“There,” I said, kneeling beside him. “Doesn’t it feel good to use your body?”
He lay panting on the cement for long enough that I grew worried, before replying: “No.”
“Come on.” I pulled him to his feet, and let him lean on me for a moment, before drawing him forward. “Over here. I promise it’s worth it.”
Merulo glanced around the rooftop with a level of concern that I wasn’t used to. “It’s collapsed!”
“Only partially.”
“Only partially. . . Cameron, when we tell you not to wander, it’s not out of cruelty. It’s because—ouch!”
I swirled, my heart in my throat, to see the sorcerer hopping on one foot. No obvious blood or gore surrounded him, though I did see a protruding crevice where one might stub a toe. “You alright there?”
Merulo’s face flushed, his mouth twisting into innovative shapes. “Remember who you are speaking to. I am the sorcerer Merulo, who has defeated armies, held kingdoms at bay, and . . . oh, fuck it.” Perhaps it was my polite nodding along, but his outthrust chest had deflated, his posture drooping. “Just get on with it.”
An empty doorway led down a flight of stairs. At one point it had contained a door, but a jammed one that had given way to a couple of moderate-strength kicks. “The ground-level entrance was blocked,” I said apologetically, as Merulo narrowed his eyes at me.
Judging by his breathing, descending the stairs took less toll on him than the ladder. My excitement grew as we neared the room, until I was practically skipping.
“If this were anyone else, I’d think I was being led into a trap,” said the sorcerer wearily.
I beamed at him, opening the rusted door and pretending not to notice how it came off in my hands. As Merulo stalked past, I balanced the now-detached door against a wall, and followed.
A plush black carpet covered the floor, decorated with an eye-burning pattern of stars and whirls. Defunct machines crowded the walls, rectangular booths where plush seats faced dead screens. And ahead—
“Look!” I pointed at it, all but hopping. “It’s you!”
A dragon reared across the wall, black scales gleaming in the light of the fire shooting from its jaws. Granted, it had thewrong number of limbs (the overly generous artist had given it arms, legs, AND wings), and its snout lacked the beakish angularity of Merulo’s. Across from it, a unicorn reared, its horn angled to plunge into the dragon’s throat. I’d thought about covering that bit up before bringing Merulo, but decided there was no need. The painted dragon wouldclearlywin.
I had shifted some of the boxy relics so more of the dragon was visible. It helped that the partially collapsed roof and walls allowed in a wash of light—though I disliked how it highlighted the unicorn.
“I thought everything here was supposed to be nautically themed,” Merulo said, somehow managing to complain. But his eyes were fixed on the mural. “Is that what I look like?”
“Yes! Only, your horns are much longer. And . . .” I struggled to think of ways in which he compared favourably. “You have a more elegant neck.”
The sorcerer surprised me by laughing. “An elegant neck?”
“Yes, like a swan! Or like me, when I was a vulture.”
“Cameron . . .” The sorcerer looked pained. “You did not have an elegant neck.”
“Anyways. Point is”—I gestured at the walls, which also depicted a shining knight, and a geezer in a pointed hat shooting magic from his fingers—“this is pre-Descent, isn’t it? These people were dreaming about our world in the same way that you’ve been dreaming about theirs.”
“Cameron.”
“I’m not being manipulative,” I lied. “It’s just . . . if you reframe your thinking, we’re already living in someone’s ideal version of reality. So instead of changing it all, perhaps you could just . . . change how you perceive it?”
The sorcerer approached the mural with something like reverence. He placed a hand against the faded paint. “Your thoughts, when you manage to summon them, are not entirely insensible.”
“So then . . . ?” I’d been holding myself with more tension than I realized; as black spots entered my vision, I reminded myself to breathe.
His spidery fingers crept along a wing, following the flare of leather. “They dreamed of dragons. And then they starved here, in this ruin.”
“I mean, you could look at it that way—”
“And I do.”
“So that’s it, then.” A portion of roof lay on the carpet. I sat on it heavily, my head in my hands. When I’d spotted the mural in passing through a broken wall, the idea had come to me like divine providence. Now, the thought it ever could have worked seemed ridiculous.
