Everest whispered to her, but it was not in a language I knew. She must have, somehow, because it seemed like with every word her body calmed more and more until, finally, she fell asleep in his hands. Everest let out a sigh that sounded like it hurt, his face scrunched in pain. Yet a second later that cold mask I was used to was back in place. He scooped her up and turned—and we were inside her bedroom. Everest gently laid her in bed and tucked the fuzzy blankets around her. The door opened and three little shadows bounced over to jump onto the bed, nuzzling in around her. Everest patted each shadow—then it clicked. My eyes widened.

Everest was in this dream, but he was not part of it. He was really here because those shadows had to be her dogs. It hurt my brain to think about. How he could be here both in dream and the physical . . .? Frankie wasn’t in shadow. This was her dream-form. Savannah and I definitely weren’t physically in this room. Yet Everest was.

Then he turned and faced us directly. Those eerie blue and white eyes landed on me in an instant. “Stay out of her dreams, Cooper. They are not safe.”

I swallowed through the nervous lump in my throat. “For me or her?”

Everest glared. “Not all dreams are safe to play in, even for you, dreamwalker. If you want to live, do not dare enter Francelina’s mind again. I may not get here before she takes you down with her.”

“Take us down with her . . . Goddess, was she about to⁠—”

“Yes,” he whispered. “Your presence in her mind made it worse. Stay. Out. Do you understand? If she dies while you’re in her mind, you die too. Got it?”

I nodded, at a loss for words.

Savannah let out a strangled cry. “Are her dreams . . . safe . . . for her⁠—”

“Help her finish her quest quickly, Darkling, or you may not like the answer to that question.”

I woke with a gasp that burned its way up my throat. I bolted upright, my heart pounding in my chest and thundering through my ears. Sweat ran like rivers down my spine. I looked around to find I was in my room. In my bed. I cursed violently and scrubbed my face. “Dammit.”

When Savannah didn’t respond, my heart skipped. I looked down and found her lying in bed beside me just staring at the ceiling. Her face was flushed and covered in a sheen of sweat. “That was terrifying. All of it.” Her voice was raw. “A bunch of nope.”

I exhaled roughly and plopped back down beside her, then took her hand in mine. I needed something to hold on to after all that, but especially after Frankie’s. “Their dreams always are. I need to tell them what I saw.”