In general, our bodies like sleep. It’s a chance to repair the damage we inflict on them, both major and minor. That’s part of the reason they make us feel so miserable when we try to wake up too early.

    “Ugh, what hit me?” I grumbled as I forced myself awake on Earth Glass. The world wasn’t happy about that but I’d badgered it long enough that it didn’t feel the need to shatter at the thought of me being conscious so soon after a head wound.

    Where the world was willing to let things slide though, my body had some very different ideas about the notion of me being awake. Or moving in the slightest. For as bad as it was though, I noticed that the pain was less than it should have been. The ‘Amazing Jin’ was tough but what I was feeling had to indicate that someone had given me some kind of drugs. Probably to get me to wake up sooner than later given the results.

    “A high caliber sniper round. Though only barely it seems.” a man said, answering my question in a faintly accented voice.

    I opened my eyes, blinking against the harsh light that was shining down from above me. I was in a tiled room with various tables and trays containing medical instruments. I was laying on a table in the center of the room, which was a good sign. It confirmed my suspicion that someone had been working to keep me alive. I was also strapped down to the table. That was a less positive sign.

    I began testing the straps and was immediately reminded that I’d been shot in the shoulder as well as the head and neither injury was anywhere near healed yet. Both injuries seemed to have been patched up to some degree though. The head wound was just a nasty scrape and a ridiculously painful headache but the shoulder had taken real damage and was bandaged up considerably.

    “Where am I?” I asked, though I had a pretty good guess based on the enemies I’d been making a few hours ago. I had to be in the hands of an enemy too. If Way or Kari had rescued me, they wouldn’t have tied me down.

    “In a medical lab, Miss…?” the man asked, prompting me to supply my name. He was standing at the top of the table so I tried to twist my head to try to see him. I didn’t have any luck there though. They’d strapped my head down to the table too.

    “You can call me Jin.” I said and continued lightly testing the straps that were holding me down.

    “Ah yes, ‘The Amazing Jin’ isn’t it? I saw your tryout at the Chimera Club last night.” the man said.

    “You missed the best parts of the act then.” I told him.

    “So I can imagine. Tell me though, why would a talented performer such as yourself be involved with the Scribes.” the man asked. There was an edge in his voice when he said ‘Scribes’ that told me it was the name of a particular group and that they were his enemy in some fashion.

    “And the Scribes would be?” I asked, having never heard of them.

    “Claiming ignorance? After you were shot in the company of one? That is not a wise move at this juncture.” he said. That meant the Scribes were either related to “Boss” Stone, or to the Night Warder and of the two, the mystery woman with the secret identity seemed like the safer bet. “Scribe” just didn’t seem to be a description you’d use for an organization a gangster was in.

    “I’ve been shot twice tonight. What part of that would lead you to believe that I’m wise?” I asked.

    “The part where two such injuries should incline you towards avoiding a third.” he answered. The irritation in his voice was at least partially due to sleep deprivation if I guessed right. That put a smile on my face. It was nice to see the bad guys were having as tough a night as I was.

    “If you were going to shoot me, I’d be laying dead in a gutter somewhere and you’d have a far worse problem on your hands.” I said. A far worse problem in the form of Way and Kari, but he didn’t need to be aware of that just yet.

    “Tell me, do you believe a rescue is coming? That we have taken you to one of the six venues which your fellow Scribes are aware of? Perhaps you’re counting on them arriving in the nick of time to rescue you from the Dragon’s teeth?” the man asked. He’d started pacing as he was talking, distracted by his aggravation.

    Pieces continued to fall into place. The Brotherhood of the Dragon had been after Way and I since the show at the Chimera Club. They’d shot up our private investigator’s office, burned down our apartment and the Chimera Club and I was reasonably sure they were the ones who’d shot up Guy McIntyre’s penthouse suite too.

    That was a lot of mayhem in a short time, so something had to be motivating them pretty strongly. The presence of a rival secret society might go a long way towards supplying that motivation.

    They thought Way and I had stolen some files from them, or at least knew where the files were. That meant our private investigator, Detective Shurman, was probably the one who’d found the files. The chance that we would know what was important in a random set of documents seemed pretty low though, or at least not enough to justify the efforts they were making to reclaim them. If they thought we were members of a secret society they were at war with however, they would have to assume that we would know exactly how to use hidden data to hurt them badly.

    The one piece of the puzzle that eluded me was how they’d gotten wrapped up in this in the first place. Then I saw who was interrogating me.

    “To be honest, I’m really hoping no one shows up to save me, Mr Smythe. Or should I call you Cranston?” I asked. He’d walked a little too far around me, so that I was able to get a glimpse at him. The last of the “Big 3” players in the fateweaving.

    Together with Guy McIntyre and Eddie Stone, Cranston Smythe had been at the center of the redevelopment deal that Kari had picked as the focal point of her fateweaving.  The deal had been a chance for the city to revitalize itself by rebuilding the worst of its neighborhoods into a center of industry. It had also been a chance for the people involved to gain a lot of very subtle power over the city’s future.

    “You recognize me do you?” he asked, his tone a little too smooth to cover his surprise.

    “Enough to know that you don’t plan to let me out of this operating room alive.” I told him.

    “You are very perceptive, but we neither need nor wish to kill you. Covering up a dead body which people are sure to look for is too much work. If you work with us we will only need to erase your memories to ensure you are not a threat to our cause.” he explained.

    “And if I resist.” I asked.

    “You cannot resist us. The formula I have developed will weaken your will. If you try to fight the chemicals I shall administer more as needed. Eventually you will talk but if you force me to administer too much then your mind will melt under the strain once you’ve told us everything we desire to know.” Smythe said.

    “Doesn’t sound pleasant.” I admitted. “ The truth is I don’t know the answers to your question, but I get that you’re not capable of believing that yet. Unfortunately by the time you are, we’re going to be having a much different sort of conversation.”

    Due to who and what I was, my mind wasn’t tied to my body in this world. So Smythe’s threat carried less weight than it would have for anyone else in my position.  That said though if the body I was using had a scrambled brain I’d be viewing the world through a distorted lens for as long as I inhabited it.

    “You won’t be capable of conversation at all if you insist on the charade of ignorance.” Smythe informed me. I sighed. I didn’t want to have the sort of conversation that started with him trying to fry my brain with chemicals. Those kind of discussions tended to end with pieces missing from the world I was in and a few extra demerits going on my official record.

    “I could try to talk you out of this. I could even try to convert you away from the life that you’ve chosen. Do you think I should bother with that Mr Smythe?” I asked, vainly hoping for a simpler resolution to our discussion.

    “I think you should look to your own future. You have some few minutes left before my assistant is finished preparing the truth formula. If you tell me what I need to know before he arrives, I will need to administer only the smallest of doses, just enough to remove your memories of the last several days.” he said.

    “Tell me what you want to know then.” I said. Diplomacy can be a deadly weapon but it does have limitations, many of which involve an inability to talk sense into the senseless. Very talented individuals can manage that but despite four years of training, I’m still too much of a novice at it to manage that particular form of magic. Especially when I don’t have my enhanced awareness to draw on for clues as to what secrets the other party is hiding.

    “The location of the files which were stolen from us.” he said.

    “Would those be the ones with the membership roster for the Brotherhood or are you looking for the other files?” I asked. I had no idea what was in the files the Detective Shurman had purloined, but since my actual ignorance wasn’t going to get me anywhere I had to settle for playing on Smythe’s paranoia.

    “You don’t have our membership roster.” Smythe said, his tone indicating that his patience was wearing thin.

    “That’s true, at the moment I do not have your membership roster.” I said, playing for time. One of the key parts of a secret society is that it needs to stay a secret. If Smythe didn’t think we could blow the secrecy of the Brotherhood by revealing its members I was at a loss for what was driving them to recover the documents.

    “You have no idea what is in the files you stole. Don’t think your fellow Scribes will be able to decode them either. No one outside the Brotherhood knows the cipher they were written in.” he said.

    “Are you sure about that?” I asked him. “Shurman knew they were important enough to take. He knew they were important enough to die for. Do you imagine he would have been willing to do that for a bunch of random scribbles?”

    “That won’t work Ms. Jin. We reclaimed the decoding tablet from his body. We know he didn’t pass that on.” Smythe said.

    That caught my attention. There weren’t a lot of things a secret society would encrypt in an “unbreakable” cypher apart from their membership list. Bank account information and financial holdings were matters of public record. You obfuscate those by establishing them in the name of fictional companies or individuals. Blackmail requires proof, pictures, letters, or other artifacts that can support the blackmailer’s accusations. Apart from those, I only knew of one other thing that secret societies tended to value.

    “He passed on enough to us to make out the general details of the ceremony, the time, location and participants. How about I tell you where the files are after you tell me where you’re keeping the sacrifices?” I was taking an enormous gamble on little more than a guess, but it was an informed guess.

    Groups of all kinds establish bonds between their members by making them take part in shared rituals. In the case of a secret society of murders and arsonists, those rituals had to ensure that everyone in the society was on board with the actions the society took. Most people aren’t monsters inside, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be convinced otherwise. A little alcohol, a charismatic figure to respect, the offer of power. Put those together, add some peer pressure  and people can wind up believing all sorts of insane things about themselves.

    That sort of belief is short lived though. Outside of the context of the ritual, the participants can wake up the next day and remember who they are. That’s why the sacrifices are needed. A society like the Brotherhood of the Dragon needs to make sure that its members don’t try to cross back over the line they’ve stepped beyond. It needs them to stay as the monsters it wants them to be, and making them do something irrevocably wrong is the easiest path towards accomplishing that.

    Looking into Cranston Smythe’s eyes I could see the haunted panic that my wild guess sparked. The Brotherhood believed they were powerful enough to get away with their crimes, but in their heart each one knew, on some level, how vulnerable they were. It was their anonymity that protected them from the consequences of their actions, more so than any other power they wielded.

    I smiled a malicious, knowing grin at him and held his gaze. He desperately wanted to believe I was bluffing. He needed to see me flinch and reveal that I was lying about knowing what he was and what the Brotherhood was up to. Underneath all that though, he was afraid. Down at it’s darkest roots, icy veins of terror reached up to grip his heart in a deadly claw of despair.

    I wasn’t a threat to him. I was strapped to a table and wounded, but I wasn’t afraid. That meant I still had secrets. I couldn’t harm him, but I obviously knew someone who could, and based on what I said, they had the information required to do it.

    “I see it is pointless offering you mercy. We shall apply the formula at once.” Smythe snarled as he stomped out of the room and ran down the hall outside it.

    “Finally!” I breathed in relief. With my audience gone, it was at last time to start working my magic!

    “Unlikely allies” sums up most of the people I know. From my brother James, the honest-to-Greek-gods super powered hero, to Kari, the former tavern maid turned reality manipulator, to Way, the girl who managed to do the impossible in a realm where everything is possible. Together, with them and others, I’ve handled a lot of problem in the last four years. One thing that’s shown me is that assuming the people on the other side of a conflict are “the bad guys” can be a terrible mistake.

    People are complex and, while there are definitely “bad guys” out there, people who are driven by humiliating, violating or destroying others, they make up a much smaller minority than it looks like at first glance. The truth is, most conflicts come about because people are broken. Not “other people”. Not “the guys who are on the other side of the battle from us”. People, meaning all of us, myself definitely included.

    The other thing that leads to conflict is a lack of imagination. It’s so easy to look at situations as being an “either/or”. Either I win or you do. Either I’m right or you are. Often though, those are both lies. I win the game and you lose, so you stop playing and now I have no one to play with, so I lose as well. Even with something as straight forward as that, there’s a third option, one where the game is balanced so that whoever wins, both of us have enough fun playing the game that we want to come back and try again.

    People change as well and yesterday’s enemy can become tomorrow’s friend with just a small change in perspective sometimes.

    “I see they managed to escape.” RG said, as he landed on my shoulder in his black bird form.

    “From the castle at least.” I said.

    “Which they seem to have destroyed in the process.” RG noted.

    “That was me actually.” I said.

    “Didn’t want the little girl setting up house there?” he asked.

    “Or worrying about the corners of it she didn’t have a chance to explore.” I said.

    “It’s a shame, I rather liked that place.”

    “You did some nice work setting it up.” I admitted.

    “I’ve thought about your offer.” RG said.

    “Not to your liking I take it?”

    “Quite the contrary. That is if you would be amenable to a slight modification.” he said.

    I blinked and turned to look at him in surprise.

    “What modification do you have in mind?” I asked warily. By offering to bind himself to me as a vassal, RG was offering to give up a lot of his potential power. Left on his own he could be the equivalent of a god in a world of his own making. Under my rule he’d be no more than “The Queen’s Steward” effectively.

    “I’d like to make a new realm.” he said.

    “Ok, but why would you be willing to swear yourself to me for that?” I asked.

    “Because I can only make them around rifts such of the one that the little girl guarded. And I need someone inside the world to notice me and suggest a form that I can take. Otherwise any realm I create just bubbles away as soon as I take my attention away from it.” he explained.

    “So you would like me to open another rift for you to work with?” I asked.

    “Or find an existing one.” he said.

    “I’d put the same restrictions on the new realm that I’ve placed on Bedlam though.” I warned him.

    “I presumed as much.” he said.

    “Then why wouldn’t you want Bedlam back?”

    “Because I don’t want to be the Monster-under-the-bed anymore and that’s whose home Bedlam is to me.” he said.

    I paused and considered that. I knew that he’d wanted to trade a secret to me and that the secret was the reason for Bedlam’s appearance as a nightmare realm. It looked scary and creepy because Peri had believed that a rift under her bed would lead to a scary and creepy place. That had apparently also shaped the identity that RG had been required to take on.

    “If that’s what you want then I can agree to it. I’ll find you a new home if you’ll work for me there.” I said.

    “I’ll want some say over the home in question. You are, at the moment, a Wicked Queen. I’d rather not build a realm around a refuse pit for example.” RG said.

    “Yes, you’ll have full veto power.” I agreed.

    “Then I believe we have an arrangement.”

    “Excellent!” I said, and then ate him.

    It was a perfectly wicked thing to do, so it fit in well with Bedlam’s overall milieu, but it was far from as cruel as it appeared.

    In swallowing RG, I gave him a little temporary world within the cosmos of my dreams. It was his to fill as he wished and nestled in my dreams he would be safe from all external harm.

    “I hope you’ll find the accommodations comfortable.” I told him. “Feel free to wander, although I recommend staying within the confines of that dream. I keep other things in there which are a bit unpleasant.”

    ‘Waste not, want not’ was kind of my motto when it came to dealing with deadly terrors and eldritch horrors.

    I turned my attention back to Peri and noticed that she and Belle were talking to a tiny seed man who stood on Peri’s palm.

    “Really, I didn’t need that body anymore, anyways.” the seed man said. He looked like a green tear drop the size of my thumb with a pair of arms and legs. At the top of the tear drop shape were the seed man’s eyes and mouth. There was something about them that looked familiar enough that I didn’t even need meta-awareness to tell me who he was.

    “But, you’re not Mr. Stumpy anymore!” Peri said, pouting.

    “Bah, who wants to be Stumpy, when I can BLOOM AGAIN!” the little seed shouted.

    “He will be able to fit through the rift better like this.” Belle pointed out. She was still in her large form and Peri was still on her back. I looked around for Stumpy’s tree body and noticed that it had fallen down into the Sky Moat after Stumpy had regrown himself as the seed man.

    “Oh yeah, how are we gonna get back?” Peri asked, looking around for RG and seeing only open sky and the clouds below on one side and the collapsed castle on the other.

    “I’ll carry you.” Belle said.

    “It’s a long way though.” Peri objected.

    “Then rest on my back and I’ll go carefully.” Belle said.

    “But I’m not tired.” Belle said, and then yawned.

    Ten seconds later she was snoozing away like someone had flipped a light switch.

    “A sleep spell?” I asked Belle as I appeared beside her.

    “A little one. It is supposed to be nap time for her.” Belle said.

    “Would you like to take her back then? I left your barrier in place at the rift.” I said.

    “Certainly. What should I tell your mother?” Belle asked.

    “I’ll be along in a minute. I just want to wrap up this realm and close the rift once you’re back.” I told her.

    “I’ll see you at your home then!” Belle said and like the wind she was gone.

    I waited until I felt her bring Peri and “Seedly” through the rift back to my world and then turned to my new realm.

    I was half tempted to leave it as was, but that could lead to all manner of issues later on. For safety sake, I swallowed Bedlam too, incorporating it into the same cosmos of dreams that RG’s bubble of a world floated in. Once it was safely tucked away, I touched the rift between the Dreamlit world and my home Earth. As I’d expected, it was my fault. That meant it was also my job to stay and hold the rift closed otherwise it would continue to expand and eventually let something through that was a whole lot less pleasant than RG.

    Pulling a single hair from my head, I conjured a needle and stitched the two sides together. I had to hold the rift closed, but it only took a little bit of me to do that. In time, if it couldn’t expand, the wound in the world would heal and vanish on its own. Until then I wasn’t going to miss the strand of hair I’d left behind.

    With that problem taken care of I was free to return home and face the challenge of explaining what had gone on to my mother. Surprisingly when I stepped back into my room, the house was quiet. Not eerily quiet, just regularly quiet. I tip toed over to Peri’s room to find her fast asleep in her bed with Belle in puppy form curled up at the foot of her bed.

    I actually had Ninja training (you pick up a lot of weird skills as a Dreamlord) so sneaking out of Peri’s room without waking her was a breeze. I was almost good enough to do it without Belle noticing but before I got the door closed I noticed one little puppy dog eye open and regard me me casually before closing again to get back to nap time.

    I expected my Mom to still be working in the kitchen but when I got there the cake was cooling on the counter and she was nowhere to be seen. I poked around inside looking for her only to discover a surprise waiting for me.

    Way was sleeping on the couch in the living room.

    Part of me felt a rush of relief at seeing her. Another part of me nearly jumped out of my skin at being “caught”. Both reactions were kind of stupid, and I knew it, but like everyone else, I’m kind of stupid sometimes.

    I thought of Peri in Bedlam. I thought of the fierce courage she’d shown and how it had seen her through. She was going to be just fine now thanks to confronting her fears. As I crept out to the garden I thought how unfair it was that she’d gotten all of Mom’s courage genes.

    “Oh, you’re back!” my Mom said as I wandered towards the shed that she was planting something near. She wasn’t looking at me, and I was pretty sure I hadn’t been making much noise. On the other hand trying to sneak up on Mother Nature in her own garden was a losing bet on the best of days, so I wasn’t too surprised.

    “Yep! Peri is too, though I’m guessing you noticed that.” I said.

    “I did. She was sleeping though. Is she ok?” Mom asked.

    “Completely so. You should have seen her. I was barely able to keep up with her over there!” I said, feeling a weird pride at how tough my little sister had proven to be.

    My mother breathed a sigh of relief.

    “She looked ok, and your friend Belle said she’d made it out without getting hurt, but I remembered what you had said.” my Mom said.

    “I don’t think she’s in any danger of latching onto Bedlam. She got what she wanted out it. She’ll move on to other obsessions from here.” I smiled at the thought of Peri’s single minded focus and it’s mercurialness. She was almost like a tiny fairy in that sense.

    “Which, I gather, now includes ‘her puppy’?” Mom asked.

    “I know you and Dad didn’t want to get her one, but she really worked to ‘save’ Belle in there. And, you know,on the upside it’s not like Belle needs to be house broken or anything.” I said.

    “Is she safe?” Mom asked.

    “Not in the slightest. For anyone who tries to mess with Peri that is. As a guardian for my little sister there’s maybe a handful of people I can think of who would be stronger defenders and that list includes you, me and James.” I said.

    “She’s polite too.” Mom said.

    “Yeah. She’s actually Way’s familiar so there’s some similarity there.” I said.

    “Will Way mind if Belle is looking after Peri?”

    “I don’t think so. Belle was looking after me for a while since Way’s so well defended it was boring protecting her.” I said.

    “She’s here you know.” my Mom said.

    “Yeah, I saw her sleeping on the couch. When did she get here?” I admitted.

    “About an hour after you went looking for Peri.”

    “Was she ok?” I asked. An hour was a lot sooner than I’d expected her to come looking for me.

    “She said she was. She also said something about missing capturing an assassin though. She wanted to talk with you about it.”

    “What did you tell her?” I asked.

    “Not too much. We talked for a little bit and then she needed to get back to the other world. I’m sure she’ll tell you about it later.”

    I’d wondered sometimes where the evil wicked streak in me had come from. Seeing my mother’s intentionally mysterious smile, I no longer had any doubts.

    “She wanted to head back to her home but I offered to let her sleep here. The boys won’t be back till around 6:00, so things should be quiet till then. I’ll move her upstairs if you two aren’t awake for dinner.” Mom said.

    “Thanks. I should get back there. I think there’s been enough time that I can nudge the world into letting me wake up.” I said.

    “I’m just going to finish off this planting and I’ll be back inside.” Mom said.

    “What is it that you’re planting?” I asked.

    “Oh, just a chatty little seed your sister was carrying. He’s sleeping now while he waits to grow. It shouldn’t take too long I would think.” she said.

    I paused at that. Usually when objects (or people) from the Dreamlit world are brought into the real world, they become more real. In Stumpy’s case (or I suppose it was more correct to call him “Seedly”) I’d expected that would mean he’d become a normal seed and that his spirit would become something like a dryad, a magical creature who watched over the world on one of the nearby mystical planes.

    Instead it seemed like we were due to have a walking, talking tree in our garden at some point. One I hadn’t put any particular limits on. Shrugging, I turned and headed inside. There would no doubt be all sorts of trouble that Seedly would get into but sometimes you need to let the seeds of adventure for another day bloom in their own time.

    There are all kinds of courage because there are all kinds of fear. The courage to face pain, the courage to press on in the face of loss, the courage to believe that we can make a difference. Being afraid isn’t a sign that we lack courage. None of us are fearless in all situations, there’s always something that can hurt us, at least until the day we die. We can be courageous and afraid at the same time, we just need to be able to chose what we do, rather than letting our fears chose for us.

    “The Castle of Final Peril.” RG announced as the he set down in front of the ruin of the castle’s front gate.

    “This place looks even less friendly up close.” Stumpy said. I’d tinkered with it a bit as they’d flown closer. I’d cleaned up the bodies of RG’s force, dissolving them back into the essence of the realm they’d been pulled from. For the castle though I’d left the damage that I’d done in place and augmented it with the wear of centuries. RG’s version of the castle had been a bustling center of his power. This version was the ruin of it.

    “It is.” RG replied. “This is the home of the Wicked Queen. The horrible beast who rules this land.”

    I nudged him in his ghostly ribs. Horrible beast? That wasn’t very fair. I should have qualified for at least “terrifying”.

    “The puppy is in there?” Peri asked. The ominous presence of the castle was a lot stronger up close, both due to it’s sheer size and the shadows it projected as it gobbled up the moonlight that fell on it.

    “So I have been told.” RG said, rubbing his ribs.

    “Who told you?” Peri asked.

    “The wind.” he replied, which was technically true, since I’d been in the form of a breeze when I’d spoken to him. Peri shrugged and accepted that a ghost could talk to the wind without requiring further justification.

    “Got get her!” Peri said. I’m not sure why she thought she could command a ghost. Probably it was simply because she didn’t want to go in there herself and was looking for any options she had to avoid it.

    “As you request.” RG said with a smile and a bow. It surprised me, but he seemed to be as happy playing the role of her servitor as he was playing the ruler of Bedlam. I thought about that for a moment. Either role would grant him the measure of reality that he craved, so perhaps it actually didn’t make a difference to him? It was something I’d have to ask Professor Haffrun about later. For the moment though I watched as he walked forward towards the gate and slammed into an invisible wall.

    “Oww.” he said and started feeling around the entranceway looking for an opening he could pass through. “Hmm, it looks like the castle has been protected by a Ghost Ward since I was here last.”

    “What’s that?” Peri asked.

    “The Wicked Queen doesn’t want me to come back so she’s made it so no ghosts can enter the castle. That means I have to stay out here.” RG explained. I need Peri on her own if she was going to confront her fears. That meant peeling away RG from her, especially since he’d already fulfilled the terms of the deal I’d offered him.

    “Ok. We’ll go then.” Peri said and dragged Stumpy along with her. Since neither of them were ghosts, they were able to pass through the wards around the ruined gate without a problem.

    “Were you planning to let me get back to my body or am I going to need to build another one?” RG asked once they’d passed into the castle, knowing that I could hear him.

    “I should give you a fluffy bunny body for that crack about being a horrible beast.” I said, taking my normal form again. “But you did do a good job getting here.”

    I snapped my fingers and RG’s ghostly form was replaced with his physical body.

    “You’re not leaving me frozen in the ice?” he asked, surprised at the freedom.

    “You asked for your freedom.” I said.

    “I also asked for my realm back.” he said.

    “That I can’t do for you.”

    “I’m fairly certain you can.” he objected.

    “That I can’t do for you in a manner that you would enjoy.” I elaborated.

    “Try me.” he said.

    “I’ve bound Bedlam in laws to make it safe for my world. To destroy those laws would destroy Bedlam itself. If I passed Bedlam back to you, you would be bound by those same laws. You’d basically become my vassal.” I said.

    “But I would have Bedlam to rule?” he asked.

    “Yes. To the extent that you didn’t violate my general wishes for it.” I said.

    “I will need to consider that.”

    “Feel free to roam anywhere you’d like while you do. Except through the portal to Earth. Belle’s barrier is still in place there and I don’t think it will react kindly to you if you try to cross it.”

    My offer wasn’t that generous given that no matter where he went in Bedlam, I’d be aware of what he was doing. RG accepted it graciously though, turned into a blackbird and took wing away from the Castle.

    I turned my attention back to Peri and found that she and Stumpy had arrived at the Sky Moat.

    “That’s a long way down.” Stumpy said. He was looking at the chasm that confronted them.

    The half sphere which formed the mountain’s crown was balanced on top of the spire that pierced the clouds. It was a formation that could never have occured on my world. Even if someone had built something like it, the weather would have knocked it down in short order.

    This was the Dreamlit world though. The impossible was not only probable but likely. A freestanding road of floating glass steps wound around the spire and lead to the outermost edge of the half sphere the castle stood on. Anyone brave enough to climb those steps would arrive where Peri and her crew had. Outside the outer wall. Those who managed to penetrate the outer wall were then faced with the “Sky Moat”.

    The Sky Moat had been carved completely through the mountain’s crown to serve as a bottomless pit of air. It meant that the outer rim of the mountain top wasn’t attached to anything in particular, but a floating piece of mountain was fairly tame by comparison to some of the things that lurked in Bedlam.

    That didn’t mean it was any easier for Peri and Stumpy to deal with though. If you fell into the moat you’d fall all the way down through the clouds to the slopes of the mountain several miles below. Neither Peri or Stumpy could fly and jumping the moat was similarly beyond their abilities.

    “We gotta get in there!” Peri said.

    “I might know a way.” Stumpy said.

    “What?” Peri asked.

    “I think I can reach those poles on the far side where the drawbridge is supposed to be. You could climb over me and get inside like that.” Stumpy said. I’d crushed the drawbridge during my assault and hadn’t seen a reason to repair it.

    “How are you gonna get over?” Peri asked.

    “I’ll have to wait here.” Stumpy said.

    Peri frowned and furrowed her brow. She knew that meant she’d have to go forward alone if she wanted to continue and being alone was, almost, the last thing she wanted to do.

    “It’s not too late to turn back.” Stumpy suggsted gently.

    Peri rocked side to side, fighting against things inside herself that she didn’t have a name for yet.

    “No.”  she said finally.

    “No?” Stumpy asked, unsure of what she was disagreeing with.

    “I’ll go.” she said. She was staring straight ahead at the castle’s inner gate, her hands clenched into tiny fists.

    “Ok, climb up on my shoulders then.” Stumpy said. She did and he extended his roots as far as he could and then reached outward with his branches. For a moment it looked like the two of them were going to tumble down into the Sky Moat but before they could, Stumpy caught the poles on the far side and stopped their fall.

    Peri didn’t need to be told to start climbing. She scampered up Stumpy’s outstretched branches faster than a chipmunk and fell to the ground on the far side of the Sky Moat with a cheer of joy when she got there.

    “I’ll hold on here. Don’t take too long though!” Stumpy said.

    “Ok.” Peri said, and turned to venture into the inner castle.

    “Thank you Stumpy.” I said, drifting over to him in the form of a breeze after Peri had moved out of earshot.

    “My pleasure my Queen. Will she be able to bring me back with her though?” he asked.

    “That’s going to depend on her and how she does in there. If she can’t though I’m make sure you’re suitably rewarded.” I told him.

    “That would be more appealing if you weren’t the Wicked Queen of Bedlam.” Stumpy said.

    “Don’t worry. I’m a lot more than that.” I told him and then whisked off after Peri.

    She’d made it into the entrance hallway. It was a long, dark archway that opened onto a dimly lit room beyond. Here are there shafts of silver moonlight speared through the darkness but the stones seemed to eat the light where it landed on them rather than reflecting it to illuminate the room any further.

    As Peri walked deeper into the castle, I summoned up more wind to howl around the outside of it. There was nothing in the archway or the entrance chamber except the rubble and ruin that remained from my rampage as a dragon. With the wind howling though it sounded like a chorus of ghosts were moaning from the different spots in the room where the sound snuck in.

    “You’re all aloooooone.” the ghostly voices seemed to howl.

    Peri looked around for the source of the words, but kept moving on.

    “You’re all alone in the dark.” the voices said, some retreating far away, some rushing in right past her ears.

    She jumped at that and I could see the goosebumps rising on her arms and neck. Her eyes were wide open and she was breathing quickly. Somehow though she kept moving. She wandered into the entrance hall and then into the covered garden beyond it.

    The garden’s flowers had all withered and were hanging wilted on their stems. In place of the fragrance of the many species a garden should support, the castle’s garden’s smelled only of dust and age.

    Peri looked around, but apart from the withered plants, the garden was as empty as the entrance hall had been.

    “Puppy?” she called out in a tiny voice.

    There was no answer except for the wordless ghost wailing from outside.

    “Puppy?” she whispered even more quietly as she walked through the garden.

    Still no answer.

    She reached the other end of the garden and found a pair of doors with the image of a fierce and baleful looking dragon carved into them. Carved into the doors beneath the dragon, there were smaller figures, all skeletons, that the dragon had burned up.

    “I’m not alone.” Peri said to herself.

    “Whoooo’s with you?” the ghostly voices seemed to ask.

    “Mommy and Daddy. And James. And Jin. Mommy said they’re always with me.” she whispered our names like a magic spell she wasn’t sure of, but I watched the effect they had on her. Remembering each of us seemed to strengthen her. I didn’t get that. I mean I was with her but I wasn’t exactly making her life easier. Mom, Dad, and James weren’t even that close. They were literally a world away. Saying our names should have reminded her of how alone she was, not made her feel better.

    “Doooon’t goooo in thereee.” the ghostly voices said.

    “That’s where the puppy is.” she said, wild, childhood intuition moving her forward where no plausible reasoning would.

    “Doooon’t goooo in thereee!” the ghostly voices insisted.

    Peri drew herself up to her full height, a new fire in her eyes.

    “Puppy!” she shouted and barreled at the doors. The dragon on the doors roared as she approached, or perhaps it was only the wind. It didn’t stop her in either case. She smashed through the doors and into the throne room that held the center of her fears. The dreadful monster under the bed.

    Inside the room stood the Throne of Bedlam.

    It was empty.

    The whole throne room was empty in fact.

    As Peri looked around the ghostly wailing from outside revealed itself as nothing more than the wind. Through the hole I’d smashed in the wall, moonlight streamed in, illuminating the room brightly and showed that it was just a dusty, old room.

    Peri was panting and hunched over at the end of her charge but straightened up as she looked around the empty room. I watched as she took it in. At first she was wary and tense, waiting for something terrible to appear. Then her head tipped to one side and her shoulders relaxed. There wasn’t anything terrible in the room. Even the Wicked Queen was just a picture that hung over the throne.

    “PUPPY!” she yelled, unafraid of attracting attention at last.

    A woof of doggie delight came from beyond the far end of the throne room.

    That was all it took to send Peri scurrying forward.

    Unfortunately that was also all it took for the castle to begin crumbling. Peri was past her fear of Bedlam, the next step was to make sure she didn’t set up shop there.

    Peri felt the floor giving way underneath her just as she saw Belle racing down the hallway that lead out of the far end of the throne room. Belle saw her at the same instant and morphed from puppy to her full War Beast form.

    Peri and the floor had fallen maybe ten feet by the time Belle arrived and snatched Peri up by her shirt collar. With a flick of her head, Belle tossed the little girl onto her back and bounded up, leaping off the collapsing bits of floor with a strength and speed that was completely inhuman.

    “We’re getting out of here! Hold on tight!” Belle yelled as she streaked out of the collapsing castle. At first I thought Peri was screaming in terror but listening more closely I noticed that she was squealing with delight.

    Together my sister and her puppy fled the Castle of Final Peril, laughing the whole way.

    Watching someone succeed where they’re not expected to usually puts a smile on my face. It’s nice to see friends accomplishing more than they believed they could. It’s fun to watch a total stranger discover that they’re greater than they thought they were. It’s even interesting, sometimes, to see an opponent make a play no one would have dreamed they were capable of.

    The times when that’s not as welcome are when their success means additional headaches for me. A foe who lands a solid blow tells me I’ve got a good fight on my hands. One who lands a deadly blow means I have to get serious about things, which isn’t terribly fun. Similarly a four year old sister who-shall-remain-nameless, who manages to find her way through a barrier and into a nightmare world means I get to come rescue her. One who manages to take over the aforementioned nightmare world on the other hand is someone I need to handle very carefully.

    Mom had looked interested in her youngest becoming a dreamlord too, but I suspected she wouldn’t be overjoyed for me to drag home a four year old Dark Queen who radiated terror and madness. Granted there were days when I’m not sure she could have told the difference but Mom was good at noticing subtle changes. James and Dad on the other hand, probably would have needed the glowing eyes and deadly spikes Dark Lord Peri would be sure to adopt to tip them off. I don’t know why it was so often glowing eyes and deadly spikes, it was like a dress code or something for nightmare rulers. The thought of Peri done up like that was alternately silly and disturbing.

    The silly part was picturing how seriously she’d take it. The disturbing part was how she’d basically be wearing my “hand me downs” in that case, from my own brief stints as a Dark Queen.  For the time being though, she was still a semi-normal four year old, and I was bound and determined she’d get to stay that way.

    I just needed to make sure her current companions took care of her well enough.

    “RG”, the former monster-under-the-bed, had chosen to be able to “fly faster than the wind” when he’d crafted his ghost form. That’s how he’d be able to catch up with me when I’d teleported to the forest Peri was in. With RG, Peri and Stumpy flying away and me in the form of a breeze, that was a bit problematic.

    RG had been consistent enough in his decorating motifs that there was a perpetual storm cloud over Bedlam. That was convenient for me since it meant I could travel as a bolt of lightning without needing to alter anything else about the world besides myself.

    I didn’t technically need to stay near them of course. As the ruler of the realm, I could sense anything in it that I turned my attention to, but it was often more convenient to have an avatar in place near whatever it was I was observing.

    With that in mind, I flashed up to the clouds and then jumped from one to the next to catch up with Peri and her crew. As I flew forward, I left a trail of thunder crashes in my wake. They boomed and shook the skies, buffeting the makeshift flying carriage into wild turns and sudden drops.

    “The Storm Giants are waking up!” I heard Stumpy call out. I smiled a crackling, electric grin as I lurked in the heart of a thunderhead that overlooked the little party.

    The layer of clouds just below me which Peri and her party was flying through began to roil and twist, shifting into new shapes. All around them, one by one, giants of mists with lightning for eyes and thunder for breath stood up and gazed around.

    The first roars began a moment later. One of the storm giants had spied something he hated. Interlopers in their domain. Then he spotted something he hated even more. Another storm giant. I leapt down to the cloud that storm giant stood on. He turned to look at me and I hurled myself into him. Before the other storm giants could notice what I was doing I then jumped from his outstretched hand to slam into the storm giant he had noticed.

    Usually storm giants will howl and bluster for hours before getting down to business. With how fast RG was flying I needed more immediate results and blasting one of the storm giants achieved that in a big way. The sky lit up like day time with lightning flashes that were so constant it was hard to imagine they would ever stop.

    I cast my meta-awareness out to see how Peri was doing. She was huddled into the seat Stumpy had provided hanging on for dear life as RG pulled them through a barrel roll to escape the reach of one of the storm giants. Her eyes were wet but she wasn’t screaming incoherently or shutting the world out yet.

    I breathed a sigh of relief.

    RG had offered me knowledge in exchange for his freedom. The truth was, I already knew what he was going to tell me. In how what he’d answered and refused to answer the questions I’d asked him, there had been enough clues to work out what his secret was if you knew how creatures of the Unreal generally worked.

    He hadn’t needed a special reason to make a realm beyond the existence of the rift that formed under Peri’s bed. It was something that he would do naturally. Of the various denizens of the Unreal, his type wasn’t an exceptionally harmful one. He could be dangerous – Bedlam showed that – but by nature what he desired was simply a place to call home and a little bit of stability to cling to. In exchange he offered the realm he was attached to the added security of an additional barrier against the unreal. It meant that the rift could exist without the danger of unraveling what it meant to be “real”.

    In the case of a world like Earth Glass, there Dreamlit World around it was very thin. The things that could be real were sharply delineated from the things that could not be and (in Earth Glasses case) reality had a very hard time reconciling when those two got mixed up. The Dreamlit World around my Earth was much “thicker” but even so having a whole additional realm where things could be “sort of true” was an extra layer of insurance against problems forming.

    The catch was, the stability that RG desired is a difficult thing to come by, most especially in the Dreamlit world, whose nature was to be ever (and easily) changing. That meant he needed a conduit to reality, some trick that would keep my world from rejecting him. That’s where Peri came in. If she believed in him, even just in her dreams, she’d be his foothold into the real world. Through her he’d be able to become a little bit real, so that he could hold together and not be lost back into the sea of “might have beens” and “could be”s.

    So if he needed her, why did RG make Bedlam into a realm that would terrify Peri? Because he didn’t need her to like the place (or him), he needed her to believe in it. When Peri looked under her bed she saw a dark scary place. That Bedlam was dark and scary fit her preconceptions and so she could buy into it without any trouble at all.

    It would seem like the obvious answer, if I wanted to get Peri to abandon Bedlam, to turn it into a place of sweetness and light so she could forget about it. Unfortunately the obvious answer was wrong. That might have worked if I’d gotten to it before Peri had seen Bedlam (though in that case I could have ensured she never made it there in the first place). As it was, if I replaced Bedlam with Sugar Gum Drop Land, Peri would remember the scary version of Bedlam and know that it was out there somewhere, waiting for her.

    She might enjoy being in a sparkling fun world, but she wouldn’t forget Bedlam because we tend to hold on to our fears fears with all of our strength. It’s a survival trait, but it also limits us. We tend to believe in our fears far more than is warranted. That was the same reason that I couldn’t make the world too tame or easy for her. She’d seen the real version of Bedlam, if all the monsters in it were replaced by stuffed versions of themselves that were cuddly rather than scary she’d know she was being tricked.

    My game plan was to work things so that  Peri would believe in Bedlam enough that when she “beat it” by getting Belle back, she’d also overcome her fear of “the monster under the bed”. That was the key to getting her to leave it behind. The trick was doing it without hurting her in the process.

    Watching the tiny flying carriage careen through the skies with lightning flashing all around it and giants battling to destroy it, I knew I wouldn’t be able to do that. Not perfectly at any rate. In convincing her that Bedlam was as scary as she imagined, she was probably going to get a little scuffed up. I could set boundaries on that (permanent damage and serious injuries were right out, both physical and mental), but if I prevented all of the consequences of her choices from coming home to roost she wouldn’t have anything real to feel proud of overcoming.

    “This is crazy! I’m taking us down!” RG yelled to the other two.

    “No!!” Peri yelled. “Go up! Go up!”

    She pulled back on the roots that Stumpy had wrapped around RG like they were reins and RG’s ghostly body angled upwards.

    I could see why Peri wanted to rise over the aerial battlefield – the lightning bolts the giants were throwing were falling primarily onto the ground below. RG knew the land and would have been able to find them a cave to shelter in. Peri didn’t know that though so all she could see was RG trying to lead them to the place where all the lightning was going.

    As it turned out, “up” was the right direction to pick. The storm giants, being a surly and unpleasant lot, were more than happy to keep shooting at each other rather than waste their energy on the tiny flying carriage that was soon far above them.

    On top of the clouds, even Bedlam was a lovely place. The full moon shown in brilliant silver and set the clouds below them aglow. The one piece of the tableau that stuck out was the ominous spire that throbbed with veins of purple light.

    “It’s pretty!” Peri said, looking at the clouds then the mountain caught her attention.

    “What’s that?” she asked.

    “That is the Mountain of Despair, atop of which sits the Castle of Final Peril.” RG said sounding proud of his work in creating it.

    “I don’t like it.” Peri said and curled up, tucking herself into a corner of the chair Stumpy had made for the carriage and wrapping her arms around her body defensively.

    “It does look a little unfriendly.” Stumpy said.

    “There’s still time to turn back. You don’t have to go there. You can still call this whole thing off and go right back home.” RG said.

    Peri looked at him warily.

    “I can take you back to the beginning of the forest in a flash.” RG said.

    Peri continued to stare at him. She was frowning and angry and probably more afraid than she’d ever been before.

    “No.” she said without uncurling.

    “Don’t you want to go home?” RG asked.

    “No.” she said. My heart skipped a beat at that one, worries that I’d already lost her flooding my mind.

    “You’re going to stay here?” RG asked.

    “No.” she said. “The puppy needs me. She might be scared.”

    “I’m sure she’ll be fine.” RG said.

    “No!”

    Arguing with a four year old tended to go like that. No lengthy explanation. No debating. Peri would take her position and then neither hell nor high water would budge her from it. RG figured that out at last and sighed.

    “Onwards to the Castle of Final Peril then.” he said and off they flew.

    There are times when being alone is the most wonderful thing in the world. The stillness and quiet of solitude can help us regain our balance and declutter our minds. That benefit can be lost though when the solitude isn’t of our own choosing.

    “Puppy! Come here puppy!” Peri whispered as she crept forward, deeper into the monster-under-the-bed’s nightmare realm. The path she was on had looped over itself several times already so getting back to our world would have been challenging at best. Peri was so focused on finding Belle that she hadn’t noticed that problem yet. She had noticed she was alone though and, no matter how brave she was, a spooky forest was daunting for a four year old.

    I watched as she slunk down the broken cobblestone road that wound through the night black forest of gnarled and withered trees. Her shoulders were low, her back was hunched and her head was down. She wanted to find “her puppy” but she was tingling with fear at being in such a strange place. The part of the me that was a good big sister wanted to swoop in and pick her up before any of the creatures that inhabited Bedlam found her.

    It would have taken less than a moment. I was observing her in the form of a puff of wind that was dancing through the forest. All I needed to do was step onto the path and turn back into the sister that she knew. We’d even be able to continue her quest together.

    Instead, I flicked a finger so that a root sprang from the ground and smacked her in the back. Not hard enough to do any damage. Just enough to sting.

    “Stop That!” she said and punched the root that was hanging behind her. She’d straightened up in response to the smack and was glaring daggers at the root, daring it to try that again.

    “Hey! What’s the big idea?” the tree stump the root was attached to said. “Why’d you hit me?”

    With the casual acceptance of weirdness that only a little kid can possess, Peri turned to the tree stump and said “You hit me first!’

    “No I didn’t, you stepped on me!” Stumpy said.

    “You hit me!” Peri insisted and punched the root again.

    “This is going well.” a suave and cultured voice whispered to me. It’s a sign of what my life is like that I didn’t jump or startle but instead breathed a sigh of relief. When things go smoothly I get worried. The unexpected and creepy feels comfortable by comparison.

    I kept an eye on Peri and reached out with my meta-awareness to find a ghostly version of the monster-under-the-bed (aka Reclusive Guy) standing beside me. I cast out a little farther and confirmed that his body was indeed still entombed in ice in the ruins of the sprawling gothic castle he’d created as his center of power. .

    “Spirit casting.” he said, guessing my next question. “You only froze my body.”

    I nodded in appreciation. That was a good trick to have worked out so quickly. Since he’d figured that out, I was sure he could use a variety of other powers in his ghostly form but the realm was mine so I’d be able to block them if I wanted to.

    “Clever. But you’re aware that you’re also uniquely vulnerable in that state, right?” I asked.  I gestured to one of the trees near us as it reached down and wrapped him up in it’s branches. He was immaterial in his ghost form but the magical trees got to play by whatever rules I decided and having them able to capture ghosts seemed handy.

    It was tempting to stuff him back into his body and place him in an enchanted sleep to keep him out of my hair. Monsters are usually either helpful or malevolent. The bad ones are annoying and the helpful ones tend to odd ideas about what exactly constitutes “helping”.

    “I don’t think you want to do that.” he said, brimming with smug confidence, as the tree reached up with its roots to drag him into the earth.

    “And why would that be?” I asked, waving to the tree to stop. I’m a sucker for a chatty monster.

    “Because you don’t understand this realm” he said, showing no signs of discomfort or discontent at his predicament.

    “Don’t I? You created it to feed on fears. They’re the lowest, easiest path for connecting to a psyche. The more you drain, the more real you become, until you have a solid home in my world.” I said.

    “All true, but you don’t see why yet do you?” he asked.

    “Do you need a reason?” I asked incredulously. Most of the beasts of the Unreal did what they did for no more reason than “because”.

    “Technically no, but in this case there is one and you won’t get that little girl out of here if you don’t know what it is.” he said.

    “You know what I am? You know what I can do to you right?” I asked.

    “Yes. You demonstrated that quite sufficiently already.” he said, rattling a bit in his rooty bonds.

    “And you know that the girl is important to me.” I looked over and saw Peri and Stumpy engaged in a slap fight. I couldn’t tell which was winning but it was obvious neither was willing to back down.

    “Clearly.”

    “So you’re going to try to barter her safety for something. You’re not a good position to barter though.” I said.

    “Which is why my asking price will be low.” he conceded.

    “What do you want.”

    “Let me go. Give me back my realm. Let me do my job. Do that and I’ll tell you what you need to know.” Reclusive Guy offered.

    “Your job?” I asked. Things from the Unreal didn’t have preset purposes, but they could have fragments of an identity, and those could include roles and responsibilities. Normally, because they weren’t tied to anything real, the roles and responsibilities could change and morph freely but with Reclusive Guy having gained a measure of reality when I named him, his “job” could have become more real as well.

    “Yes. We’re not so different in fact.” he said smiling in a way that was probably meant to be charming but fell short due to his overall creepy aesthetic.

    “Oh, I love this one! Tell me how we’re just the same! How the darkness within me make me so very similar to you! Bonus points if you go for the old ‘you’ve done far worse things than I’ line!” I said. I may have bounced a bit.

    “I have to say it doesn’t feel like you’re taking this very seriously.” the ghost said with a frown. I almost felt bad for stealing his lines from him.

    “Ask yourself if you really want to see me being serious? And consider that the business with your castle was me taking a bit of a break and having some fun.” I said.

    His frown deepened.

    “The little one is in peril you know?” he asked nodding in Peri’s direction.

    Several other trees where moving in to aide Stumpy, which meant Peri was moments away from being completely overwhelmed by the them.

    “You should talk quickly then.” I suggested. “You were describing your job?”

    “You’re going to do something horrible to me if the little girl is harmed aren’t you?” he asked, concern creeping into his expression.

    “I repeat: you know what I am don’t you?”

    “Right, my job then: I make borders – barrier realms between out here and in there.” he said, referring to the Unreal and my homeworld respectively.

    “Why?” I asked.

    “Because they can be the best of both worlds. A little bit real so there’s some meaning to them and a little bit unreal so they’re not so limited. They’re…comfy.” he explained.

    “And you make them nightmares because…?” I prompted him.

    “Ah, that gets to the bit of information that I intend to trade for my freedom.” he said.

    “I have a better idea.” I said. “I’ll give you until the trees reach Peri to figure out how to save her. If you can keep her safe and see her through the whole realm, we’ll talk again.”

    “I’m a ghost, how am I supposed to save her from magic trees?” he asked, looking somewhat alarmed. Given how close the trees had crept up to Peri, I didn’t blame him.

    “You’re very clever aren’t you? And with your hair on fire, I’m sure the trees won’t be eager to get near you.” I said and smiled at him.

    “My hair’s not on…” he started to say and then slumped. “Really?”

    “I’m afraid so.” I said, feeling properly wicked.

    He raised his eyes to spy on his luscious bangs and noticed I’d been telling the truth. His ghostly locks were ablaze with bright orange tongues of flame. On the positive side, the flames did scare off the roots and branches that had fastened on to him.

    “Wait, what’s happening to my real hair?” he said, aghast at the thought.

    “As goes the one so goes the other.” I told him.

    Stop, drop and roll isn’t taught in monster-under-the-bed school. Instead Reclusive Guy opted to run screaming right at Peri.

    She’d been biting one of Stumpy’s roots while two other roots tried to wrestle her off it. Seeing a flame topped ghost careening at her like a mad man, she sprang away from the tree and started screaming herself.

    That was cut short when “RG” ran past her and crashed into one of the trees that had been drawing close to Peri. It was pretty unfair that as a ghost he didn’t simply pass through it but the slapstick value was worth it. From one tree to another RG bounced like a pinball madly trying to put out the flames on his head with cries of “My hair! My gorgeous hair!”

    The flames weren’t burning him, but they were threatening to the magic trees. The magic trees in turn responded to their crazed attacker by running around in a similarly haphazard manner, bumping into each other and RG wildly as they all tried to flee.

    In the end only Peri, Stumpy and RG were left in a rather wide clearing at the edge of the woods. The whole forest had shifted around to spit them out.  RG was exhausted from his rampage and was collapsed on the ground trying to catch his ghostly breath. Peri was laughing herself silly and Stumpy was looking in confusion between the two.

    “Do you think he’s dead?” Stumpy asked, pointing at RG with a root.

    “Oh course, he’s a ghost!” Peri said.

    “Should we bury him?” Stumpy asked.

    “No, that’s for zombies.” Peri said. I’d have to ask my mother where Peri was learning about zombies, especially learning the wrong things about zombies, but this didn’t seem to be the time to correct her.

    “I don’t know. There’s lots of creepy things under the ground. Maybe ghosts go there too?” Stumpy said.

    “Thank you. I’m not the burying sort of ghost. Or a zombie.” RG said.

    “Well then what are you doing here?” Stumpy asked.

    “I’m here for her.” RG said.

    “I’m looking for my puppy!” Peri said.

    “There are no puppies here.” RG said.

    I floated close to him and whispered in his ear.

    “She means the beast that was tearing through your hedge maze. The one that’s at your castle now.” I told him.

    “In this forest I mean. You were looking in the wrong place.” RG amended.

    “Where is she?” Peri asked,

    RG’s face sunk.

    “She’s in the Castle of Final Peril, atop the Mountain of Despair, beyond the Eternal Hedge and across the Sea of Lost Hopes.” he said. My offer had been contingent on him seeing Peri safely through realm which meant he was going to have to deal with all of the headaches he’d devised to inflict on anyone else who entered his world if he wanted to get her there.

    “That sounds far.” Peri said. She was frowning too. In her case it was less a matter of dread at the challenges that lay before them and more that she just wasn’t that patient.

    What she lacked in patience though, she made up for in creativity.

    “Why don’t you fly me there?” she asked RG.

    “I can’t lift you up.” RG said and passed his hand through hers.

    “You can lift him.” Peri said and pointed at Stumpy. “And he can lift me.”

    I whistled (as a breeze it’s pretty easy too). I hadn’t thought of that at all. Fortunately I didn’t have to admit it to anyone. I try to be truthful in general but “outsmarted by a four year old” is a little too embarrassing even for me to own up to.

    “And why would I carry you anywhere?” Stumpy asked.

    “Uh, I could say I was sorry.” Peri said.

    “You should say you’re sorry anyways. You bit me! I’ve got kid germs on me now!” Stumpy complained.

    “I’m sorry.” Peri said with all the sincerity of a four year who wants something.

    “Good. But I still don’t want to go flying away. Flying’s not a natural thing for a tree like me!” Stumpy said.

    “I could take you home and plant you!” Peri suggested.

    “Why would I want that?” Stumpy asked.

    “Because we’ve got a nice garden, and it gets lots of sunshine and my mommy can make it rain so you’ll always have enough to drink.” Peri said.

    “You’re mother can make it rain?” Stumpy asked, his eyes wide in disbelief.

    “Yeah! She can make things grow too!” Peri said.

    “Come here child.” Stumpy said. Peri took a few nervous steps forward and Stumpy began sniffing the air around her.

    “You’re the daughter of…?” Stumpy began to say and cut himself off. “I would be delighted to carry you.”

    “This is patently absurd.” RG said as Stumpy wound a few roots around the ghost and made a carriage seat out of a few others for Peri to sit in.

    “If you would prefer to take the long path to the castle, I’m sure I can keep up.” Stumpy said.

    “No no. By all means let us be off!” RG said, shaking his head.

    “Whee! Giddy up!” Peri squealed as the three of them lifted off into the air and began flying across the realm.

    I’d followed Peri with the aim of preventing the Bedlam realm from capturing her. As I watched them fly away it occurred to me that I probably should have been worried about Peri capturing Bedlam instead. If I wasn’t careful the problem wouldn’t be getting Peri to come back it would be getting her to leave my realm in one piece when she was done with it!

    The polite thing to do when you aren’t invited to someone’s home is to knock on the front door and ask if they can spare a moment of their time for whatever you need.

    “Knock knock.” I said as I rapped on the door to the monster-under-the-bed’s house. Of course when I say “knock” I mean slammed off it’s hinges and when I say “door” I mean “castle gate” and I should probably mention that I was in the form of a black dragon roughly the size of an Apatosaurus when I made my “polite” request.

    “GRAR!” was the greeting I received from a few hundred long fanged goblins. With poisoned spears and burning swords they charged at me in unison. Apparently when a dragon shows up the castle gates, the defenders take it as a sign that break time is done and they need to get serious about doing their jobs.

    If they’d been real creatures, the goblin charge would have been quite brave. Tactically stupid, but brave. Since they were only projections of the monster under the bed’s will rather than sapients in their own right, I reduced the force that was charging at me to ash with dragon fire and shouldered through the remains of the castle’s gate to enter the courtyard.

    The monster sent more troops at me. Archers on the parapets armed with flaming arrows. Dark wizards riding flying skeletons and wielding all sorts of eldritch power. Even a flight of dragons, each as large as I, with death burning in their eyes and lightning spewing from their mouths.

    Claw, claw, bite and some more dragon fire took care of them all. I was feeling somewhat vindictive, so I made sure each of my attacks wrecked a different bit of the castle. I had a thing for knocking over castles so it felt pleasingly correct to reduce the monster’s castle to large heaps of rubble. If I hadn’t been faced with more important matters to deal with I would have been tempted to fly off and let him repair it so I could come back and wreck it again. I had business to attend to though and time was not my ally.

    “Get out here.” I commanded. I could feel the monster cowering in the most secure room of the castle. In his defense, what I was doing to his realm was breaking all sorts of rules. He’d laid down the physical laws of reality here. Everything that happened occurred because he willed it to. It wasn’t possible for someone to assault his castle like I had. No one could challenge him in the very heart of the realm that he’d created.

    Or they couldn’t have until I showed up.

    Within a real world, I was bound, to some extent, by the limits of how that reality was defined. I could push at those limits and argue with them like I did on Earth Glass or I could shift around with them as I did on my homeworld. In the worst cases I could even try to change them or just flat out break the rules of reality and accept the consequences as terrible as they might be.

    That was when I was dealing with the real. The Dreamlit world and the Unreal that lay beyond it were another matter. The only rules that existed in the Dreamlit world where the ones I chose to acknowledge.

    I could have chosen to be bound by the monster-under-the-bed’s rules. I could have left the realm under his control and left it as his problem to deal with. If he wasn’t aggressive I probably would have done that. Managing dream realms can be a little annoying. They tend to fill up with every problem imaginable and the inhabitants then whine for help dealing with this issue or that night and day. If the poor monster had been sensible enough to avoid opening a rift to the real world he could have enjoyed his little nightmare world for as long as he wanted to.

    The foolish thing had over-reached himself though. He’d craved that little bit of extra juice the unreal get from tapping into an actual world. He wanted to be more than a figment of someone’s imagination. He wanted to be real.

    As someone who straddled that line myself, I can’t say I didn’t feel for him. I loved what I was, but there were subtle and important things that I’d lost in becoming partially unreal. It would have been against the Parliament’s general rules, but if he’d proven to be friendly enough I probably would have even allowed him to keep the rift in place. It would have attracted problems but there were lots of things that created problems in the world and rifts with friendly critters beyond them held some unusual opportunities that were occasionally worth the problems they brought.

    Unfortunately for him, the silly monster had attracted the attention of my sister and that I couldn’t let stand.

    I’d taken his realm from him the moment I’d entered it. I’m a dream lord. Ruling realms is second nature to us, even if I don’t often chose to indulge in that nature.

    I hadn’t changed anything at first. Peri was here and I didn’t want her to get spooked. Not yet anyways. I’d simply given it a name, “Bedlam”. Not particularly inspired or original, but it didn’t need to be. It was a crazy realm under the bed so the name fit and was something I could call it by. If another dream lord encountered the realm, they’d probably know it as “Jin’s Bedlam” since I’d claimed it in my own name. If they were smart that would give them some pause before they decided to try messing with it.

    “You’re a pretty reclusive guy there aren’t you?” I asked as I slammed my giant dragon arm through the castle to reach into where the monster-under-the-bed was hiding. As I did I felt a connection spark in my mind. “Reclusive Guy” seemed like a fine name for a monster under the bed.

    When I dragged him out, the monster was indeed in the form of a man. Sort of a skinny, long haired, fashion model type guy. His skin would normally have been a nice mocha color like Peri’s except that his face had turned a deep purple. I thought he was angry at first (due to the whole “I was smashing holes in his castle” thing) but then noticed that I was holding him ever-so-slightly too strongly and he couldn’t actually breathe.

    “Oops!” I said and placed him back on his throne. I’d been worried about Peri but that was no reason to go completely overboard on the nightmare-creature-from-beyond-time-and-space that had lured her away to a realm of madness.

    “Stay there.” I instructed him and froze him into a block of ice that covered his entire throne.

    He struggled against the ice and then struggled against the very body that he wore. As a creature of the unreal he wasn’t bound by a particular body anymore than I was. I watched as a look of dread passed over his frozen eyes.

    He couldn’t escape.

    He had been something that had few, in any limits, before and was discovering that his dearest wish had been granted. He was real at last! Solidly, inescapably real. “Reclusive Guy” had gained a beginning and an end and, unfortunately for him, he couldn’t imagine a way to escape them.

    “We’ll talk later.” I told him. Nightmare realm aside, I wasn’t sure that he was necessarily a bad guy and even if he was there were probably better uses I could put him to than “eternal ice sculpture”.

    For the time being though I had more critical matters to attend to. Namely Peri and Belle.

    When you control a dream real, you don’t need to perform “magic”. Whatever you wish simply “is”. I liked the theatrics though and they helped me remember that I was still partially real so I summoned forth a scrying crystal in the air between my outstretched claws and cast my sight over the land. Meta-awareness gave me a sense of where they both were but seeing them was helpful too.

    With the head start she had, Belle had made it deeper into Reclusive’s realm than Peri. The puppy dog was gone and in its place, Bell was in her full beast form. I watched as she fought through an ever regrowing and reconfiguring hedge maze that led up to the castle. The laws of the world prevented anyone from flying over it or teleporting past it. They also prevented anyone from getting through the maze (which was kind of a cheat on the monster’s part). I’d broken the teleportation law as soon as I got here and it looked like Belle was bending the “no getting through the maze” rule to the point of snapping it. I’m not sure which way it would count though because I suspected when she was done there wouldn’t be a maze left anymore..

    “I need you here Belle.” I said softly. My words drifted on the wind and caught her attention as she tore through a squad of seven Hedge Monsters that were seeking to protect one of the walls from her claws.

    “Jin? Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to take this long.” Belle said.

    “It is kind of a fun place isn’t it?” I said, admiring the design aesthetic the monster had come up with. It drew from a lot of classic sources but the pieces fit together nicely and the whole ambiance had a touch of class to it that was missing in nightmares that were focused on grossing you out.

    I whistled and the wind spun out to carry Belle from the Hedge Maze to the castle’s ruined gate.

    “Has something come up? Is Way ok?” Belle asked as she arrived.

    I dropped the dragon form and changed to my regular “uniform” of multi-layered white robes edged in pink. I admit to having been jealous of James and the actual “heroic costume” he wore as Aegis. That might have influenced my desire to retain the royal faerie queen robes that I’d won as my own “costume”, even though technically those robes were black and purple and scary. That none of my titles quite fit my chosen white and pink regalia was fine though. These were Jin’s clothes, not the Shadow Queen, the Oblivion Queen or any of the other titles I carried.

    “Way’s fine, I ran into a little bit of trouble, but nothing to be worried about there. Peri on the other hand, decided she wanted in on the fun too. She’s here.” I said.

    “What? But I left a barrier in place!” Belle objected.

    “Yeah, that kind of worries me too.” I admitted. “The key at this point though is to convince her to leave here on her own.”

    “I could go back and lead her out.” Belle offered.

    “I thought of that. The problem is, I think she’ll stay curious about this place if she doesn’t ‘complete it’.” I said.

    “What do you mean ‘complete it’?” Belle asked.

    “She was focused on the monster-under-the-bed before you went in here. I think she needs to beat him herself in order to feel safe enough to forget about this realm. If we try to take her out before that it’ll stick in her mind that there’s a nightmare world waiting for her in the dark corners that people tell her are safe.” I said.

    “Can she beat the monster though?” Belle asked.

    “With some encouragement? I think so.” I said.

    “What do you need me to do?”

    “Nothing yet. I might be wrong. I’m going to see if some gentle persuasion will be enough to convince her to go. If she’s not really that interested in this then I may be able to ‘talk’ her into leaving on her own.”

    “And if not? If you’re right that she’s focused on this realm?” Belle asked.

    “Then I’ll have to ask you to catch her when she falls.” I said.

    “What will you be doing?”

    “Pushing her.” I said with a smile. I hadn’t had siblings until my Mom married James’ Dad. We’d been old enough to get along at that point. I’d missed out on years of tormenting a younger sibling as a result. Peri was going to have so much fun!

    Heroism can take many forms. Sometimes its about speaking up when all around you are silent. Sometimes its about putting your safety at risk to save someone else from peril. Sometimes though it’s simpler than that. Sometimes being a hero means taking an overwhelming fear and  putting it aside.

    Screaming and yelling has a grand tradition in regards to heroics, but its often the quiet sort of heroics that are the most difficult and the most important

    “What do you mean Peri has gone to fight the monster under her bed.” my Mom asked. I didn’t need any special awareness to know that all of her old fears were flooding back to the surface. We’d lost my Dad to unnatural violence and it had left both of us scarred. We still carried those wounds with us despite the years and despite gaining vast amounts of unnatural powers ourselves. The prospect of losing another family member, especially Peri, was not one that my mother could face rationally with much ease.

    For me it was a little different. I couldn’t bear to lose Peri either but, if I was right, she was in my domain which meant I knew I wouldn’t have to.

    “I saw it earlier. There was a small rift under her bed. I told her to leave her room until I woke up. She was supposed to go play with Melissa until then.” I started to explain.

    “If you saw it, why didn’t you do something about it?”

    I could see her trying to hold back her anger.

    “Belle had already gone in to fix it. She’d put a ward in place over it too. I didn’t think Peri would even be able to get in.” I said.

    “Is she in any danger?” my Mom asked, slowly and carefully.

    “Yes.” I said. “But not like you’re thinking.”

    “Please explain.” she said. I could see the sky darkening and feel raw currents of power gathering under us. Mom never used her power at home but in the face of emotions as strong as the one’s she was repressing, the mantle of Gaia she wore couldn’t help but react.

    “Belle’s in there. You’ve never seen her fight but take my word for it, she’s like a force of nature, and she won’t let anything happen to Peri. More importantly, I’m going to go in there.” I said.

    “You can save her?” Mom said. She needed to hear the words explicitly to even begin believing them.

    “Peri’s in the Dreamlit world, the borderland between the real and the unreal. There’s almost nothing I can’t do there.” I told her.

    “So you can save her and bring her home.” Mom asked again.

    “Yes. If she’ll come with me.” I told her.

    “What do you mean?” she asked, not reassured at all yet.

    “If she likes it there? That would be a problem. I can bring her back. I can even bind her to this world, but I can’t bind her imagination. If she likes the world beyond the rift, her heart will long to return there. She’ll pine for it.” I said.

    My Mom breathed a sigh of relief. I knew how what I’d said sounded. Peri pinned for things all the time. For about five minutes. Then she’d find something else to want with all her little heart and soul. I could have left my mother thinking that was the case here, but with her, for something like this, I didn’t even want to let a lie of omission slip by. There were times I needed people to trust me where I couldn’t offer them any explanation of why they should. The only way I knew to build that kind of trust was to be as honest as I could with them whenever I could, even if it was painful.

    “This isn’t like you’re thinking. If the Dreamlit world captures her imagination, she won’t let it go. Ever. If I have to pull her out of that realm, she’ll grow up to be as much of a resident of it as she can. And she’ll make the world around her into as much a reflection of it as she can.” I said.

    “How obsessive would she be?” my mother asked.

    “Best case? On par with a life long Star Trek fan who speaks fluent Klingon and dresses in Starfleet uniforms. Worst case? Well the worst case is if she were to be denied it for years and years and then woke up as a dreamwalker. Like I said, I can bind her to this world but she could disappear within herself, literally.” I explained.

    “We are not going to let that happen.” Mom said.

    “No, we’re not. And Peri isn’t going to either. I know this sounds insane and I know that she’s only four but I believe in her. And you should too.” I said.

    “What do you mean?”

    “You’re with her more than I am. How long has it been since Peri was her own little person? She got about ten times the willpower and personality as I did at that age. She wants Belle back. Do you really think anything like a monster-under-the-bed is going to be able to distract her from that?” I asked.

    “I don’t know. She’s so little.” my Mom said. I could see her holding back tears. The clouds did her crying for her in the form of a sudden hail storm.

    “Did I mention Belle was in the form of a puppy when Peri saw her?” I said with a smile.

    My mom smiled at that and our shared laugh broke the mood of gloom.

    “I’ll get her back. I promise. I was in a hurry before because of the mission Way and I are on, but I’ll take my time and do this right. I’m not going to tell you not to worry, but I am going to ask that you trust me.” I said and put my hands on my Mom’s shoulders. She pulled me into a hug.

    “I do trust you. I always have you know.” she said.

    “Thank you.” I told her. Her belief was a simple human decision, not a fate weaving or dream magic, but it made everything easier somehow.

    “That said, are you sure you shouldn’t bring Way in on this?” she asked.

    “I could, but that would get complicated.” I said.

    “How? Wouldn’t she be able to help you? You’ve said you do your best work when you’re together.” Mom asked.

    “I do. But, well. It’s…complicated.” I said, flailing around for words and feeling butterflies in my stomach again.

    “Tell me how.” she said patiently. She wasn’t willing to risk her youngest daughter’s safety on my stomach butterflies.

    “Well, I can’t get a message to her in the world we’re working in until I wake up there, so to let her know what was up, I’d have to wake her up here.” I said.

    “How would you do that?”

    “I’d go to her castle and wake her body up there.” I said.

    “Way has a castle?”

    “Yeah. It’s in one of the Faerie realms.” I said.

    “I don’t understand.”

    “To stay ‘real’ here, we have to leave part of ourselves in this world. Since it’s nice to have bodies here, that’s what we leave behind. Way’s not here much though so she leaves hers in a remote and extremely well defended spot where she can rest in an enchanted sleep for as long as she wants. Sounds like a Faerie tale right?” I said.

    “But the Faerie realms aren’t on Earth are they?” she asked.

    “No, they’re their own planes. But as far as our Earth is concerned, they’re real. They’re a part of the cosmos we live in. The same as the Olympian realm that you and James get your powers from.” I said.

    “So when you say that your mission with Way is on another world…” Mom asked, trailing off as she tried to form the question.

    “The Earth we’re on is like this one except that it’s not real as far as our Earth is concerned. The only connection between the two is through imagination. It has similar but different laws, both physical and metaphysical.” I said.

    “And where Peri is now?”

    “She’s closer than that. The Dreamlit realm around our world is a mirror of what’s real for us mixed with what can be imagined. By default it’s very similar to the world that you see all around us.”

    “Ok, leaving that aside, you can wake Way by going to her castle. Why is that complicated?” Mom asked, returning to her original line of questioning.

    “Well, she might be in the middle of something. In fact with how our ‘luck’ works its extremely likely. If I wake her during a gunfight, she’ll probably get killed there.”

    “Can’t you check on that before you wake her up?”

    “Yeah, I can. It’s a little tricky since I have a comatose body there, but I can manage it.” I said.

    “Then why don’t you want to?”

    I sighed. I had to be honest. With myself as much as with her.

    “I don’t want her to know that I messed up. That I got hurt.” I said.

    “What?” the hail storm had stopped but I heard a peel of thunder in the distance.

    “If I wait a bit, I can probably argue and annoy the reality there into letting me wake back up. I can make whatever wound I took less severe. Way’s not going to be expecting me for a few hours still. If I can show up in one piece, even if its a somewhat damaged one, she won’t be as scared.” I said.

    “Scared? With what you both can do? What would she be scared of?”

    “That I can’t take care of myself.” I said quietly.

    “How could she be scared of that?”

    “Did James ever tell you about the first time he saw me use my powers?” I asked.

    “It was in the stadium when you fought the Faerie Queen for us wasn’t it?” she asked.

    “No. It was before that. After you were taken by the faeries. They didn’t take James because he’s Aegis and they couldn’t even get close to him. They didn’t take me because they were afraid of me.”

    “They were afraid of you? Why?”

    “Because of this.” I said and reached deep into my heart. In my hand, a black flame appeared.

    “What is that?” my mother asked, recoiling instinctively from it. Her mantle knew exactly what it was and the danger it represented.

    “Oblivion. This is the unmaking flame, a piece of non-existence. Anything which this burns is not only destroy, it is erased completely. Reality as a whole is diminished with each thing I destroy with this. No real power or force can stand against it.” I explained.

    “How did you…” my Mom started to ask.

    “I’m not entirely real anymore remember? It’s the price I paid. I can never fully be a part of this world, and I can never fully be a part of the imaginary realms.” I said and quenched the Oblivion fire. It was a part of myself that I chose to look away from. I could never forget it was there, but I didn’t have to feed it, didn’t have to give in to its call to let everything burn.

    “I still don’t understand though. Why would Way be afraid for you?”

    “We’ve been with each other for four years. Ever since we both changed. She’s always been there to support me, to cheer me on and…to stop me from going too far.” I said. “Without her? On my own? If I can’t take care of myself, do you know what I could become?”

    “Yes.” my mother said. She was smiling, a tiny little smile. I couldn’t understand that. Hadn’t I been clear? If not, I didn’t want to try to be any clearer.

    “I won’t push any farther, if you’ll answer me this and make me one promise.” my mother said.

    “Ok.” I agreed.

    “Tell me, truthfully, are you sure that you can rescue Peri without Way’s help?” she said.

    “Yes. I’ve seen things like this before. Even if what’s hiding in there is a lot more powerful than it’s letting on, I can deal with it.” I said.

    “Fine. I do trust you. Go get your sister back.” Mom said.

    “What about the promise?” I asked.

    “Promise me that you’ll have Way talk with me before you two have your chat.” she said.

    “Uh, ok?” I said. I had no idea what the two of them might have to talk about, or why my Mom would ask for that, but as promises went it was probably the very easiest I was going to get off, so I asked no further questions.

    “How long will it take you?” she asked.

    “If I did it quick? Two seconds. Maybe less if I didn’t put any flourish on it. But I want to do this right. If this goes well, you should see Peri pop out from under her bed all on her own in a little while. I’ll follow along a few minutes after that.” I said.

    “What will you be doing once Peri’s out of there?” Mom asked.

    “Teaching a monster under the bed a lesson in manners.” I said.

    Waking up in your bedroom is what most people expect to do on most days. It says something about my life that I was both surprised and annoyed when I did though.

    “You’ve got to be kidding me! I was at the edge of the spotlight! Why did they shoot me rather than one of the people who were clearly illuminated!” I grumbled. I could feel my body on Earth Glass when I concentrated on it. I wasn’t dead but I wasn’t in good shape either. The bullet wound – probably a head shot – had left me deeply unconscious. If I tried to force my way back to wakefulness, Earth Glass would crack open like an egg.

    “Way is going to kill me.” I muttered to myself. I couldn’t risk sending her any information on what had happened. She’d have to find out via purely natural means. That meant she wouldn’t even know to start looking for me until I was late for our meeting at Shurman’s office. Even then she probably wouldn’t think to come looking for me on my homeworld since I didn’t have any reason to come back here given the time crunch we were under.

    “Maybe breaking that place wouldn’t be such a bad thing.” I continued grumbling. I didn’t mean it, but there was a part of me that found the idea tempting. Call it my “Inner Bull in a China Shop”.

    “Oh you’re awake? How is your work going?” my Mom asked from the door to my room.

    “Well I managed to keep three people from being shot by snipers.” I said. I was pretty sure Madelaine, Tiny and Eddie would have been able to escape in the total darkness before the snipers got off a lucky shot. I wondered if they’d even noticed me get hit though?

    “That sounds good.” she said cautiously.

    “Yeah. Would have been better if I hadn’t soaked up a few bullets myself in the process.” I said. I stretched my shoulders and neck, grateful to feel them in perfect working order.

    “You were shot? Are you ok?” Mom asked. She looked concerned, but seeing me whole and in one piece right in front of her made it hard for her to be too worried about it.

    “Here? Just fine. There? Not so much. I don’t think I need to spin up a new body for myself yet but I need to give the one I was using some time to recover.” I said. The question of how much time that would be gnawed at me. Two days to recover from being shot wasn’t a lot of time and we had a lot less than that given the other players who were on the board.

    “You can make new bodies for yourself?” Mom asked.

    “Sure. It just takes time and imagination.” I said.

    “That’s just in your dreams though right?” Mom asked.

    I looked at her and saw puzzlement in her eyes. She didn’t look concerned, just curious.

    “Yes and no. The things that I can craft, bodies, identities, tools and so on, those all begin in what you could be called ‘dreams’. They’re the “unreal” given a name and a form by imagination. What I can do is to make those things real within the context of a given world.”

    “So you can make dreams come to life.” Mom said. We’d talked about it before, so she was mostly indicating that she understood what I was saying.

    “Right.” I agreed.

    “And nightmares?” she asked.

    “Those too.” I said. Nightmares were easy to create, and even useful sometimes but they could also take on a life of their own all too often.

    “How do you keep it under control?” she asked.

    “It’s easier than it sounds. There’s an awareness that comes with the power. I can see through a lot of illusions, even the one’s I try to make for myself. If I create a monster, I don’t get to pretend that I’m not the one doing it, or that it’s actually a fluffy cuddly bunny.”

    “What about when you get mad?” She’d stopped putting away the bath towels in the closet and was looking at me with appraising eyes.

    “Same thing. I don’t get to pretend that I’m justified in blowing up a building just because I stubbed my toe on a desk in it.” I explained.

    “Are there bad people with your kind of power though?” she asked.

    “Yeah.” I admitted. “The real monsters don’t usually have enough to hold themselves to a particular world so they drift out into the unreal and become lost in worlds of their own making. The other ones, the one’s that do manage to stay attached, they often run into, or wind up creating, people like me.”

    “What happens then?”

    “A lot of different things. Sometimes they destroy their world, other times it’s worse than that.” I said.

    “What could be worse than destroying the world.” my mother, the Champion of Gaia, asked me.

    “Changing it in a way that its people stay with it even when none of them want to be there anymore. World’s that are destroyed can be remade. It’s like a circle of friends. The one bad apple gets spit out and the rest continue on. It’s what happened with Kari’s world. In fact Kari’s world was a good example of the bad scenario too. There was a dreamer there who was twisting the world into something horrible but he was doing it slowly enough that the people were tolerating the increasingly toxic environment.” I explained. I didn’t mention that pulling a world back together was in no way an easy task. I’d seen world fragments and dead worlds where life had chosen to move elsewhere and leave behind the broken past instead of putting it back together.

    “You can remake shattered worlds, and build new bodies, can you make the people to fill them with? Could you make another me for example?” Mom asked.

    “Nope. I mean, I could make someone who looked like you and sounded like you, but she would only know the things that I knew. She’d basically be just another costume that I was wearing. It’s one of the big things about being a dream lord; the only thing we can’t make is other real people, so those are the most important thing in any world to us.” I said.

    “That’s very interesting.” Mom said. Her expression was one of contemplation. As though she was putting pieces into a jigsaw puzzle I couldn’t see,

    I got up and rummaged around in my bureau. If I was going to be awake here for a while, I might as well see if there was anything that needed tending to on this front. With a world as big and weird as mine, there was almost always something going wrong somewhere.

    “Not that I mind the questions, but what made you curious about all that today?” I asked. I’d held off on talking to Mom about my dream lord stuff for a long time because of my general concern about creating other dream lords. Over time though I’d seen that she’d connected deeply enough with this world that the appeal of imaginary ones wasn’t going to get her to give up the life she’d worked so long and hard for.

    “Oh, I’m just wondering if you’re sister is starting to follow in your footsteps.” she said.

    I did a double take. That was a scary concept.

    “That’s just what you need right? Two of us sleepy slugs?” I laughed.

    “Would it be dangerous if she did?” she asked and I finally caught a glimpse of what she was thinking. My step-brother, her step-son, was a nearly indestructible super hero. I was, in some ways, tougher than he was. Peri, on the other hand, was the one child my Mom had who was just a normal girl. A normal, very vulnerable little girl, at least by comparison to her siblings. With what James and I had done in the past, Mom had reason to believe we’d be safe even if she wasn’t watching over us. With Peri it was a different story.

    “It could be.” I told her. “I was lucky. When a new dreamer wakes up they can do a lot of damage, most especially to themselves. There’s scary stuff out there and depending on how you react to it things can go a lot of different ways. I’m close to the poster child for best case scenario and, well, I’m not exactly the girl I used to be.”

    “Everyone changes though.” Mom began to say.

    “I know, but sometimes those changes mean you can never go back to being who you were. I mean…do you know what the scariest thing for me was that first night?” I said.

    “No, you didn’t talk about it much afterwards.”

    “The whole world seemed like it was going nuts, but what scared me the most was that you would cast me out. That’d you’d see I wasn’t really Jin anymore.” I said.

    “I would never, ever do that.”

    “I know, or I know that now at least. But the point is I didn’t feel like myself because, in part, I wasn’t. I mean the ‘Jin’ that you knew was a normal girl, defined by her normal girl limitations. The person I became that night had a whole new set of definitions. She could be anyone or anything she wanted, except who she had been.”

    “That sounds a lot like life in general.” Mom said.

    “Yes, well, I was fourteen and scared and stupid.” I said with a smile.

    “Don’t be hard on yourself.” Mom said, putting a hand on my shoulder.

    “I let you get kidnapped by evil faeries who almost destroyed the world. Trust me that has served as a very valuable object lesson on how important it is to communicate with people.” I said.

    “Speaking of that, how are things going with Way?” Mom asked.

    I wilted.

    “We’re,  um, going to talk about stuff once this case is done. Don’t want to be distracted before then.” I said, fidgeting.

    “That’s good, since you don’t seem to be distracted by it at all at the moment.” Mom said.

    I hadn’t known my Mom was packing weapons-grade sarcasm but on the other hand I probably deserved it. Those who repeat history are doomed to be teased about it.

    Not that I was in a position to do anything about it at the moment.

    I was saved from my potential brooding by the door bell.

    “You expecting anyone?” I asked. Meta-awareness told me whoever was at the door was about to make our day interesting. Given who we are, the first thought that came to mind was an exceptionally polite alien invasion.

    Instead of that we got a little girl with a very simple question.

    “Can Peri come over to play?” her friend Melissa asked.

    My Mom and I looked at each other. I knew Peri wasn’t in our house because I hadn’t heard her in the last five minutes. Looking at my Mom told me that she’d thought Peri was already at Melissa’s house. I only had to play back the last hurried encounter I’d had with my sister to figure out what had happened.

    “She’ll be over in a little while. She has to finish picking up her room first ok?” I told Melissa before my Mom could speak.

    “Ok! Tell her we’re gonna have hamburgers tonight and my Mommy said its ok for her to have some too.” the little girl said before bouncing across our lawn and back to her house.

    “Where’s your sister?” Mom asked, her face deadly serious. She had her own form of super human senses and I knew what they would be telling her. Peri wasn’t anywhere on Earth. Or at least nowhere that the champion of life could detect.

    “Well, you said she might be following in my footsteps right? I think she’s gone to save a puppy girl from the monster under her bed.”

    There are experiences that I can never share with anyone who isn’t a fellow dream lord. For example being caught in a situation where you know there’s a good chance you’re going to be shot repeatedly. Lots of people have been in tight spots like that, and they had it much worse than I did. The worst case for me would be that the Amazing Jin wound wind up full of lead and I’d need to dream up a new identity to do anything on Earth Glass. Where regular people needed courage, I could more or less laugh off the danger I was in.

    Except it still hurt.

    When I measured it against what someone without my abilities would be faced with it seemed really whiny to complain about that, but I still held back from showing myself. Reality was happy with that. The Amazing Jin didn’t have the kind of experience that would let her fearlessly charge into a hail of gunfire.

    “If I have to come get you, I promise it will be with both guns blazing.” the Night Warder said.

    “Night Warder?” I called out. The Amazing Jin could at least be expected to recognize her voice, and talking before exposing myself to a potentially hostile situation seemed like a winning play.

    “A girl? Who are you?” the Night Warder asked, confusion evident in her tone.

    “It’s Jin, you rescued my friend and I earlier tonight.” I told her. Giving out your name is usually a terrible idea. Even on a world like Earth Glass names have power. I made it a point to always give mine out though. I wanted the kind of people who were going to misuse that power focused on me so that I could teach them the error of their ways. Also it seemed friendlier with most everyone else.

    “Come out here.” the Night Warder said.

    “I’m not armed.” I told her. I didn’t bother adding “so don’t shoot”. The sort of people who would shoot someone who was unarmed didn’t usually take requests like that.

    I walked down the hall, casting my imagination out for a good story to explain why I was here. My options were pretty harshly limited by the circumstances. I settled on the notion that I was a “Girl Detective”, blending in elements of our original story as representatives of Windy Springs. It wasn’t the best story but it had enough reality supporting it that it would hang together reasonably well.

    All of those thought fluttered out of my mind when I rounded the corner.

    Madelaine Deckard was there, pointing both of the Night Warder’s pistols at me.

    Both of her pistols.

    Pieces started falling into place. I was an idiot. I’d figured Madelaine for the leader of the Assassin’s because I’d thought she’d offed her boss. I hadn’t even considered that she might be the one with the really dangerous secrets!

    “And what are you doing here Jin?” Madelaine said, keeping her guns pointed at me.

    “I…” I started to say but she cut me off.

    “Work for the Brotherhood?”

    I tipped my head to one side to see if one of us has gone crazy. Then I figured out why she thought that. When she’d found Way and I we’d been in the company of Eddie and Tiny. She’d been in the audience at the theater so she’d seen our performance. Putting two and two together, she’d assumed we worked for Stone. Believable enough that the Brotherhood would grab everyone who Stone tried to escape the Chimera Club with. They could sort it out back at their base.

    Then I show up in McIntyre’s apartment, sneaky enough to be trying to get the drop on her. It occurred to her that Stone and Tiny were tied up but Way and I were free when she found us in the back of the truck. Add to that the fact that both of us were conscious while even a big guy like Tiny was still sleeping off the knockout gas. The sum of that equation had us looking much more like accomplices to the kidnapping than victims.

    The wrong thing to do when someone is holding a gun on you is to burst out laughing. It can lead them to believe you don’t appreciate the threat they are making. What looks even worse is trying to suppress your laughter and failing.

    “Would you care to share the joke with the rest of us Dragon lackey?” Madelaine said.

    “I’m sorry.” I said, wiping a laughter tear from my eye. “Life is just very amusing sometimes.”

    “I’m sure, but you still haven’t answered my question.”

    I took a deep breath and considered things from her point of view.

    “No matter what I say, you really can’t afford to believe me at the moment can you?” I asked her.

    “Possibly not but do go on anyways. I’d hate to have to punctuate this conversation with a full stop if you take my meaning.” she replied.

    “Believe me I do. So let me suggest this; ask Tiny what he knows of me. I can tell you its not going to alleviate your concerns but I think starting from an unbiased source will put us on the right footing.” I said.

    “What’s her story? Why was she with you?” Madelaine asked Tiny without turning her guns from me.

    “Cause she put a gun to the boss’ head.” Tiny replied.

    “What?” Madelaine asked, risking a glance at Tiny to see if he was serious.

    “It’s true. The boss had her friend and her brought in because it looked like they knew something about the dead guy who got dumped on the stage. We’re in the middle of interrogating them and she pulls a gun from nowhere and starts interrogating the boss right back.”

    “It wasn’t from nowhere, I picked it out of his holster actually.” I said.

    “What, when did you do that?” Tiny asked.

    “When he was screaming in my face.” I said.

    “Oh is he gonna be mad when he hears you pulled his own gun on him.” Tiny said.

    “So, wait, you had Eddie Stone at gunpoint?” Madelaine said.

    “Yes, but to be fair Tiny had his gun on me before I could do anything. If I’d shot Stone, Tiny would have blow me away not a second later.”

    “Yeah, but your friend got the drop on me. I don’t get why she didn’t shoot though. She had me dead to rights.” Tiny said.

    “She’s not a killer.” I said.

    “I don’t think so. The eyes that dame was looking at me with? She could have dropped that hammer any time she wanted to. I’ve seen softer looks on guys who did twenty years in the pen.” Tiny said.

    “In any case, she didn’t shoot you. And Ms. Jin here didn’t shoot Mr. Stone. What did they want instead?” Madelaine asked.

    “Nothing. They said they’d come to us to find something out but they didn’t ask any questions that would have told them much.” Tiny said.

    “And then what happened?” Madelaine asked.

    “Then they wouldn’t let the boss go out and get killed fighting the guys who burned the club.” Tiny said.

    “I don’t understand.” Madelaine said.

    “We were interrogating them when the club got hit. The boss wanted to go out and shoot it up with the guys who were burning the place. She wouldn’t let him though. Said we’d just get killed if we did that.”

    “And was she right? Or was she herding you into being captured?”

    “I don’t know if she was herding us, but she was right about going out to fight the guys in the club.” Tiny said.

    “I see. And how did you wind up getting captured?”

    “Eh, that was my dumb fault. Some guys were waiting for us in the escape tunnel. She threw a knockout bomb at them but I thought it was just smoke so I ran into it. Fumes must have got to the boss too.” Tiny said.

    “Actually you’re smarter than you think Tiny. What I threw was just a smoke ball. It was one of the props from the stage show. I figured it would help you and Way get close without getting shot. It was the guys who were after us that had the knockout gas. No chance you could see if with the smoke though. I only noticed because they threw a second one at Eddie and me.” I explained.

    “Who burns down a building and comes to the party packing knockout gas? That’s crazy!” Tiny complained.

    “Not if you need some of the people alive for you questioning.” I said.

    “Wait, you mean this broad’s the one who smoked us out?” Tiny asked, staring at Madeliane. It was the night for misunderstandings it seemed.

    “No, she’s the one who rescued us.” I explained.

    “What about the guys who grabbed us then?” Tiny asked.

    “Two of them after going to be in ICU after the beating Way gave them. I don’t know what happened to the guys driving the truck though.”

    “There was only one driver. He was unconscious when I left.” Madelaine. “Why didn’t I see any other members of the Brotherhood in the truck?”

    “Because you weren’t watching your rear view mirror while you were ramming us.” I said. “Way threw both of them out of the back of the truck.”

    “We were on the freeway though?” Madelaine said.

    “They had guns, so it was toss them overboard or shoot them.” I explained.

    “It’s the same thing either way isn’t it?” Madelaine asked.

    “I think being shot hurts less actually. But they were alive after they landed.” I said.

    “Be that as it may, that still doesn’t explain what you were doing there. Or what you’re doing here.” Madelaine said.

    “Well you see I’m…” I never got to say ‘a girl detective’.

    A flash of insight slipped through – a preternatural warning of danger. Not for myself directly but for Madelaine. I felt reality crack as I leapt forward. It was the lesser of two evils. Better that I get a supernatural premonition than her.

    Of course from Madelaine’s point of view my leap looked exactly like an attack.

    So she shot me.

    I knew I’d been shot immediately but shock held the pain off for just long enough that I was able to land on her and bear her to the ground before the penthouse’s floor to ceiling windows shattered inwards.

    Two other windows shattered as well but the gun shots sounded impossibly distant.

    “We’re being shot at.” I barked out through gritted teeth. The pain hit a moment later and I groaned. Madelaine’s bullet had hit me somewhere high in my shoulder area. I couldn’t tell exactly where because everything on that side of my body was screaming at once.

    I saw Tiny lunge to the side and knock both himself and Stone over so the chairs they were tied to fell to the floor. That put them behind a couch from the vantage point of someone outside the window.

    “How are they shooting at us? We’re the tallest build for a mile around!” Madelaine said as she scrambled out from under me. I would have appreciated an “I’m sorry” but under the circumstance I wasn’t going to ask that she be too clear headed.

    “A plane?” I grunted. That would be bad news if so. Planes didn’t tend to be armed with small caliber guns.

    “I can’t hear any.” Madelaine said.

    “We have to get out of here.” I told her. “Tiny can you carry Stone?”

    “Not tied up like this.” he said.

    “Madelaine, give me your guns and untie them.” I said. I didn’t bother with keeping my tone polite. If she wanted cheerful sunshine then she shouldn’t have shot me.

    “I can’t…” she began but this time I cut her off.

    “You can’t waste time. I just saved you from a sniper shot. Give me a damn gun and then do what’s needed to get us out of here.”

    She looked at me, her features torn in confusion.

    “If they have snipers then they have guys coming into the building too. You know this has to be the Brotherhood right? I’m not with them and if we live I will probably help you take them down. The three of you cannot die here though, so stop wasting time!”

    I don’t know if my words convinced her or if whatever mental calculations she was running turned out in my favor. She passed me one of her pistols and moved away in a crouch to untie Tiny and Stone without any further argument. I almost expected reality to complain about that too but it was probably just the bullet wound making me cranky.

    Pistols are absolutely the wrong weapon to bring to a sniper battle. I’d have been about as threatening with a pile of rocks. I crawled over to the edge of the room and hit the lights to help even the odds slightly. It was getting to be standard procedure when I was shot at.

    It took me a second for my eyes to adjust to the darkness when I turned off the lights. I just had my night vision in place when a brilliant beam of light bathed the inside of the room. Someone was shining a search light horizontally into the suite.

    Hitting an enemy sniper at range with a pistol was the kind of thing that would have made reality very unhappy with me. Spotlights on the other hand are much bigger and more obvious targets. I waited until the light was shining on the other corner of the room before popping off a pair of shots.

    I was holding the gun in my good hand because my other arm was a mess of useless agony. Even the recoil from the pistol shots was enough to make me wince, so I wasn’t surprised when both shots missed the big glowing target I was shooting at. I dropped immediately to the ground following them and, as I’d hoped, saw that I’d drawn return fire from our distant snipers.

    It was definitely more than one too. Three shots landed in tight succession on the wall near where I’d fired from. If there were three there could be more, but three was enough that escaping was going to be very difficult.

    “Do you have them free yet?” I asked.

    “One second…yes.” Madelaine said.

    “Good. Crawl to the door then!” I said.

    The spotlight that had swept the room locked in place to illuminate the path to the exit. I sighed. There was no cover for a long enough part of it that anyone crawling for the door would be shot to pieces.

    “We can’t move forward.” Madelaine said.

    “I’ll take care of the light. Be ready to run….Now!” I said and popped up from behind my cover. I was at the edge of the light but my shots attracted the spotlight’s attention. One, two, three bullets. One, two, three recoils that made me gasp in pain. And not a one of them hit the spotlight. With one shot left I clenched my teeth and spit out a little magic to force the matter.

    Madelaine and Tiny were fully exposed in the light of the spotlight, with Tiny carrying Stone on his back. That meant they were maybe two seconds from dying in a hail of sniper fire. Fortunately, the tiny bit of dream magic I put into my last shot carried the bullet straight and true. I was rewarded with a wonderful rush of darkness as the spotlight shattered. Madelaine, Tiny and Stone were safe.

    Then I was rewarded with a less wonderful rush of darkness as another bullet hit me.

    There are bad ideas that only become noticeably bad after they’re put into motion. Then there are bad ideas that are obviously bad right from conception. Of the two, the ones that are clearly bad from the outset are the least dangerous since they’re so easy to avoid. Unless of course you’re me.

    “We could just go to the hospital together.” I said, holding back the plan that was forming in my mind.

    “But I know you have a better idea than that. I can see it wrinkling up your forehead.” Way said.

    “Oh, it’s not a better idea. It’s one of my ‘clever ideas’.” I said. Some people have clever ideas that are truly brilliant. My clever ideas on the other hand usually involve taking far more risks than any sane person would. The problem with my clever ideas is that while they’re obviously terrible in many ways the potential payoff can still make them seem appealing enough to attempt.

    “How clever?” Way asked, her eyes narrowing. It’s one of the advantages of knowing someone well; She was able to learn from my mistakes even when I wasn’t.

    “Well we’re kind of in a race now right?” I asked.

    “True, we’ve got less than two days until the auditor gets here and there’s also Kari to consider.” Way said.

    “Right, so we need to find Guy McIntyre or at least what happened to him as soon as possible.” I said.

    “You want to break into his apartment tonight and see what clues you can turn up don’t you?” Way asked. That’s another benefit to knowing someone well; you can arrive at the same bad ideas with only the bare minimum of prompting.

    “I do. I think it’s the best way to find out what his angle on this deal was.” I said. With how the fateweaving had swept him up, we both knew there had to be some secret he was hiding.

    “And the assassin that will be sent for the driver?” Way asked.

    “I think we need to catch him too.”  I said with a frown. There was only one option that let us be in two places at once.

    Way paused and leaned back against the wall of the alley to considered that for a moment.

    “Dibs on the assassin at the hospital then.” she said.

    “Do you want to question him too? If I doesn’t take me long at McIntyre’s apartment I should be able to meet up with you before dawn.” I said. Dawn would bring a shift change at the hospital and the rooms would be put to more use. That meant it would be harder to commandeer an empty operating room for a theatrical interrogation of a captured assassin during the day.

    “If you can, that would be great, but I’ll see what I can get out of him before then.” she said.

    “So how ‘clever’ do you think this idea is?” I asked her. I didn’t like it but it did seem to be our best chance to resolve things quickly.

    “Clever enough to work maybe.” she said.

    “And the chance we wind up getting shot?” I asked.

    “Pretty high with how our night’s been going.” she said. She was joking, except we both knew that she wasn’t wrong.

    “We really should have kept the rifles from the truck shouldn’t we?” I asked.

    “No, then we’d have the police shooting at us too.” Way pointed out.

    “Where should we meet?” I asked her.

    “I think Kari had the right idea, Shurman’s office will be the best place in the short term. We’ll need to be careful tomorrow though. The police may send a team to check out the room again.” she said.

    “I wish we could stay in touch.” I said and then caught myself. I’d meant it in terms of having our dream speech or at least cell phones. Being honest with myself, I meant in the broader sense too, but it wasn’t the time to discuss that yet.

* * *

    The trip to Guy McIntyre’s apartment building wasn’t that long once I’d hailed a taxi.

    It occurred to me as I got out of the cab that I was going to need to start my breaking and entering earlier than I’d planned. As befitted his wealth and status, Guy McIntyre’s apartment was in the very prestigious “Hotel Marlow”. The “Amazing Jin” had reason to be in a lot of different places, but a high society hotel was not one of them. At least not as a guest.

    I was almost disappointed to see that for such an elite hotel, the Marlow used trashy and cheap locks on the doors to the staff area. It took virtually no skill to pick them and once inside I was able to grab a maid’s uniform without anyone noticing.

    To be fair to the building security, there wasn’t much going on in the staff areas in the dead of the night. Those few people I ran across were distracted and tired enough that I barely even needed to hide from them.

    I discovered the other reason for the laxness of the security when I reached the common areas. The only ways up in the hotel were by the elevator or roped off stairs. Both were guarded by bright young bellhops who were worked in short enough shifts that they were still alert.

    Since I needed to keep things quiet, I didn’t like the idea of interacting with either of the bellhops. They would remember a random Chinese looking girl in a maid’s uniform too easily if anyone asked. In theory no one should ask of course, but if I left any clue to the break-in I had planned there was a good chance the police would find it very interesting.

    There was another option however. Rather than put on the maid uniform, I headed back to the staff area and made my way to the service door for the elevator. Before I reached there I dropped off the maid’s uniform where I’d found it and ‘liberated’ a tool box instead.

    Reality strained a little at what I was planning. The Amazing Jin had no reason to know how elevators worked, certainly not well enough to override the operation of one. I argued back that understanding mechanical devices was one part of what a good magician would study to perfect their illusions. The Amazing Jin was young so her depth of knowledge shouldn’t be that great, but on the other hand elevators are kept as purposefully simple to make sure they can be repaired easily.

    I had to pass through some pretty greasy areas and climb up into an access hatch in the roof of an adjoining room to get to the top of the elevator car. It was worth getting my clothes dirty though. The top of the elevator gave me access to all of the control lines.

    Working very carefully and quietly, I puzzled out which wires ran to the control lever that usually controlled the up and down motion of the car. One quick snip and I was able to take control of the elevator, much to the consternation of the poor boy inside it.

    I could have ridden the elevator all the way up to the top floor where McIntyre’s suite was but that struck me as too suspicious. I stopped it instead four floors below the top and carefully rewired the lines back into the normal configuration. A little bit of black tape finished the job and left it so that it would be difficult at best to tell that the elevator had been tampered with. Since it had never reached the top floor no one would be suspicious of anything happening in Guy McIntyre’s apartment either.

    That all worked wonderfully. Except for the part where I needed to climb the last forty feet of elevator shaft on my own.

    By the time I got to the top of the shaft my hands were raw and I’d picked up a number of scrapes and bruises. I was also aching with fatigue. The Amazing Jin was a lot more physically fit that my regular self was but it had been a very rough evening.

    I suppressed a cough from my overworked and still smoke damaged lungs and headed down the corridor McIntyre’s room. The security for the rooms on this level was much better than the cheesy locks for the staff entrance. Triple locked doors with some of the best locks that money could buy guarded every suite.

    The truth about locks though is that even the best locks can be defeated. It just takes time and knowledge, or in my case a little bit of each of those and a tiny push of dream magic to help nudge the process along faster.

    I opened the door soundlessly and stepped in to prevent anyone from noticing me in the corridor.

    “You were quite a pain to get up here, let me tell you.” I heard a female voice say from the living room. I froze at that. There was not supposed to be anyone here.

    “The only question will be if you’ll have enough sense to make all this effort worth it.” the female voice continued. For a moment I had thought I’d been detected but, from what she was saying, it seemed like there was someone else in the living room as well.

    “Are you a sensible guy Eddie? I’m going to guess you can be. Not too many guys get to the position you’re in without being able to tell when someone’s got it in for them.”

    Eddie? My mind raced to find anyone else the woman could be referring to but all I could come up with was Eddie Stone. I replayed her voice in my head. It sounded familiar.

    “And what about you big guy? You go everywhere your boss goes right? You the one who talks sense into him when he needs it? I’m guessing you’re going to be waking up soon. Unless you’re already awake that is.” the woman said.

    I heard a grunt of irritation and pain from a distinctly masculine voice.

    “Ok. I’m awake.” Eddie Stone’s bodyguard said.

    “You’re Tiny Royals right?” the woman asked.

    “Yeah. What did you do to the boss?” Tiny asked.

    “Nothing. You two were captured and drugged with knockout gas. I rescued you from your captors and brought you here so we could discuss some business…opportunities.”  the Night Warder said.

    I searched every scrap of memory my brain could get ahold of looking for what or why or how the Night Warder could possibly be in Guy McIntyre’s apartment. I came up empty but my imagination was happy to fill in some possibilities.

    The first and ugliest one was that if someone had killed McIntyre then they would also be aware that his apartment wasn’t being used. It would make a perfect spot for clandestine meetings. That theory felt weak though. If the Night Warder was a killer then why would she have left Way and I alive? Maybe if McIntyre wasn’t the good natured philanthropist that people said he was? If he was guilty of some terrible crime that might be enough to bring an otherwise decent person to murder him. But if so they wouldn’t be likely to then turn around and use his apartment for a chat with a known gang boss.

    The next  possibility was that Way, Kari and I weren’t the only ones looking for McIntyre. If the Night Warder was searching for him too, she might know more than we did about what had happened to him. The question then was what she wanted with Eddie Stone.

    The last possibility was the worst of the bunch. It was possible that the Night Warder was simply being swept up in the flow of the fate weaving. If so she might not have any reason for the things she did beyond “it was destined that I be here.” I hated that kind of thing. Especially in cases like this where it threatened to lead to her rapid demise as the world tried vainly to protect itself from her.

    The worst thing to do with a nascent dreamweaver is try to kill them. If there’s anything that’s likely (though not guaranteed) to wake a dreamweaver up its placing them in any sort of lethal danger.

    “Before we begin our discussion though, I’d like to have our guest in the foyer come in and join us.” the Night Warder said. “Don’t try to hide, I saw the light change when you opened the door. Don’t try to leave either. The elevator won’t reach you before my bullets will.

    I grimaced. Way had been right, there was a pretty high chance I was going to get shot for my clever plan.