The insult hurt, though Maren knew that Lishta had sixty more years of practice than she did. She had a sudden urge to make the worst, most hideous nightmare ever crafted, just to prove Obscura wrong.

From the bin, she pulled out four sachets, a bag of stinging nettles, and the coffee grinder. As she plunged her hands into the scrambled contents of a second bin, something sharp pierced her fingertip. Still thinking of bees, Maren screamed. She yanked her hand out and found two thin lines of red blooming on her right index finger. Not bee stings, thank the stars. Just some kind of sharp blade.

Using her left hand, Maren opened up the black sachets, then held her bleeding finger over each one and squeezed until a droplet fell. Then she turned back to the bin, carefully lifting items out until she found the thing that had pricked her. It was a pink razor with rusted blades. Maren snapped the head off the razor and dropped it into the coffee grinder. This was going to be a painful dream.

It took a lot of effort to turn the coffee grinder’s crank with the razor blades inside, and they made an awful crunching sound. On the stage, Obscura whirled and leapt and spun like a symphony spurred her on. The killer moth-bee remained motionless on her shoulder.

Once the razor blades had reached a powdery consistency, Maren opened the coffee grinder’s drawer, scooped four equal portions of the nightmare mix into the black sachets, added a granule of dreamsalt to each, and blew on them before sewing them up. They’d have to do without being sterilized.

“Done,” she said, pushing the nightmares across the table. “Now show me my grandmother and Amos.”

Mid-lunge, Obscura narrowed her eyes.

“Please,” added Maren with as much humbleness as she could muster.

Obscura finished with a triple pirouette, then sat down on the edge of the stage to remove her pointe shoes. Her feet were gnarled like an old woman’s, with a red lump on the middle knuckle of each toe. One of her big toenails was blue and the rest were yellow and cracked. Maren couldn’t help but think that Obscura’s nail clippings would make a fantastic nightmare ingredient, though the idea of collecting them made her queasy.

Obscura stepped into a pair of high-heeled shoes and rummaged through her duffel bag. Maren glimpsed three cell phones inside and recognized the shiny red cover of her own, but then they disappeared into the bag again. The killer moth-bee left Obscura’s shoulder and drifted toward Maren, letting out its awful hum. She glanced at her faraway backpack, wanting to throw up.