False Hearts (False Hearts #1)(94)

We reach a break in the trees and a small clearing. The forest has shifted into an alien landscape. The sky is somehow night and day at the same time; shafts of sunlight-moonlight make the now silver bark of the dream redwoods shine, and the needles are turquoise and vermilion. Even the soil is tinged blue and purple. I listen for birds, but all is silent and still.

“I told the SFPD that they should use Kim to help me in my undercover op,” Nazarin continues. “She’s the reason I haven’t been caught and killed before now. She wants Ensi taken down just as much as I do. Maybe more. I loved Juliane, but my love can’t compare to Kim’s. Not even close.”

We’ve passed through the other side of the clearing, and the forest towers over us once again. I feel so small, so insignificant. It’s as if Nazarin and I are the only people in this Technicolor twilight world.

“Kim knew even if we got proof that it’d never be enough. She’s been developing that false tooth for a long time. Used us, in a way, I guess, though I can’t blame her. I would have done the same in a heartbeat.”

Like you used me. The unspoken words hover between us, almost a presence. I can’t really blame him, either. It was my choice, too.

My nerves are on edge. I keep waiting for the world to turn dark and ugly. For the mandrake demons to grow from the ground and reach for me, for the sky to burn, for Ensi to appear with a scalpel, pin me down and cut me open.

“So we should be able to manipulate this place? Even you, though you’re not a trained lucid dreamer?” I concentrate, and make a knife appear in my hand. It seems solid and I feel better holding it. It was far easier than when I was in Mia’s dream world, or even Alex Mantel’s.

I remember Kim telling me about the nanites after she’d fixed my tooth: This will hack into Ensi. Once you dose him, he’ll have little control over the dreamscapes he creates. When he goes in to take his pleasure and revenge against someone, he goes in deep, leaves nothing back. If he dies in one of his creations, he’ll be brain-dead.

It was supposed to be a long con. Eventually someone would realize they could affect the dreamscape, fight back and get rid of him for us. I doubt she expected him to go in so soon after he’d dosed, bringing us with him.

“What happens if we kill him while we’re still in here?” I ask.

“Kim never said.”

“Well, shit.”

“Yeah. Guess we’ll find out.”

I feel like something should have happened by now. The cyber forest is eerie, but not as frightening as Mia’s demons with the faces of people I grew up with. It’s such a strange echo of Mana’s Hearth.

I crane my head and peer through the branches up at the violet sky. Where is Ensi hiding? Does he know we’re here?

I start to recognize the tree formations. I grab Nazarin and lead him to the left, to the thin track through the forest that my sister and I have taken so many times. But the redwood forest I grew up with is merged with the dream forest of mercury-dipped trees and their vibrant needles.

I stop. There’s the hollowed-out tree that Taema and I used to go to when we wanted to get away from everything. Perfectly rendered in the code of this corrupted dream world. Where we went just after we found the tablet. Where we found out the world outside was vaster than we had ever dreamed.

There is a tiny pinprick of light in the middle of the darkness.

“We have to go inside,” I say, my voice small and far away.

Nazarin doesn’t question me. He follows me as I move closer, crouching on my hands and knees and crawling inside. Sure enough, it’s like Alice in Wonderland.

I take Nazarin’s hand and we fall down the rabbit hole together.

*

Ah. Here’s the nightmare.

The phosphorescent green fog is here, too, but this is a swamp rather than a forest. It is a re-creation of the barrier around the Hearth that no one was meant to cross. It smells of bilge water and sulfur, of decomposing plants and bodies.

In front of us is a boat. We step into it, and it begins to move. Things swim in the deep—creatures with white teeth, scales and long, slithering tails.

“It’s like we’re crossing the river Styx to the underworld,” I mutter.

“As long as there’s not a three-headed dog.” Nazarin is alert, watching for any threat. Unconsciously, I move a bit closer to him.

As the ship takes us through the swamp, large opalescent bubbles shimmer ahead of us, resting on the water. We’re heading straight for one, and there’s no way to steer. Nazarin wraps his arms around me, as if he could protect me if it was dangerous. I wrap my arms around him, just as tight. We slip through the barrier, and it feels greasy against my skin.

We’re in a memory.

Zeal and Verve. Dream worlds and heightened memories.

I’m no longer looking at the scene through my own eyes. Ensi is young, perhaps twelve years old. The memory is from his point of view. Like when we played the recording in Kim’s lounge, we can sense some of his experiences and emotions.

He’s in the Hearth. I recognize the view of the lake from the cabin window. He’s playing with a little girl, and it’s Mana-ma. They’re playing marbles, and Mana-ma’s tongue sticks out of the side of her mouth as she flicks one marble toward another. They hit each other with a click. “See?” she says. “You have to have a plan, to figure out the next move.”