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
He could feel it all, from the farthest reaches of the reveries all the way inward: the clutching vacuum of deep space, the tang of the ozone atmosphere, the shimmering streets of Everest. He felt the shattered gems ground into the garden by Ursula’s heel, and the leathery musk of the Dreadmare’s hide as it wound over her protectively. He felt each glittering mote suspended over the awestruck crowd. He felt the stage and its stickiness. And finally he felt Adeline’s slowing heart as it pushed her blood from her punctured body.
He felt every interlocking fiber of Sophia’s world—and then he felt Sophia herself as she turned to face him.
She was terrified. Her memories boiled through Kane in complete color, with complete sensation. Her triumphs and her abuses, her guilt and grief. Her love. Her loss. The scorching exposure caused her to scream, and Kane screamed with her, for they had reached a point of synchronicity as their minds intertwined in the teacup’s bowl. Together, they felt Sophia’s soul open, peeling back so that the teacup might implode her dreams with impartial authority, crushing her down into something cute and quiet that Kane could command.
Sophia felt this, and yet she looked at Kane with relief. With love so simple and inexhaustible that it stalled even the teacup’s onslaught.
“Kane…” she mouthed. “You came home.”
This was not right.
This was not right.
As though sensing Kane’s reluctance, the teacup’s power turned upon his own mind, breaking through him with a vengeful annihilation.
Kane let the teacup go. He heard it shatter, and then he heard no more.
• Thirty-Eight •
Sweet Dreams
Kane couldn’t move. Or he could, but there was no point. The teacup’s shards were scattered before him, cast across the carpet like petals. Kane looked past them, at where Adeline lay on the frozen stage. Her eyes were dark, her chest barely rising. Closer, Kane saw Sophia’s ankle. She had collapsed on the stairs.
The reverie still stood.
He had failed.
“Harder than it looks, isn’t it?”