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Back Reverie
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

“It’s a trap. Something to lure you out. We need to get into the castle and find Sophia. Those two can take care of themselves.”

“Ursula maybe, but what about Elliot?”

“Ursula will protect him,” Dean said.

At the head of the arena, a gate was rising to admit a new threat: the lapis-lazuli beetle.

Kane only knew he was moving because he felt Dean trailing behind him. Then, right at the railing, Kane was yanked back and pinned to the stairs.

“Kane. You cannot intervene.”

Kane got a hand free. “We have to help them!”

Dean caught his wrist and smashed it into the steps. “We can’t. You can’t.”

The white eyes of onlookers began to watch them. The clashes from the arena drove Kane halfway up before Dean pinned him again. Then, in the depths of Dean’s stare, jade magic flickered. The skin where they touched prickled as black armor spread over Dean’s skin.

“No!” Kane begged. “Don’t send me away! I want to fight. I have to—”

“Your sister needs you, Kane,” Dean said as the Dreadmare’s helmet closed over his head, and with that Kane was gone.

• Thirty-Seven •

Homecoming

Kane rocketed through the seasick nothing until the blankness ejected him into blinding sunlight. He flailed, reaching for anything to stop himself, and crashed over a low bench. When he sat up, he saw he was in the castle now, high in a tower and overlooking a city of grays, blues, and golds. Far below he could see the arena, just a gash of green in the castle’s creases, like a smear of moss. Through the glass came garbled cheers, and he imagined he could see the Dreadmare joining Elliot and Ursula in battle. Fighting with them.

Without him. Again.

Kane clenched his fists to keep from punching through the glass. He had been forced to flee. Again.

Your sister needs you, Dean had said. Kane’s fists unclenched, and he saw Dean’s reasoning. Intervening would only unspool the reverie’s rage, twisting it around the coming battle and drawing Sophia out. But Dean had ejected Kane from the action—from the plot itself—and now Kane was free to maneuver while the Others held the focus. He could find his sister without being the focal point of her aggression. Maybe, just maybe, that would be enough to wake her up.

“Sophia needs me,” he told himself, tightening his backpack in determination. “I am not an egg.”

Focused now, he made out the distant sound of viola music and grimly put himself to the task of pursuing it. The deeper he descended through the castle, the more physical the reverie’s pressure became, until he could feel this section of Sophia’s world plucking curiously at his strange resort clothes.