The dream, of course, kicked in instantly. This time, instead of an underground city lit by lightning or a tunnel closed by teeth, he relived the attack in D.C., ending with the Old One demanding the last dragon once more. Fort awoke with a start, sweating beneath the sheets from fear.

And beside him, Gabriel seemed to be having a nightmare too, moaning fitfully and tossing around.

Not sure what else to do, Fort reached over and gently tapped his shoulder, only to have Gabriel grab his wrist and twist it painfully, pulling Fort to the floor.

“Ow, hey!” Fort shouted. “I was just trying to wake you up! You looked like you were having a nightmare!”

Gabriel’s eyes seemed to focus on Fort, and he instantly released Fort’s wrist. “Oh wow, I’m so sorry,” he said, and he really did sound sincere. “I was… Right. Bad dream.”

“About dragons?” Fort asked, and Gabriel looked at him sharply. “You know, like in the display room. The skeletons.”

Gabriel just stared for a moment, then fell back into his bed and turned toward the wall. “Gonna try to get a few more hours of sleep. Sorry again.”

That was enough to keep Fort awake for the rest of the night wondering if Gabriel really was having the same dream somehow, and what that meant. Was there really some last dragon somewhere on Earth? And if so, what did the Old Ones want with it?

More importantly, would Fort be willing to give those monsters something they wanted, something that might make them even more dangerous, in exchange for his father back?

Eventually he gave up and tried to sleep again. As he turned over, he almost knocked his amulet off the bed, and something occurred to him: If these dreams were real, that meant the Old One was projecting them from another dimension. Gabriel had an amulet of his own. If he’d been wearing it while he slept, there was no way he could have seen the same dream.

Except as he turned over, he found Gabriel’s amulet sitting on the nightstand.

Uh-oh.

The next few days settled into a kind of rhythm, not that Fort was particularly happy about it. Each morning Sebastian would try to get any information he could out of Fort about how he’d made up new spells without the spell book. Fort always refused, which just made Sebastian punish him in some way or another. Thanks to Gabriel, Sebastian ended up with two sore arms and one sore leg that week.

The two actually seemed to be enjoying themselves after a while, with Sebastian trying to secretly give Fort some disease when he knew Gabriel wasn’t watching, then waiting to see how long it took until Gabriel discovered Fort convulsing on the floor.

Good times all around, really.