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Back Reverie Save as PDF
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

“We’re not leaving,” Kane said, thinking of Poesy’s words. Helena could not run from this, and she couldn’t fight it herself, either. It was up to them, the lucid. The powerful. Kane marched toward the back door, knowing he’d find it ajar, just like the locker rooms. The mouth of the reverie left slightly agape, a tantalizing trap for anyone curious enough to enter.

Ursula caught him, her grip like concrete.

“Helena is in there,” Kane shouted at her. “We can’t just abandon her.”

“You’re not going in there,” Ursula said as Adeline and Elliot joined her. “Not alone. Not without us.”

• Sixteen •

A Beazley Family Affair

This time, entering the reverie wasn’t as simple as running through a door. Or it was, but it didn’t feel that way. Kane’s vision went black the moment he entered the house, and Ursula’s grip was wrenched away. His senses darkened one by one, until he couldn’t feel anything at all. Then, like a computer rebooting, the world slowly came back to him. A different world than the one he had just left behind.

Music from a string quartet threaded the warm breeze, weaving together with birdsong and bursts of far off laughter. The air was perfumed with honey and wine, and though the world felt bright upon Kane’s eyelids, they stayed decidedly closed as he awoke.

“The rich throw such tedious parties. It’s because they only know other rich people, and money makes people boring. I don’t blame you for trying to escape it all, Willard.”

A hand cupped Kane’s own. He tried to move, to respond, but only a croak scraped from his throat.

“You’ve always been such a good listener. I’m sorry we didn’t talk more when you could.” The voice was that of a young girl, maybe around Kane’s age. “I bet you could tell me so many things about the world away from here. Maybe one day I’ll get to tell you things.”

Kane finally got one eye open, then the other. He sat on a bench in a ribbon of shade created by a row of poplar trees that overlooked a manicured courtyard. Through the trees loomed a shimmering château, so large that it seemed to draw up and crest over them like a great wave. In the midday glare it glowed, every window ablaze with such radiance that the garden beneath—a vast and complicated maze of hedges, fountains, and channels that wrapped around where Kane sat—was submerged in golden light.

Guests drifted through the garden—Kane knew they were guests in the same way he knew this was a party; all the women wore sweeping dresses, soft and thousand-layered, like blooming peonies. All the men wore coats with long tails and shoes glossed to match the sheen of their oiled hair. There were a great many hats.