“Maybe I’ll try them anyway.” He looked out at the ocean and swung his legs for a while before he spoke again. “I want to go home. I want to see my uncle.”

She felt her throat tighten. He hadn’t asked for his father. She wondered if he’d figured out what had happened between Vale and Perry, but it wasn’t her place to ask. It dawned on her that he no longer had parents. He was an orphan like she was.

“Are you unhappy in Reverie?” she asked.

He shook his head. “No. I just want to go home. I’m better now. The doctors here made me better.”

“That’s good, Talon.” She remembered Perry telling her that Talon had been ill on the outside. “I’m going to get you out, and back home to the Tides. I promise.”

He scratched his knee but didn’t say anything.

“Do you ever fish with a friend?”

“Clara used to come with me. She’s Brooke’s sister. Do you know Brooke?”

Aria swallowed back a laugh. “Yes, I know Brooke. Why did Clara stop fishing with you?”

“She got bored. She thinks this Realm is too slow now. No one likes to fish this way.”

“I like it. Maybe we could do this again sometime?”

Talon gave her a sidelong glance and smiled. “All right.”

For the rest of their time together, Talon told her about all the fish he’d caught here. Using what sort of bait. At what time of day. Under what weather conditions.

He tipped his head to the side when his voice grew softer. His legs never stopped swinging over the edge of the pier. A few times, when he smiled, she had to look to the sea and breathe; he was so much like his uncle. She hugged him as the counter wound down to zero, promising she’d come see him again soon.

Aria fractioned into another Realm—an office. Hess sat at a sleek gray desk with a glass wall behind him. Through it she saw Reverie’s Panop—her home her entire life—with its circular levels coiling up. The view stole her breath and beckoned her forward. She’d been in the Realms dozens of times with Hess since she’d been cast out, but she hadn’t seen the Pod, her physical home, until now.

Hess spoke before she’d taken a step. “Pleasant visit,” he said. “He’s not suffering, as you saw. I hope we can keep it that way.”

17

PEREGRINE

Pledge, Vale,” Perry said, as he held the knife to his brother’s throat. His voice sounded too harsh, like his father’s voice, and his hands shook so badly he couldn’t hold the blade steady. He had Vale pinned to the grass in an empty field.

“Pledge to you? You can’t be serious. You have no idea what you’re doing, Perry. Admit it.”