“You’ll have some tea, won’t you? We have quite a bit to discuss and not much time to do so, but there’s no sense in dispensing with deportment. We aren’t barbarians, are we?” Poesy chuckled knowingly as she filled Kane’s cup.
“You know about the reveries?” he asked.
“I do.”
“What do you know?”
“A lot.”
“What are they?”
“Very dangerous.”
Poesy’s answers only spawned more questions, like mushrooms shedding spores. Kane shoved down his curiosity, knowing it was useless to expect a drag queen to do anything other than exactly what she wanted. From his limited knowledge, he knew drag queens often lip-synched to songs as bars full of cheering people fought to give them money. Kane didn’t have any cash, and he didn’t think Poesy would accept it anyway. He’d just have to let her perform her way, or no way at all, and so he shut up and sat back.
Poesy raised her teacup. Kane did the same. Together they sipped. The tea was infused with rose, and it buzzed like electricity in Kane’s stomach.
“Mr. Montgomery,” Poesy began. “What do you know of etherea?”
Etherea. The word was new to Kane, but it hung in his mind like a faceted gem, a feeling of familiarity emanating from its cut ridges and refracted depths. Kane whispered it to himself, feeling as though it ought to whisper back.
“Mr. Montgomery, I want you to think of reality as a cloth, lushly embroidered with everything you see in this world. Just layer upon layer of elaborate, incredible design. And if reality is a cloth, it must be woven from something, yes?”
“Like thread?”
Poesy licked her small silver spoon. “Like thread. Like etherea: the magic of creation, the magic that makes real the unreal. All things—reality around us, and the reveries you traverse, even other magics—are woven from etherea. Even this charming little town is a well-formed design. Stable and self-assured, it ought to exist for a good long time.”
After another sip, Poesy’s eyes darkened.
“Or it won’t. That’s the thing about etherea; it’s a terrifically erratic magic, making and unmaking worlds in the blink of an eye. And that’s what’s happening in this town. A well of etherea has sprung up, and the excess magic is now everywhere, and restless. It must take shape. To do so, it has started using people with uniquely vast minds, casting its power through the prism of their imaginations and creating their interior worlds as entirely new realities.” Poesy considered her own words. “Though they’re not very good realities, are they? Oh, well, I suppose there’s nothing to be done about other people’s bad taste.”
Kane fought to digest Poesy’s words. It was like chewing potpourri. His mind turned to the unraveling last night, and that horrible reverie. He still felt the echoes of its anguish, its chaotic fury at having come undone. It had wanted to survive, and it would have killed to do so. Kane’s teacup clattered in his saucer as he began to shiver. He didn’t want to drink any more.
“So what you’re saying…” Kane fumbled his way through a question that had only just begun to take shape. “Is that etherea is manifesting peoples’ dreams?”
“Dreams!” Poesy grimaced around the word, like it was caked in salt. “Such deeply impractical things. I won’t suffer the association. No. The phenomenon of the localized paracosm, or what you have shorthanded to reverie, could never originate with something as ephemeral as the dream. No. They come from the depth, the core, the marrow of the mind. The subconscious! The subcontinent, made real in phantasmagoric majesty!”
This monologue seemed very prepared. Kane let Poesy finish, gave a respectful and wide-eyed nod, and then countered with: “But this is impossible.”
“Improbable,” she corrected.
“I mean it’s unbelievable. Like, unreal.”
“So what?” Poesy snapped. “The unreality of something is no reason to dismiss it. Sometimes reveries—and dreams for that matter—are more real to a person than the reality they serve to distract from. I would expect you of all people to understand that.”
Poesy’s tone was cutting, such a fine blade that it was beneath Kane’s skin before he even saw it flash. But he kept his chin up, and his eyes on her. “I do understand that. What I meant is that these reveries shouldn’t be here. They’re wrong.”
Poesy’s frigid stare broke into a laugh that filled the empty library, and Kane finally took a breath.
“You’re certainly right about that.” She smiled, refilling his cup. “Reveries are beautiful and interesting things, but they have no place in Reality Proper. In fact, they must be unraveled at all costs or else they might punch a hole through Reality Proper. You can’t have two realities layered one over the other for long without consequences. That’s just the physics of friction, just the math of it all. And see? I told you I had a degree.” Taking note of Kane’s rising shock, she added, “Oh, but don’t worry. With luck, you and your friends have prevented that outcome by diligently unraveling the reveries as they spawn. So, kudos.”
“But why us?”
Her smile turned to awe. “Lucidity, darling. It’s rare—this ability you four share to resist the hypnotizing effects of being in a different reality. I share it, too. We are all people between worlds.”
“But what about the powers? Elliot can create illusions. Ursula can throw cars. Adeline can…”
He couldn’t say it, even now. Poesy shrugged, like these details were as common as personality traits.
“Just like the heroes of your reveries, you each are a prism. Etherea shines through your dark depths, and it produces power. The difference is that you are awake to your power and able to regulate it. It’s quite a privilege.” Her eyes drifted to Kane’s burns. “Though while some power comes free, the pursuit of more power always comes at a price.”
Blood burned in Kane’s cheeks. The Others had told him he’d gotten those burns while hunting for some mysterious weapon.
“You already knew what happened to Maxine Osman, didn’t you?”
“I did. I wanted you to find out for yourself.”
“What about the police investigation? What about Detective Thistler?”
“I’ve dealt with them. And I will continue to deal with them and protect you, though I must ask that you help me in return.”
Kane’s head spun, his mind sagging in the honeyed vapor of the tea. He had to focus on Poesy’s bracelet to keep himself steady.
“What do you want?”
Poesy feigned a bashful smile, as though she had not guided the conversation to this exact point.