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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

Then they blinked. Were they windup? Clockwork? Kane leaned close and they ruffled their feathers. It was oddly organic. Then something past the birdcage snagged Kane’s eye.

It’s him!

Kane rushed around the table, pushing through guests until he reached the dancing couple he’d spotted. He clapped a hand on the man’s shoulder and spun him around.

Kane looked into the sea-foam eyes of Dean Flores. Recognition, then dread, masked Dean’s face.

“Cousin Willard,” Dean said, as lucid as Ursula.

Then the person Dean had been dancing with pushed the two boys apart.

“What in the heavens is going on?” she said, looking over Kane with unmitigated disgust. “What gives you the right?”

Kane saw her eyes, and his heart cracked clean in half. He couldn’t answer even if he wanted to, for the person berating him in the middle of the reverie’s ballroom was none other than his own sister.

Sophia was here. She had followed them in.

Sophia was in the reverie.

• Seventeen •

The Nest

“No.”

Kane choked the words out, the pain only a fraction of the horror he felt seeing his own sister adorned in the reverie’s splendor. And the way she looked at him, without a hint of familiarity; she wasn’t lucid in the least. She had no idea who he was. She had no idea who she was.

She belonged to this world now. She belonged to Helena.

And, by the easiness of the embrace Kane had torn apart, a moment ago she had belonged with Dean. They were together.

Dean shuffled them all into a dark hallway. He whispered a few placating words to Sophia before taking Kane aside.

“It’s not what it looks like,” he said. “I recognized her as your sister. I was keeping her safe.”

“She shouldn’t even be here, and how did you get…”

Kane had so many questions, about Dean being here, about Sophia and Elliot and Adeline and how they were all going to survive this, but before he could say another word his throat hissed shut. The sconces lining the hall flickered; a threat. Stale oxygen roiled in Kane’s chest, spinning him around until he fell into Dean. Slowly his throat reopened. He exhaled unsteadily, just a few deep blue breaths, and let Dean comfort him.

“What’s wrong?” Dean’s hands fell over Kane, strong and knowing as they grazed Kane’s ribs, his neck. “Can you speak? Why aren’t you speaking?”

“Don’t you know?” Sophia joined them. “This is the infamous Willard Beazley. He’s…well…” she gave Dean a wide-eyed warning, hinting at some great scandal.

Dean’s hands tucked into his coat as Kane stood himself up. Sophia talked about Kane like he was one of the paintings on the wall.