Ms. Daisy sniffed at the door, circled it twice, and then assembled her sleek frame into stoic focus. From her keened a whine like Kane had never heard from a dog, but it was an old language between her and this doorway. The locks tumbled apart, reassembled, and clicked. The doors groaned open just an inch, issuing a strange, melodic whispering. To Kane, it sounded like triumph.
“Good girl.” Kane patted Ms. Daisy on the head absently. She licked his knuckles.
“Dean?” he called through the door.
Ms. Daisy bound into the hallways of the sanctuary, returning with a leash in her jaws. Gingerly, Kane took it from her, clipped it to her collar, and then fastened it to the leg of the settee.
“Stay,” he commanded.
She blinked at him, betrayed.
“I’ll use the whistle to call you,” he promised. “I just have to find it.”
Kane approached the doors like they might eat him. Again he had the urge to vanish elsewhere, to deny that he had been given this chance, but the invasive daydream only lasted an instant before he snuffed it out. Running was not the answer; it was just the thing that he wanted.
And, he reminded himself, saving the world was not usually a matter of want.
• Thirty-Four •
WONDER
Kane took only what he could carry in his backpack, unsure what to expect from the reveries. He knew it was useless to prepare too much. Reveries had their own rules, and Kane was about to break all of them in a mad search for his friends, his sister, and the lost whistle.
The doors lead Kane into a dark copse of trees that swished gently against the tall frame, nearly hiding it. Kane shut the doors quickly—he couldn’t risk anyone finding their way into Poesy’s sanctuary or activating any of the remaining thousands of charms. He’d have to find another escape; hopefully, Ms. Daisy had done some of his work for him.
It was night here, wherever here was. A rain forest, maybe? The air smelled sour with the musk of rot and overripe fruit. Neon birds flitted between bulbous nests embedded in thick trunks, curious about Kane. He thumbed a wide leaf, surprised to find it was plastic. The trees sounded hollow when he knocked. Odd. Kane looked up.
Above, the night strobed with starlight as the constellations zoomed by above. Planets passed, too. As they did, small labels appeared on them, or rather appeared on the glass dome that covered the false rain forest. Outside the dome was a vast, metal wing, which is how Kane reasoned they were on some sort of spaceship. One that was flying through deep space very fast, by the looks of the stars cascading around them.
The dome flickered, and an announcement began to play.
We hope you enjoy your flight on Starship Giulietta, said a pleasant voice-over accompanied by text. The glass now showed a 3-D rendering of the spaceship. It looked like a massive cruise ship with wings and rocket blasters. Our estimated time of arrival to resEarth is six hours and nineteen minutes. Your all-access ticket allows you to avail yourself of all amenities up to one hour before docking. Thank you for traveling with Giulietta BeyondTM. We thank you for patronizing our reservation planets and hope you will continue on with us to resMars next.
The stars returned. Whatever. No time to wonder. Kane pushed through the plants. The forest floor was carpeted in glowing moss, and Kane quickly identified a trail of blood. His heart burned. He forced himself to take calm breaths as he pushed apart fanning leaves that hid a clearing at the forest’s edge. Within it lay Dean, unmoving.
Dean.
Sensing him, Dean’s hand tightened around something—the Dreadmare charm clutched in his bruised knuckles—but then Kane had him in a hug.
“It’s you,” Dean whispered, as though this was the last thing he expected.
“Can you move?” The question was warm against Dean’s neck.
As an answer, Dean’s arms tightened.
“What hurts?”
“All of it,” Dean whispered.
He was in and out of consciousness after that. Kane pulled him up as gently as he could, talking to him to keep him focused.
“We’re in some sort of spaceship,” Kane said as he dragged him through the forest. The doors had vanished. “How did you get here?”
“Teleported.”
“Can you see where the Sophia is?”
“No.”
“What about the Others?”
“No.”
Kane already knew the answer, but he asked anyways. “Are you able to teleport?”
“Not from space.” Then, as explanation, Dean added, “Space is so big. Too big. And I can’t account for the velocity. It could kill us.”
Kane began to wonder about the sheer size of these combined reveries, but again stopped himself. No time to wonder. They stumbled through a copse of palm trees and entered what Kane realized was the ship’s pool deck. And it was quite the pool deck. Above the sheet of cerulean water, waterfalls poured into floating, oblong tubs with clear bottoms, filling the dark deck with aquamarine light from above and below.
People lay strewn across plush pool chairs, sleeping or passed out. Kane and Dean snuck into a large structure Kane hoped was a locker room. It wasn’t. It was some sort of cabana equipped with a curtained bed, and the entire back room was a tiled shower. Perfect. Kane could work with this. He let Dean slide onto the floor, locked the doors, and hid away his backpack by a cracked window. Just in case.
“Hey, hey, wake up. We’re safe. We need to get the blood off you, though.” Kane said, nudging Dean. “Can I get you out of these clothes?”
Dean nodded sleepily but was no help whatsoever. The Dreadmare armor had done a good job protecting Dean, but Kane’s fingers still grew sticky with blood trying to peel the boy’s shirt off. The source was Dean’s chest. Even through the Dreadmare armor, Poesy’s nails had left deep gouges in Dean’s flesh.
Looking for soap, Kane located a lit panel showing teardrops in different colors. There was blue, there was red, and between was pink. Kane went with pink.
Water came from every direction, soaking Kane and Dean instantly. Kane slammed the panel until it lessened, but this also activated a small light show of pink and green.
“Sorry,” Kane said, blotting Dean with a soaked towel and what he hoped was soap. Dean’s face scrunched up in pain, but he endured it.
Kane continued to apologize the whole time. Then he needed to remove Dean’s pants. He got the button open and then had to stop, because.
Just.
Because.
“Are you hard?”
Dean was grinning goofily. His eyes stayed closed. “Got you,” he said.