane realized was the ship’s pool deck. And it was quite the pool deck. Above the sheet of cerulean water, waterfalls poured into floating, oblong tubs with clear bottoms, filling the dark deck with aquamarine light from above and below.

People lay strewn across plush pool chairs, sleeping or passed out. Kane and Dean snuck into a large structure Kane hoped was a locker room. It wasn’t. It was some sort of cabana equipped with a curtained bed, and the entire back room was a tiled shower. Perfect. Kane could work with this. He let Dean slide onto the floor, locked the doors, and hid away his backpack by a cracked window. Just in case.

“Hey, hey, wake up. We’re safe. We need to get the blood off you, though.” Kane said, nudging Dean. “Can I get you out of these clothes?”

Dean nodded sleepily but was no help whatsoever. The Dreadmare armor had done a good job protecting Dean, but Kane’s fingers still grew sticky with blood trying to peel the boy’s shirt off. The source was Dean’s chest. Even through the Dreadmare armor, Poesy’s nails had left deep gouges in Dean’s flesh.

Looking for soap, Kane located a lit panel showing teardrops in different colors. There was blue, there was red, and between was pink. Kane went with pink.