Something in Romie snapped.
She’d known this was what Atheia had planned, but seeing it… Romie realized fully then just how far she’d been swept away by her need for a cause, this need to justify her actions. Because if all this time she’d been following the call of a destiny that was so verywrong, the song of a goddess who wasn’tgood, then what did that make Romie?
She had searched for validation in Atheia’s promises. Had made excuses for all the things she’d had a hard time agreeing with. She’d let the splinter of fear and resentment she’d felt as a young girl turn into a blade twisting into her wounds by her own hands.
And now she was watching her best friend get hurt. She heardthe screams of Eclipse-born who were being similarly tortured into giving up their blood and screamed right back in her own mind, raging against Atheia, against herself. Maybe it wouldn’t have changed anything if she’d come to her senses sooner; she was, after all, trapped in her own body, powerless to stop the deity using her as a vessel. But maybe it would have. Maybe she could have prevented some of this if only she’d realized sooner how wrong it was.
Romie had always thought she could do everything on her own. Finding the epilogue. Following the song to Dovermere. Sacrificing herself to be Atheia’s vessel.
Rosemarie Brysden never asks for help, does she?The accusation Emory had flung at her not so long ago resonated inside her mind, stinging of regret. How right she’d been to say those words. How wrong Romie was to have kept thinking she could do it all alone.
She needed help now more than ever. Not for herself—surely she was a lost cause, forever to remain Atheia’s vessel. But she needed to help Emory and all the other Eclipse-born here. She needed to stop Atheia from taking their power.
And she needed a way for Atheianotto know what she was planning.
The idea came to her, naturally, in a dream.
Every chance she got, she found Emory’s consciousness in sleep. Her best friend’s dreams were nightmares, darkness pressing in so thick it threatened to consume Romie. Something she found herself considering for a split second, wondering if it might rid her of Atheia somehow. If she made herself become an eternal sleeper, if she doomed her body to a catatonic state, would it affect the deity, too?
The answer didn’t matter. She had to stay strong for the others.
And so Romie stayed as long as the darkness would let her. Shetried her hardest to turn the nightmares into dreams. Something she’d never thought possible, but as she imagined seagulls and the lapping of waves, laughter in dorm rooms and long talks late into the night, the scenes shifted. Took on the shape of what Romie visualized. They were shared memories between her and Emory, scenes that had shaped their youth. It was almost like Romie was drawing on Memorist magic—something that might be possible with Atheia’s power coursing through her—so that it melded with her own Dreamer magic. Chasing away the nightmares with pleasant memories pulled from Emory’s subconscious.
I’m here,Romie thought, hoping it would bring Emory comfort.I’m here, and I won’t let you down this time.
One time, there was a figure hiding at the edge of the dream, cloaked in shadows so Romie couldn’t see his face. His presence was a comfort, and as he drew away the darkness from the nightmare, she knew it had to be Kai.
“I need your help,” Romie called out to him.
And here they were, a girl of dreams and boy of nightmares convening on the path of stars. An idea became a concrete plan, and the feeble hope Romie had been clinging to grew and grew.
There was a way out. Not for her, never for her, but for those she loved, there was hope.
Before Atheia could wake, Romie slipped into Nisha’s dreaming, if only to see her one last time. It was a beautifully familiar scene—the old greenhouse where they’d first let their romance flourish among the plants they’d tended to. They were lying on a blanket Romie had brought, staring up at the windowpanes above them as bright sunlight filtered through.
Nisha held Romie’s hand, their fingers interlaced above their heads, dancing through the sun rays. “I remember this day,” Nisha said. “I’d been meaning to tell you I thought I was falling in love with you.”
“Why didn’t you?” Romie asked, a lump forming in her throat.
“You started talking about Dovermere, the initiation ritual. I could see how much it consumed you, and I was so scared to lose you.” Nisha turned her head to peer at Romie. “Would you have said it back, if I told you then?”
Romie let the question wash over her. She wanted to say yes. Wanted to tell Nisha that she had felt the same way—had always felt the same way—and would have said she loved her back without any hesitation.
But that would have been a lie.
The Romie she’d been back then had already been so obsessed with Dovermere and doors and dreams, had already been pushing everyone she loved away. Hearing those words would have done nothing but scare her into running away from reality sooner than she had.
But she couldn’t bring herself to tell Nisha the truth and ruin this sun-dappled dream. Instead, Romie swept a hand over Nisha’s cheek. “Say it to me once we wake, and I’ll tell you my heart belongs to you and always will.”
She only wished they’d gotten more time together. That she’d gotten to tell her in person, in waking, every day for the rest of their lives. They’d never have that now.
Nisha kissed her, the barest brush of lips. The warmth of the sun on her skin, the lingering sweetness of that kiss… it was enough for Romie to want to stay here forever. But she pulled away from the dream, and hoped Nisha would remember this goodbye when she woke.
49KAI
KAI WOULD HAVE LIKED TOimagine that being pulled from the abyss would be like emerging from the longest of nightmares—that being back in his own world again, in his own time, with people he knew to be true and trustworthy, would make it easier to distinguish what was real from what was not.
Unfortunately for him, the world was quite literally being devoured by the sleepscape, and if he hadn’t known about the realms being merged, he would have taken one look at all the strange beasts and people who seemed plucked from storybooks and assumed they were all trapped together in someone’s truly fucked-up hallucinogenic dream.
