“So is being a Tidecaller.”
Luce gasped with mock affront. “Are you suggesting I could have used my ancestor’s secret magic as a bargaining chip to save my own ass? Where’s your loyalty?”
My only loyalty’s to the four-eyed nerd currently studying with your ancestor, Kai thought with a wry smile. This, thankfully, he kept to himself.
“It’s funny,” Luce continued. “I have all this knowledge ofSong of the Drowned Gods, but I can’t say anything to Cornelius about it. And I have all these preconceived notions on what his life should look like, yet the reality is so much different. So much less…mythical. He’s powerful and magnetic, sure, but he’s just a man, after all. Makes me thinkSong of the Drowned Godsis nothing but a fictional story.”
“I thought you Veiled Atlas fanatics were supposed to believe Clover actually went through other worlds.”
“Who’s to say he still won’t? If his dreams are any indication, hehasseen these other worlds he’ll end up writing about one day. A verdant wood. An arid land full of beasts. A mountainous peak.” Her eyes sparked as she said, “If we manage to go through the door, we might just see them for ourselves.”
A thought crossed Kai’s mind. “You had a compass-watch of some kind that had the Veiled Atlas initials carved into it.”
“You know about that?”
“You left it with Emory, so yeah. What I don’t know is what it’s supposed to do.”
“Nothing. It’s broken, just a family heirloom that got passed down to me. I left it with Emory so that she’d have a piece of me to hold on to, should anything ever happen to me.”
Like going back in time and being absent from her daughter’s life for nineteen years.
“Well, it’s not exactly broken, just so you know,” Kai said. “It seems to work when you bring it into the sleepscape.”
Luce’s eyes were bright with stars. “I still can’t believe you’ve stepped into theactualrealm of dreams.”
“I imagine you will too, if you’re meant to leave the epilogue there for us to find.”
“What?”
Kai realized his blunder at Luce’s wide eyes. He and Baz hadn’t told her of the epilogue yet. Kai reached for the folded page in his pocket. He told her how he and Romie had found it in the sleepscape. “We believe you’re the one who put it there. Orwillput it there, I guess.” Though Kai supposed any one of them could be the one to leave it in the sleepscape while they were here in the past—if they found a way back through the Hourglass, that is.
Kai handed Luce the epilogue without thinking. She reached for it like it was a mythical thing, and it might as well have been—she had spent years trying to find it, sailing across the seas in search of it. And here it now was, in her hands, for the very first time.
Luce frowned as she reached the end of the epilogue, eyes glistening with some emotion Kai didn’t understand. “This Dreamer friend of yours… you told me she’s friends with my daughter?”
Kai nodded. “She and I searched for the epilogue together. We found we could go farther in the sleepscape together than alone.” A thought occurred to him. “I saw her and Emory in the sleepscape. I’ve been able to slip into Emory’s nightmares even though we’re worlds and centuries apart.”
The revelation didn’t seem to faze Luce in the slightest. “I experienced the same thing with Cornelius. When I was still in my time, I’d get glimpses of him in my dreams.”
“When I saw you and Thames in Clover’s nightmare, there werethese threads between you. Not between you and Thames—but tying both of you to Clover.” Like they were three points of an incomplete triangle, with Clover as the connecting tether. The same way it had been with him, Emory, and Romie. “I think there’s a connection between Tidecallers and us Dreamers and Nightmare Weavers. This sort of dream-bond that allows us to contact each other in sleep, no matter what limitations might hinder us.”
Luce looked him over, slow realization dawning. “If you can connect with Emory…”
“I could warn her. Tell her of this vision you and Clover saw. And you could come with me, if you’d like to meet her.”
Emotions seemed to war behind Luce’s eyes. At last, she said, “On one condition: you don’t tell her who I am.”
Kai thought that was ridiculous; she looked so much like Emory, there was no way she wouldn’t put the pieces together herself.
“Should we get Baz to come with us?” Luce asked, motioning to the door.
“Baz?”
“He’s close with Emory, isn’t he?”
“Yes… but he’s not a Dreamer.”
“Oh, I know that. Butmyspecialty is taking things into the sleepscape. I’ve been known to do a few buddy-sleeps in my time.”
