“What does she want with all those reveries?” Kane asked. “And who is she, even? And what is she?”
“Poesy is Poesy,” Dean said. “No one knows where she began, or how, but by now she is more a force of nature than she is human. This power to manipulate etherea that you both share—it’s incredible. She uses it to harvest reveries, and then she experiments on them. She dissects them for their resources.”
“Resources?”
“Treasure, beasts, architectures, magics. She can even take out weapons and magical artifacts—like the whistle and the door. Anything she wants, she takes. It’s all just material to her. ”
“Material for what, though?”
Dean lowered his chin. “You really can’t tell?”
Kane shrugged.
“She’s building her own world,” Dean said. “Her own entire reality, bigger than just a reverie. All she needs is a source of etherea powerful enough to help her weave it all together.”
Kane’s eyes cut through the tapestry of East Amity, up into the wide, blank clouds. “That’s why she’s after the loom.”
“And that’s why she must never find it,” Dean said. “Whatever reality Poesy creates, it’s going to replace this one. I’m sure of it.”
Kane reminded himself that the wavering was within him, not beneath him. He fought for focus. He wanted to ask how to stop Poesy, but he already knew the answer. He had to find the loom before she did and destroy it utterly.
“You helped me try to stop her once, didn’t you?” Kane asked.
Dean nodded.
His scars prickled as he looked upon the dark waters that had once held his burned body. He was playing with a similar fire now, guessing at his past instead of just asking about it. But it felt safer to guess, like passing his hand through a wobbling candle flame whose little licks couldn’t burn him.
“But whatever I did hurt you, and now you’re not helping me anymore. Not in the same way at least.”
“I have been helping you.”
“Helping me survive is not helping me achieve.”
Kane pulled his hand away, jamming his leg into the corner of two bars so he could look at Dean head-on. Dean reached for him, but stopped, seeing a new hardness in Kane’s face. It was time to know the truth.
“Tell me what happened. Tell me about us, and how it all ended.”
Dean’s eyes skipped over Kane with the dexterity of a dragonfly. “There is a lot to tell.”
“Start from the beginning, then.”
Dean’s eyes settled on his own empty palm and stayed there. When he spoke, it was like each word hurt more than the last.
“Poesy recruited me last winter. My instructions were to watch over the Others as she experimented on their powers and to follow you closely. Your powers are connected to the loom, somehow, and Poesy believed that your abilities would eventually lead you right to it. She told me that looms are like wishes; they appear to those who are desperate enough to need them. In that way, you were her key to this loom, but also her competition. She needed me to watch you. And keep you safe. She gave me my powers and the Dreadmare armor as protection and told me to never interfere in the reveries unless your life was in peril. I kept to the shadows, only watching, until one day you found me out. We fought. You won. You forced me to tell you everything I knew. Somehow, we became friends.”
“And the Others never knew?”
“I think they suspected something. They became very suspicious when we began…”
“Began what?”
Dean looked dizzy. His voice was strained.
“Searching. We used to sit up here and talk about what we’d do if we had the loom’s power. The worlds we would create. The wrongs we would right. But then, when we did find the loom…when you found it, in Maxine’s reverie, you…” Something shook Dean’s voice, a fissure breaking open in him. “You didn’t wait for me. You took it for yourself, and the ensuing blast tore Maxine’s reverie apart. It nearly tore through reality itself, but then Adeline—”
“I know,” Kane cut in. “I know what Adeline did. But this doesn’t make any sense. I would never take that power for myself. I would never ask Adeline to…to…”
“You gave up,” Dean said, suddenly loud. “You made the choice to take that power for yourself, and when it was too much, you decided it was easier to start over than to finish what you began.”
Kane was stunned. This whole time, Dean had never raised his voice. Dean stood, swaying in the wind like the fall couldn’t kill him. Then he hiccupped—a strange, strangled noise. Kane realized he was trying to stop himself from crying.
“You forced Adeline’s hand. You took yourself away. Like it was easy. Like everything was just a game to you that you could reset when you weren’t winning. You ran away, like you always do.”
“I’m sorry,” Kane said, defensive. “But I’m not that person anymore. I’m not the one who left you.”
Dean rubbed at his eyes. “Funny, you have his smile.”
Kane watched cars glide beneath them. Black holes were heavy, right? He wondered how a bridge of thin metal bars could withstand the weight of the void opening within him. Dean was right. He was the same, lost person, always running, always failing.
“Here,” Dean said, tossing Kane a small pouch. In it were the charms they’d tried to steal from Poesy’s collection. “Maybe you can still save Helena.”
He wouldn’t look at Kane. The moment was over, and Dean was closed again. Kane took out his phone and turned it on.
Messages poured in. Texts, voicemails, DMs. Tons of them, so quickly Kane couldn’t read them. Then his phone lit up with a call. It was Ursula again.
“Urs, don’t worry. I’m fine. I have Helena’s charm. We can—”
“Kane.” It was Adeline. Instead of anger, her voice shook through barely managed panic: “Please. Come back.”
“What’s wrong? What happened?”
Kane’s phone vibrated madly as more messages poured in.
“It’s a reverie. Elliot and Ursula are already inside. They’re looking for her. It’s…”
A frequency rose in Kane’s ear, needling and hysteric. “Who, Adeline? Whose reverie?”
“Sophia,” Adeline cried. “Kane, it’s your sister.”
• Twenty-Nine •
THE ARCHIVIST