And, in a way, she did. Her fist rocketed forward just as the wave of fire converged upon the three and—absurdly—the deluge split apart. It flowed around them, the heat tremendous, unbearable, all-encompassing, and like nothing Kane had ever felt, but they were alive. They were preserved upon an island of black tiles as a shimmering shield of magenta light cupped over them. Ursula stood at the front, fist thrust forward and her whole body trembling as she pitted herself against the crustacean’s breath.

And still her hair would not move.

“Do it, Kane!” Adeline forced Kane to stand up. Her hair whipped wildly as the inferno began to bleed through Ursula’s force field. “Unravel it!”

Kane didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know what she meant. But such an earnest belief shined in her eyes—belief in him. And what could he do in the face of such raw, unwavering faith? He dove into himself, searching for an answer, but all he could feel was his own stuttering heart, his own fear.

His own limits.

The fire let up, and Ursula slumped to her knees. All around them the floor was a desert of molten glass. There was nowhere left to run as the crustacean began to recharge its breath.

“This can’t be real,” Kane whispered.

Adeline eyes bore into his. “It’s real, Kane, but only until you say so.”

Sparks tumbled from the crustacean’s jaw as it slid through the shimmering heat. It was right over them. Kane squeezed his eyes shut, hugging Adeline.

He had denied this world—its power and its reality—but there was no denying what would happen if he failed. He would die. They all would. This reverie was not a dream. This reverie was not a story. There were no more twists, and there were no more chances. Just the reverie’s desire to see these interlopers annihilated. And, fueling this desire was a powerful rage, as though the reverie knew what Adeline knew: that Kane had come to unravel it. Perhaps it was Kane’s fear-addled imagination, or maybe it was a sense he hadn’t known he possessed, but in that moment he felt as though he could commune with the reverie’s core. And what beat in that core was more than desire or rage; it was fear.

The fear of being taken advantage of.

And the fear of being invaded, of being taken apart from the inside out. With new eyes Kane saw the screaming hearth and the parasite that had wound up from its molten guts. With an open mind, he understood the reverie’s pattern. What lay beneath the plot. The metaphor or the thesis or the marrow that unpinned everything. Even though he did not know the mind that created this world, he at least knew the heart.

And he thought he might know what to do next.

“Remember, Kane,” Adeline whispered into his ear.