Kane looked around. Whoever had dreamt this world had dreamt it full of the gays. In fact the variety of people on the dance floor, and on the ship in general, felt conspicuously queer. Grimly, Kane imagined the reality that required a reverie like this as an escape.
“We’re perfect,” he told Dean. They hugged together, trapped in the crowd’s heat, until the music ebbed into a pounding ballad. Dean pulled away.
“What’s wrong?” Kane asked.
Dean took a deep breath. “Before, on the bridge. Did you mean it when you said I was nothing?”
Kane was suddenly speechless.
Dean’s face scrunched up. “I mean to say that I can be nothing, if nothing is what you need. I’m very good at vanishing.”
Kane’s first reaction was to bundle Dean into another kiss and tell him if they survived this, they’d begin wherever they left off. But he couldn’t know that. He stopped himself from kissing Dean, because sometimes kisses break wounds open instead of closing them up.
“You’re not nothing,” Kane said. “And nothing is not what I need. What I need right now is help getting my friends and Sophia out of here, and then a way to summon the loom and end this. I don’t know what comes after that, but I know I want you there with me. We can find out together, okay?”
“Are you sure?” Dean’s pale gaze searched Kane’s face for an answer, as though Kane hadn’t just given him one. “Are you sure that I’ll be here?”
“Why wouldn’t you be?”
“What about Poesy? What are you going to do when you find her?”
“Kill her,” Kane said automatically.
Dean backed away, the small muscles in his jaw jumping. His hands drew into a knot at his chest.
“Then I might not be here,” he shouted over the music. “It’s her power that’s keeping me from unraveling. I don’t know if I can live without her, Kane. I don’t know if I’ll still exist.”
And Kane grasped, for the first time and with utter devastation, the price Dean was paying to help him. If Dean was truly reverie-born, if his existence was truly rooted in Poesy’s power, would he unravel with the rest of her creations when Kane took her down?
“But if you summoned the loom, you could command its power,” Dean offered. “You could create something. We could create something, and get far, far away from her. You wanted to, once, for me. You don’t have to kill her. You don’t have to destroy the loom.”
Couples bumped into Kane, who had gone still. Lasers combed the mist as the music jumped in his blood. He saw none of it, felt none of it. He was alone in his mind as Dean’s words recalibrated his entire world.
On the bridge, Dean had told Kane they used to talk about what they would create with the loom’s power. Kane had found this as innocent as any of his usual daydreams. But now the nature of Dean’s origin shifted the daydream into a dire focus. Derailed it completely. Dean had revealed their true motive for hunting the loom; not creation for creation’s sake, but creation as a means of sanctuary. Against Poesy’s remarkable power, Dean’s last resort was to use her own plan against her, and Kane had wanted the same. An eternal fantasy to hide away in, forever.
Kane felt the shadow of who he used to be drifting beneath the surface of Dean’s words, a faint reflection that was undeniably his. He was, as it turned out, more like Poesy than he wanted to admit. They both were.
“I don’t know what to do,” Kane said. “I don’t even know how to unravel this mess. Only Poesy is that strong.”
Dean found Kane’s hand, pressing something into it. Kane recognized the bite of cold metal.
“Poesy is strong because of the weapons she wields,” Dean said. “But you’re strong on your own. I’m scared to imagine what you could do with an arsenal like hers. But please, don’t kill her.”
Kane looked at what Dean had given him: Poesy’s bracelet of charms, torn from her arm by the Dreadmare’s jaws. The whistle. The teacup. The white key. The opal skull. The starfish. They were all there, waiting for him to light them up. As though recognizing its new commander, the bracelet slithered around Kane’s wrist and clasped itself.
The world grew loud and bright. The windows filled with sunlight as a blue ocean and a city rose toward them. The music was ending. They had arrived at their destination of resEarth. A destination that filled Kane with eerie familiarity. He had seen this same city once, from atop a ruined skyscraper.
Over the loudspeaker, a cheerful voice said, “Welcome to resEarth’s capital city of Everest. Please enjoy your stay!”
• Thirty-Six •
THE KEEP
The once empty city of Everest now overflowed with light and life. Crowds of people in futuristic, Victorian formality surged through the open markets. They lapped against the esplanade, waving bright handkerchiefs to the cerulean sea where the ships landed. Like ants, the tourists flowed over themselves as they climbed the hill at the city’s center. Atop it, balancing like an elaborate cake, was a drastically enhanced version of the château from Helena Beazley’s reverie.
The castle. The lair. The fortress. The keep.
Kane and Dean hid in its shadow.
“Sophia has been busy,” Dean said. “I’m amazed she’s able to keep this much in focus, and for so long.”
“I’m not,” Kane said. “She’s Sophia Montgomery. She’s good at everything.”
“Still, this can’t last. Either these reveries are going to start collapsing, or Sophia will. We better find her, quick.”
“And then what?” Kane said.
Dean didn’t dare say it, but Kane knew what happened then. The teacup hung from his wrist in charm form, darkly dreaming of crushing this entire world into something just as small and cute.
“If anyone is going to unravel this,” Kane told Dean, “it’s going to be me.”
A glare of light swept over the crowd. People clapped as a bird with wings of crystal crossed the sun. The owl, from Helena’s reverie, scanning for something.
Kane pulled Dean into a roofed market of barking vendors. They passed ladies in hoopskirts linking arms with other ladies in crystalline armor. A fleet of scaled children darted past their knees, chasing a small bird the color of fresh grapefruit. The air here was full of fluttering petals and the smell of frying bread. The joy of this place was palpable, but just beneath the surface Kane could still sense the remnant rage of his sister as she felt the final straw of Kane’s betrayals. If this reverie held the brightness and warmth of a dancing flame, it was because of the gnarled, black wick of anger smoldering at its core.