Kane dropped the pine cone into the bubbling river. It floated against the current and off into the gathering mist, leaving fragrant sap on his palm. He smelled the deep forest, and it reminded him of Dean.
But who was Dean?
“I think…” Kane reached after the unfathomable depth he had just glimpsed, where the forgotten behemoth of an entire life loomed behind this world’s candied veil. “I think I need to go,” he said, hardly breathing.
“Yes, I know. I’ve already told you that.” Maxine brushed smudges of steam into her depiction of the mill. This all seemed to be a big inconvenience for her.
“What about you?” Kane asked. “Are you going to go or stay?”
“Oh, I’ll be here.” Her pursed lips gave way to a hopeful smile. “I’m waiting for someone. I’m sure she’ll find her way here, eventually.”
Kane turned from Maxine and gave his back to the shore, and his sister upon it, and all the other figments that had gathered at the reverie’s edge to entrap him. He waded out into the gathering mist, off to the waking world beyond.
• Thirty-Nine •
UP AND ABOUT
Kane awoke in a kiss. He gasped, breathing the air right out of the other mouth as though inhaling back his life.
“There you are,” said Dean. His Dreadmare armor branched and bristled on his hips and shoulders, but his arms were as gentle around Kane as they’d been on the dance floor of the Starship Giulietta. One of his eyes flickered sea foam.
“You woke me up with a kiss?”
“No, you kissed me while I was trying to pull the crown off your head. It was very surprising.”
“Where is the crown now?”
“You’re still wearing it. It’s keeping us afloat.”
Kane realized they were, in fact, floating. He prodded the snug grip of the crown, and his fingers brushed through the incandescent light surging from his skin. Etherea soaked the air in neon twilight and rendered the two boys weightless. Light curled around them, protecting them, blurring out the chaos of the world collapsing below. Faintly, Kane could sense it all. Past their haven, Everest was a blitz of every reverie mashing together in hurricane-force pandemonium. Six worlds brawling for dominance as they each came undone, tangling tighter and tighter in their wild unmaking.
Kane tasted the violence and withdrew back into the light. He remembered the moments before Poesy forced the crown onto him now.
“Where is she?” he asked, panicking.
“Far below. Ursula and Elliot are distracting her, for now. I was the only one who could reach you.”
“I’m the loom.” Kane whispered it like the confession it was. “It’s all my fault. The reveries. Poesy targeting my sister so she could use me. I figured it out once, and that’s why I told Adeline to destroy me. Because I am the loom.”
Dean considered this, careful and loving. He exhaled, and it played in the tight hollow between them.
“And what will you do this time?”
Kane’s vision blurred with tears. “I don’t know. I ruined everything by coming back here. It all went according to Poesy’s plan.”
Dean ducked down to catch Kane’s eye. Kane still had on his backpack, and Dean curled his fingers under the straps so he could give him a little shake.
“Not all of it.”
“What?”
Dean traced infinity symbols through Kane’s shirt, onto his skin. “Poesy gave you a crown that focuses your power, a plan that only works if you’re under her control. But you’re awake now. You’re still lucid.”
“But Poesy said I wouldn’t wake up.”
Dean shrugged. “It doesn’t matter what Poesy says. This isn’t her reverie. At least not yet. A part of this world still belongs to your sister, and I’m sure in no way does Sophia’s reverie allow the twist of your loss.”
Kane’s heart felt cramped yet powerful, as though a second heart beat within it. Out there, among the chaos, he could hear a solemn ringing. A hope, as clear as bells and as bright as lightning. His sister’s grace and strength. She was still fused to the fibers of this collapsing world, still alive and defending him. Even after he’d tried to hurt her.
Kane gave himself fully to his tears, but then remembered one by one the strengths of the people who had fought for him. He couldn’t return their sacrifices with only tears. He had to show them he had always been worth it.
“Where is Sophia?” he asked Dean.
“Below, somewhere. She and Poesy are vying for control of the reveries. Your sister must be very strong to have lasted this long.”
“And Adeline?”
“With Poesy. We need to help her and the Others. Adeline is…fading.”
Kane’s breath caught. The last time he’d seen Adeline, her body was broken. How long could a person last like that?
“Listen,” Dean said, focusing Kane. “If you have the chance to kill Poesy, you have to take it. I have lived my lives in worlds built by the pain and misery of other people. Poesy has a dream, and even if it is a lovely one, it is only hers. You can’t let her make it come true for everyone. You have to stop her.”
“But what about—”
“You have to stop her.”
Dean held Kane in his stare. Dean, the mystery personified, the paradox made man. Kane could see clearly how Dean might have been his whole world once upon a time. He thought maybe if they survived this, they could build something better after all. Kane hugged him tight. There was the scent of ash and sweat, and there beneath his armor, his cologne. Pine, or something close. Kane kissed him—their lips brushing only long enough for Kane to feel his breath pulled up from his lungs—and then it was time to make his choice.
Evade? Or interfere?
“I have an idea.”
Kane told Dean, and between the two of them, his idea formed into a plan. Dean gave him a stoic salute, then teleported away.
Alone in his nebula, Kane had space to breathe. He observed the unraveling world. Planets exploding and stars falling. Horizons fracturing and oceans boiling. Earth breaking and air rending. The city of Everest, rocked by its slow demolition, peeling apart in drowsy chunks as big as mountains.
Kane was small within the chaos. A simple pinprick of glittering defiance, all the way at the top of a busy, senseless oblivion. It was scary as hell, but there wasn’t any room left in him for fear. All his worst nightmares had come true, one after another, yet here was he was—exhausted and scared, yes—but alive. Hopeful. He had survived, and he would keep surviving.