Mister Impossible (Dreamer Trilogy #2)(41)

“He looks strange,” Adam said. Then he seemed to realize this was rude, because he directed his next question at Matthew. “What’s wrong with you?”

“This is what happens when your life is tied to my brother’s,” Declan said. “God knows what he’s up to.”

Because the problem wasn’t truly with Matthew. He was like this because of a problem with his dreamer.

“Is he normally this bad?”

No. He wasn’t usually this bad unless …

Declan said, “Matthew. Matthew. Matthew.”

Matthew.

The wizard’s tower and the wizard’s tarot cards and the wizard himself were melting away. All of Matthew’s thoughts were melting away.

Wherever Ronan was, he was in deep trouble.





Hennessy always dreamt of the Lace.

Left to her own devices, it was always the Lace.

Nightwash and blood and a barn full of dead turkeys behind them, nightwash and blood and a night full of desperation before them, because Hennessy couldn’t dream of anything but the Lace.

The nearly invisible car burst through the night as Bryde tersely directed her down one road and then another and then another. Ronan was silent in the backseat. Every once in a while, she glanced over her shoulder to see if he’d died. Hard to tell. He was sprawled exactly as he had been thrown before. Dying people and dead people looked very similar.

“Maybe it’s too late,” she said.

Bryde’s voice was thin as wire. “I would know if it’s too late. Turn here.”

She wondered if she would feel sad if Ronan died. Angry. Something. Because right now she didn’t feel anything at all. She didn’t care where they were going. She didn’t care if he was dead when they got there. She didn’t care if Bryde lost patience with her and left her standing by the roadside. She didn’t care if Jordan was angry that she hadn’t called to let her know how things were. Nothing felt like it would be particularly good or bad, except for sleeping an empty sleep, free of the Lace, free of everything. Empty sleep forever, never waking up. Not death, because that would ruin Jordan’s life. Just endless empty pause. That would be good.

“Left, left,” Bryde said. “Hurry up. Stop over there. This will have to do.”

Hennessy didn’t feel much in the way of any ley energy, but she followed his directions. Burrito lumped down a dark, unpaved road that dead-ended at a small ridge overgrown with stringy, limp grass. The headlights glinted off water beyond it.

“Help me drag him,” Bryde said.

Ronan looked dreadful, awash with black, slumped in the backseat of the invisible car. It wasn’t the oozing nightwash that made him look bad, though. It was the slackness of his face. The stiffness. He already looked dead.

“What about his chicken?” Hennessy asked. His raven was a small pile of unmoving feathers.

“Leave her,” Bryde said. “Bring your mask.”

Her mask. She never wanted to see it again. “So it’s a Lace dream you’re after having?”

“We don’t have time for petulance,” Bryde said. He was more agitated than Hennessy had ever seen him. “Imagine you were lost in your Lace, and there was no one to find you, ever. That is where he is. Deep. We might not get him back, even if there’s enough ley power to reverse the nightwash. Do you understand? He won’t have any use for this body the way he is now. He just goes out and out and out, a ball of yarn thrown into space.”

“Still don’t get why you need me, mate.”

“He’ll be drawn to you more than to me.”

“That would be a first in the history of the world.”

Bryde snapped, “If he dies, this is the last time you’ll see him and then all of this was for nothing.”

Hennessy brought her mask.



Hennessy dreamt of the Lace.

She dreamt of the Lace, its checkered edge, its simmering hate, and then— She was climbing through the dark.

The Lace was gone. It was gone so thoroughly it was difficult to remember it had ever been there.

Instead there was the dark, and there was a full moon right above her, bigger than any moon she’d ever seen before. She couldn’t see its face but it seemed upset.

She was climbing.

It was too dark to see what she was climbing over, but she could feel rocks and stones sliding beneath her feet.

She was not alone.

She was aware of a companion making their way beside her, although she could not see them. She could hear their process, though, the scrabble and skitter of feet on the rocks. Her companion seemed lighter than her, different than her, although the sound might have been distorted by the hidden landscape. It seemed more like a body hopping and flapping, talons or claws finding purchase before lifting off. But it could not be a bird, she thought, because a bird would fly. Unless it was just suffering alongside her to be companionable, she thought. To appear more like her.

She didn’t know where they were going, apart from up, where it was a little lighter. She could see it, a suggestion of gray. Not dawn, but the promise of dawn, the best that dawn could do in the current situation.

Up. Up. Up they went and her legs were heavy, but it felt crucial to get out of the dark. It was getting lighter up ahead, she thought, light enough that she thought the sky might even have some pink to it. Light enough she thought she might see an edge to the bare rock they climbed.