Her voice shook. “It got me.”
Kane squeezed her hand reassuringly. “But you got out.”
Adeline waved her hand around at the stilled reverie. “Did you do this?”
“Kind of. Come on.”
They reached the clearing with the gazebo. Elliot was there, Sophia fastened to his arm. He was breathing hard. “We were running…from the owl, and then…time stopped.”
Adeline pointed at Kane. “He did it.”
“It wasn’t me. It was this whistle.”
“Where’s Ursula?” Elliot asked.
Kane pointed at the spider. Elliot, to his credit, ran toward it and not away, but before he got close an earsplitting frequency fissured the air. It practically cut through them, so harsh it forced everyone to the ground. Kane could feel it in his teeth, in his eye sockets. He fought to hold down vomit and failed.
Was this Helena’s newest twist?
Across the clearing the air dimpled, bending the light into a large, upright rectangle. A swath of the scenery was peeling away, cleanly dissociating like two great doors opening into the reverie.
Kane held his breath. His tongue tasted of blood and bile.
Through the doors floated something completely alien to the rotting reverie—a woman draped in a plush fur coat that was the soft, whipped pink of sunrise on storm clouds. Her wide-brimmed hat and thick-heeled shoes matched as though spun from the same sugary atmosphere, and her octagonal glasses reflected everything in metallic clarity. She fingered the ascot around her neck. On her wrist hung the bracelet thick with charms. The only hardness about her was the muscles of her nude calves and the frown of her glossed lips.
Poesy surveyed the scene. “Oh, what a mess.”
Relief poured through Kane, as thick and sweet as the color of Poesy’s costume. She was power, personified. She would save them all.
Adeline must have felt the opposite. “Who are you?” she shouted.
Poesy smiled but did not answer. She glanced over her shoulder and beckoned something. “Don’t be shy. Come in, my dear.”
There came a sound like the shutter of an old camera, and with a flicker of the moonlight, Poesy was no longer alone. What had joined her in the doorway was a monster unresolved between a horse and a demon. Its twisted body stood upon four elongated legs that ended in hooked hooves. It had no face, only a long, curved beak. It had no eyes or ears, only a pair of spiraling horns. Its skin was glossy obsidian, stretched over sharp bones and an exposed spine. Worst of all was the way it walked, its legs moving with their own, inelegant independence, as though Poesy stood beneath the dark sister of the rose-gold spider.
“Others,” said Poesy, “meet my Dreadmare.”
The Dreadmare curtsied politely.
The reverie’s rage finally broke through the whistle’s suspension. The world unfroze with a wrenching shutter, and the bedazzled creatures—the beetle, the owl from above, and the spider—were all charging the Dreadmare. Above it all were Helena’s screams as her life flowed from the wound in her leg.
“Quickly, please,” said Poesy.
The Dreadmare stormed forward in disjointed harmony, seizing upon the beetle in a black flash. A few ruthless stabs later and the beetle’s shell had been pried from its back, only half a wing jutting straight up.
The Dreadmare charged the spider next. As it galloped, its wiry body melted like shadow. It sank low, its legs peeling apart and multiplying, until it matched the spider in shape. Now two arachnids wrestled, black legs braiding with pink, until the Dreadmare grew many more legs and dug them into the spider’s back. It ended all at once, like a corn kernel popping open.
Like mist, the Dreadmare vanished, and then the owl’s cry drew everyone’s attention upward. Somehow the Dreadmare had materialized around the bird, dragging it right out of the air. The grappling pair struck the ground violently. Kane fell forward, close enough to see the Dreadmare’s beak closing over the joint of the owl’s wing, rending the stone flesh like it was wet clay. The owl’s shrieks died off.
Among the fresh rubble, the Dreadmare stood and regarded Poesy coolly.
“I believe one still remains,” Poesy said, and the Dreadmare flickered out of sight. Then she turned to Kane. “You called?”
“Excuse me—”Adeline began again, but Kane cut her off.
“Ursula!” he pointed at the pile. “Save her! Please!”
Poesy nodded. “Of course, my dear, but first things first.”
The Dreadmare flickered back into sight next to Poesy. It held the serpent’s head in its jaw, which sent Poesy into a gleeful clap.
“I’ve been looking for this color garnet! How wonderful. Is that it then? No more interruptions?”
The Dreadmare tossed the head atop the carcass of the owl, then stepped back.
“Wonderful indeed,” Poesy confirmed. She picked her way over the rubble, prodding the sparkling gore like a prospector.
Kane limped to the gazebo. Was no one going to help Ursula? And what about Helena? She reached for Kane’s ankle, and he knelt by her side, trying not to look at the exposed bone deep in the gash of her leg. She gripped his arms weakly.
“Willard?” She spoke as though from deep in a dream. “I was…I didn’t…”
“It’s okay,” Kane said. “Help is here. We’re gonna get you back to the real world. But I need you to help me unravel this, okay?”
“Unravel this?” She blinked at her ruined beasts. Guilt and misery shivered through her. “You speak of the real world as though it is salvation, but don’t you see? People like us… Something separates us from the real world. Something makes sure we never belong.” Now her eyes were older than that of a young girl’s. Kane was looking into the lucid mind of the real Helena now. “I belonged here, but even this world has rejected me. Even here, I’m a…a…”
“A monster.”
Poesy’s heels crunched as she stood over them. Helena saw her for the first time, and, through her fear, Kane realized something. Poesy was here to help, but she was not here to help Helena.
“No, no!” Helena pleaded to Kane. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t in control. It was a mistake!”
“A Miss Stake, you say?” asked Poesy. “I don’t know a Miss Stake, but if I did, I’m sure she would resent such an accusation.” Poesy winked at Kane, and he realized again how far beyond this world Poesy was to be making jokes as Helena died right in front them. “Now, come with me. We’ll fix this together, yes?”
Poesy gestured for Helena to get up. When she didn’t, Poesy sighed, gestured again, and this time Helena rose into the air against her will. She clutched at Kane.