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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

Not a hint of haughtiness touched Poesy’s voice now.

“You be brave, Mr. Montgomery. You face the reveries, you recover the loom, and you deliver it to me safely. Together, we will save reality from this plague of fantasy and ruin.”

Kane thought again of the barbarians with their frost-white eyes. The split lips of the altar, vomiting forth unfathomable beasts.

“What happens if I don’t want to?”

Poesy eyed him with unrestrained pity. “Saving the world isn’t usually a matter of want, Mr. Montgomery. How cowardly you must be to balance the destruction of reality upon the scales of your own heart. And how selfish.”

Kane sniffed. The words stung. They stung because they were true; deep beneath the swells of his fear he knew better. He nodded.

Poesy swallowed the last drops of tea, then unfastened a charm from her bracelet and tossed it to Kane.

“In my travels I have accumulated many artifacts that not only bend reality but break it in useful ways. The journal is one. This is another. Use it only in emergencies.”

The charm was a tube of black metal, heavier than Kane expected and ice cold. An old-fashioned whistle. Something told Kane the sound it made would be unlike anything he’d ever heard.

“Ms. Daisy and I must be going.” Poesy stood and drew her robe around herself. Kane stood unsteadily.

“And, Mr. Montgomery, if I were you I might keep our meeting a secret. There are others like me—others who hunt for the sacred looms. You cannot be too distrusting in matters like this, I find, because you never know what form darkness will take. A silver-eyed siren or a golden-haired prince, perhaps? Or even a dim-witted ogress? But do not fret. You are not alone. You never were.”

A chime swelled around Kane, rolling out through the empty space, and Poesy was gone. So was Ms. Daisy, the tea, and the furniture. Then the chandelier flickered away, and Kane was again abandoned to the watery dimness of the library, a small black whistle in his palm and a chorus of unanswered questions chirping in his head.

• Fourteen •

Nice and Normal

Kane called Sophia right away, but she sent him to voicemail. When he texted her a simple what’s up and she didn’t reply, he knew he was in trouble, but how much? What kind? Her silence scared him more than anything. He hoped she wasn’t past trying to reason with him. Not yet. He would need her, if what Poesy said was true.