“It’s not worth it,” Jonathan finished. He looked at Love Lost as the lights dimmed, strengthened, then dimmed more. “It’s not worth it.”

“We can’t hear you, Snag,” Cradle said.

The Fallen boy looked at Snag, then looked down. There was blood on his hands and clothing.

Interesting, the things they brought and didn’t bring into this space. Love Lost had her mask and outfit, but not the claws. Cradle was always mundane, always with the scratched glasses.

Objects dropped from above.

Three pieces of glass, striking the pointed peak of crystal at the center of the dais, bouncing off unpredictably.

Two landed in the Fallen boy’s space. One landed in Cradle’s. Love Lost ignored them, didn’t even glance at them. She stared across the dais at him, trying to see him in the growing darkness.

She reached up to her mask, and she undid it, pulling the clasp free.

She spoke, her voice disused and broken by a throat raw from screaming, “Rest, Jonathan.”

He opened his mouth to reply, but he knew it would be useless.

“We’ll get your revenge,” she said.

“No,” Jonathan said. “It makes us into monsters.”

“No,” the Fallen boy said, echoing him. “This… it isn’t worth it.”

She did up the clasp, glaring at the Fallen boy.

“I hope I’m not going to wake up to find my throat slit,” Cradle said.

The lights and shadows distorted. The three others left the room.

Snag felt cold fear seize him. He approached the dais, and found his space empty, devoid of litter, of glass, of anything else.

He bent down, searching the space below the dais. He’d discarded things last night. Was there anything? As he got closer to the dais, he felt both sides of the invisible wall converging.

The other three areas were growing dim, going dark as the barrier faded.

The lights went off, the barrier went down, and he gained something of an understanding of what, not who, was in the fifth space, that had been between his and the Fallen boy’s.

With that knowledge, he slipped into dreams of a different sort, knowing that even if they paused or were broken up by visits to the room, there would never be an end to them.

Pitch 6.1

Capricorn’s weight tore him out of my grip, helped by the fact that I was lost enough at recent events that I’d almost forgotten I was holding him.

He fell ten or so feet and landed in a wet field. The field was set on a slope and he slid a few feet before his feet found traction. Ahead of us, Love Lost had already slumped to the ground. Nothing to do with the fact that I’d hit her—everyone in Rain’s cluster had dropped.