Jerking upright in a burst of frustration, I watched the man with yellow teeth speak to the auctioneer. I knew I needed to use these final seconds. To think. Dad had believed there was always a way out. No matter how impossible a fight or a situation seemed, there would be another move to make or idea to try.
Being human didn’t change that, not to the father who’d once tied me to a chair and ordered me to free myself, again and again, until I could do it within minutes.
We’d never covered this scenario, though.
Just as my new owner finished his conversation with the auctioneer and faced me, the other voice returned. It echoed from the blue expanse above. “Let’s use that,” it said.
Use that? I thought wildly.
“You believe you’re with Oliver now,” the wind told me. My head snapped to the side, but there was no one standing beside me. “You’re in the place you feel safest.”
Everything went white.
I squeezed my eyes shut against the brightness and pain. It hurt so much. Oh, God, it hurt. I tried to reach up and find the source of the agony, but suddenly it felt like I didn’t have a body. Someone was talking nearby. I moaned and tried to focus on the words. I heard Oliver’s name, the syllables laced with tension and fear.
Then everything… stopped.
Silence rang all around. Light still streamed through my eyelids, but it was more gentle now. I stayed on my knees, calming with every breath. Whatever I’d been thinking before was gone, along with whatever I’d been feeling, too. The sensation was like falling asleep.
Gradually, as if someone were turning a volume knob, the noise of cicadas filled my ears. I could smell wildflowers. Seagulls called to each other nearby.
I was already smiling when I opened my eyes to the dreamscape.
The golden grass was doused in hues of violet and pink. The roar of the ocean sounded in the distance. The stone cottage stood atop one of those rolling hills, gray and worn by time. I looked around, my smile softening into relief, and suddenly I felt looser. I stood up and strolled down the trodden path, arms swinging, sundress fluttering. Why did it feel like I hadn’t been here in weeks? God, it was good to be home.
“Hey, you.”
That voice. It felt like my heart tried to shatter through my chest, as if it had heard the one it truly belonged to.
I spun around and spotted Oliver’s silhouette against the horizon of our dreamscape, his tousled hair shining, the cords in his arms standing on end as he leaned back on them. He was looking at me over his shoulder with that achingly familiar grin, his dimples visible even from a distance. Though I was far away, I knew his legs dangled over the edge of the cliff, his jeans dampening from the sea spray. It was a scene I’d seen a thousand times, and a thousand times, I’d wished so badly that it was more than a fantasy.
“Ollie,” I said with unveiled joy, smiling back. The muscles in my face ached, as if I hadn’t done that in a long time.
In response, Oliver got to his feet and began closing the distance between us. A breeze moved past, urging me forward like the gentlest of nudges. Just as I started to obey, I heard something. A sound that didn’t belong here, a place where I knew every sound like it was my own heartbeat. I went still, my smile dimming. Was that a… voice?
Was there someone else in the dreamscape?
I raised my gaze to Oliver’s, who was still several yards away. He frowned. What’s wrong? his expression asked, reverting back to our old way of communicating. He hadn’t done it in years. Nostalgia gripped my heart like a pinch as I thought of the boy he’d once been. Thin. Quiet. Serious. I’d coaxed him from a shell just as much as he’d coaxed me out of mine.
“It’s nothing,” I said, raising my voice above the breeze. “I thought I—”
Oliver’s back bowed, much like Finn’s did when he was changing forms. He opened his mouth and let out a scream that curdled my insides. I ran to him, crushing the grass instead of parting it as I usually did. Oliver was on his knees by the time I got there, his chest heaving. His fingers curled into fists, leaving tracks through the dirt.
“Ollie, what’s happening?” I asked. My demeanor was calm, a mask I wore for his sake, but beneath it I was blank with terror. My hand rested on his shoulder, the only spot that seemed safe to touch. “Oliver, look at me.”
In a wrench of pain, he rolled onto his other side. That was when I saw his face.
Half of it was gray and frozen into place. I stared at him with mute horror. The truth stared back, and my mind resisted accepting it.
Oliver was becoming stone.
My best friend shouted again, throwing his head back. What remained of his features twisted in agony. I was still touching his shoulder, and though I knew it wasn’t truly helping him, I couldn’t bring myself to let go.
“How do I stop this?” I asked evenly. “Tell me what to do, Ollie.”
“My existence is tied to your Nightmare essence,” he rasped.
At this, my mask slipped a little, and a tightness in my voice betrayed me. “I’m not a Nightmare anymore,” I heard myself tell Oliver.
Not at Nightmare anymore? Did I really just say that? A hundred questions went off in my mind, but Oliver didn’t question me. He looked up, shivering, a sheen of sweat gleaming on the part of his forehead that was still flesh. “Then become one again,” he said simply.
“How did—” I stopped, trying not to scream at the sight of Oliver. Whatever confusion I felt was overshadowed by horror. Gray crept up the column of my best friend’s throat now, and the stone made a subtle crackling sound as it formed.
When Oliver caught my hand, I didn’t know if it was to comfort me or himself. He started to say something, but another grimace of pain kept him from speaking. He squeezed his eyes shut and breathed raggedly. “Help me, Fortuna. Save me.”
I frowned.
Not right, instinct whispered. Something wasn’t right about any of this. Slowly, I pulled my hand out of Oliver’s. He threw his head back and gasped my name. I winced at the suffering in his voice. The stone crept over his shoulders, then jumped to parts of his jaw.
“You would never ask me to do something like that,” I forced myself to say, even as part of me longed to touch him again. Offer comfort however I could. The stone had claimed more than half of his body now. Oliver started to speak, but I shook my head, hard, as if I could get all the doubts out. Words tumbled out with them. “No. Lies, these are all lies. I know my best friend. I know the dreamscape we grew up in. This isn’t my safe place.”
With that, I smashed my hands over my ears and backed away. I could still hear Oliver shouting, which quickly turned to screams of agony. I closed my eyes and shook my head, denying him, clinging to that sense of wrongness. I knew Oliver. He could change in a thousand ways, but there was no version of my friend that would ask me to save him.
After a few seconds, the screams cut short.
Dreading what I would see, I looked up slowly. My frown deepened when I saw the Oliver imposter hadn’t turned to stone. Instead, he sat quietly in the grass with his eyes directed upward, as if he were hearing something I wasn’t. His expression confirmed that my instincts were right not to trust him—I’d never seen the real Oliver make that face before. As if he were on the verge of a tantrum.