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  “Henry? Ben?” She paused, listening. “Spider?”

  Nothing but the sound of the radiator hissing air, and the faint, far-off murmur of voices from down the hall. Tovah looked harder. There had to be an exit from this room. She sent the tendrils of her will seeking Ben and Spider. She closed her eyes.

  At once, terror sheared her as though she’d run her hand over the edge of a razor. She gasped, her eyes flying open, her hands clutching the sudden sharp pain in her guts. Her legs went weak and she kept herself from falling only by stepping forward.

  She shaped, instantly, on instinct. Not a meadow this time, or green grass, but the full length of her left leg. Solid and strong. It wanted to go away, she felt that, felt the tug and pull and tear of someone else’s will trying to break her down. Push her back. Make her afraid.

  She was afraid, but she would not allow that fear to take away her wholeness. Not now. Not ever again.

  Edward had not been what she needed, in the end, but he’d taught her something vital. She had climbed the mountain and found something that would last. Her sense of strength and self. Nothing and nobody would take that from her again, no matter how strongly they shaped.

  She cried out for Spider and for Ben again, but they did not appear. It took every effort she had to keep herself steady, but she managed. Shape a haven, Spider had told her, and though she didn’t think she could without Ben and Spider there to help her, she managed.

  The Ephemeros’s usual shifting gray mist had become a void.

  With nothing solid beneath her upon which to stand, Tovah should have fallen. With no sky or earth to orient her, she ought to have been lost. But instead, she shaped a haven, something small, a bubble of protection.

  Screams echoed in the darkness, and Tovah caught flash after flash of different wills in search of guides. Someone ran from a monster while another huddled on the tracks of an oncoming train. Sleepers faced guns and fire, heights. The world dreamed, held tight in the fist of an unseen dictator who allowed only fear to reign.

  She couldn’t worry about others, now.

  Tovah shaped a meadow. Green grass. A stream, for Ben, who liked the sound of running water. A rock for Spider to sit on. Butterflies, here and there, because she liked them. Each effort left her breathless, as though she was running a race.

  She didn’t have time to waste. Martin would be back in a few minutes. They wouldn’t let her sleep in Henry’s room forever. Though the pills Martin had given her would keep her under more easily than if she’d fallen asleep on her own, they could and would still wake her.

  The meadow, half-formed, shuddered and quaked. In the distance, she saw the mountains. That’s where they’d be. All of them.

  “You can fly, you know.”

  Tovah looked to her left. Justin Ross, dressed in the gray jumpsuit uniform of his character from Runner, pointed to the distance. He nodded, solemn, as if he was imparting great knowledge.

  “Can I?” She knew she could, but wondered why he was there. She didn’t have time to guide him, and looked for the army of dildo-waving fangirls. Tovah looked at the mountains. She bounced lightly on the balls of her feet. “I could run there, too.”

  “Flying’s faster.” Ross shrugged and finally, really looked at her. “Hey. It’s you. I wanted to thank you.”

  She paused, eager to be on her way but too used to the way the Ephemeros worked to discount the possibility he might have something important to say. “For what?”

  “Saving me that day.”

  “You saved me, too.”

  Ross gave her smile-porn. “Yeah. I wish I could do it again.”

  The offer was surprising and sweet, but Tovah shook her head. “Not this time, Justin. Listen…you might want to wake up now.”

  Ross’s smile spread like honey on a biscuit, and Tovah had no difficulty imagining him wooing the ladies. “I’m on a plane from L.A. to Vancouver. I took a dose of Dramamine. I don’t think I can wake up.”

  Tovah looked around for other sleepers, but her shaping had kept her far from them as it always did unless she was trying for contact with others. She moved to Justin Ross, who was taller than she’d expected. Kelly claimed he was over six feet, and he was definitely representing as such. She had to tilt her head to look up at him.

  “Okay, then,” she told him. “Just remember—”

  But before she could give him advice, she lost hold of the haven she’d shaped. Blackness swallowed him, then her. She swam against it, kicking and finding nothing to push against.

  No. No. No. She would not let this happen.

  She was in the car, the seat belt locked tight against her chest and the reek of smoke forcing her to bark with coughs.

  No.

  She was in the hospital, watching wide awake as the surgeons cut off her leg. The pain was immense.

  No.

  She was a child, hiding beneath the bed as something crept from the closet on taloned feet…

  No!

  And then she had a handful of agony, climbing the mountain of razors and glass.

  They were all the same. All of them. The boy, the witchwoman and the dogman. The boy let out a low, strangled groan, hands clutching and clenching, and dropped to his knees.

  He could feel them inside. They would never go away. Never, never, never. They would never go away…because they were all part of him. He could feel it. He knew it was true. But they didn’t, not the witchwoman or the dogman.

  Everything had stopped. If there was screaming, the witchwoman could no longer hear it. She touched a trickle of blood coming from the corner of her mouth and wiped it without care on her jeans. The dogman paced, hunger in its belly like fire.

  “Come here, little Spider,” the witchwoman said. “Let’s dance again.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Edward stepped forward, yanking his leg free of the boy’s grip. “You’re a liar!”

  Ben moved forward, too. “It’s true.”

  “Who told you that?” The man advanced again, ignoring the boy’s sobs. He grabbed Ben by the front of his shirt and shook him. “Did she? That lying bitch?”

  “Careful,” the witchwoman said, easing her way toward the boy. “You might make me cry.”

  “You’re a guide,” Ben told Edward. He wasn’t struggling to get away. “Aren’t you? Can’t you feel it? That boy needs guidance, right? Can’t you tell—”

  “Shut up!” The man shook Ben harder and raised one fist to punch him in the face.

  The witchwoman took advantage of his distraction to grab the boy. She cradled him close, crooning words of love and intimidation. The boy lay lax in her embrace, the dogman panting at his feet.

  “Don’t you listen to them, sweetheart,” she whispered, pushing his hair from his forehead. “They all want to hurt you, but you’re not for them, are you?”

  The boy looked up at her with wide blue eyes shining with tears that no longer slid down his pale cheeks. Bruises colored the flesh beneath his eyes, and his mouth looked puffy and sore, the lips cracked and hinting at blood. He cradled that damned red-and-white ball in his hands.

  “Where did that piece of shit come from?” The witchwoman recoiled at the sight of the toy.

  The boy reached to grab her, holding her close with torn fingertips. Blood dotted her shirt, and sudden disgust rolled over her. The boy’s grip was like iron. She had thought she was trapping him.

  She’d been wrong.

  Tovah shaped the pain away. Barely. She could concentrate on getting up this damned mountain to her friends, or she could shape herself without pain, but doing both was like breathing water. The effort choked and threatened to drown her.

  She got to the top, though, fast, and heaved herself over the edge without even resting. She got to her feet. Blood streamed from a dozen wounds, but she didn’t bother shaping it away.

  “Spider!”

  He was there, and Ben too, and Tovah ran to them with wings on her heels. She was in Ben’s embrace without quit
e knowing how she got there, just that when his arms went around her she stopped feeling afraid. The world around them rocked and reeled, but she was safe.

  It only lasted a moment.

  “Tovah?” Edward had yet another new face, dark eyes and pale hair, but at least he had one.

  Tovah faced him. “Edward.”

  He moved toward her, one hand outstretched, but he stopped before touching her. His gaze took in Ben’s arms around her. Shadows swam in his eyes.

  Once he’d promised to give her everything she needed. Tovah hoped he still would.

  “We’re glad you came,” Spider said as calmly as if she’d just shown up at the annual Fourth of July picnic.

  Spider took Tovah’s hand. The three of them faced Edward. Behind him, Tovah saw the boy with the red-and-white ball sitting on the black sand. The woman crouched beside him, one wrist caught in the boy’s hand. The dog-headed man had dropped onto all hands and knees behind them, its whine reaching Tovah’s ears like the sound of a dentist’s drill.

  The boy stood without letting go of the ball in his right hand, nor the woman held tight with his left. She hung in his grip like a toddler-dragged doll. The boy let his right hand tilt. The ball dropped and rolled away. The dog-headed man fit itself beneath his right hand at once, the boy’s fingers sinking into the coarse fur and grabbing tight.

  Three faced three with one between them.

  “He says,” Edward pointed at Ben. “He says they are all one.”

  Tovah, each of her hands held tight by someone she loved, nodded. “Yes. I think that’s true.”

  Edward looked over his shoulder at the boy, the woman and the beast, all silent. When he looked back at Tovah, she saw understanding in his eyes. Blue eyes, the color of a summer sky. “You really do want to help him?”

  “Yes, Edward. I really do.”

  It took him a moment more, but Tovah saw him break. Whatever he had done or meant to do, he’d attempted it for noble reasons. Edward stepped aside, his hands spread flat, palms up. Mea culpa.

  “Then stop him,” Edward said.

  Three faced three.

  The boy didn’t move, but neither did his previous tormentors. Both knelt beside him, tethered to him by his hands and also a physically palpable tangled skein of his will. He held them close to his body and, for the first time ever that Tovah’d seen them, the woman and the beast were quiet and still.

  “Shape a haven.” Spider’s quiet voice. “Shape it big enough for everyone.”

  Ben’s will nudged hers, and Spider’s next. They threaded together, a collective desire to push away the darkness and the fear. Black sand shimmered, becoming golden in one spot, emerald green grass in another, smooth white stone in a third. No good. They had to shape together.

  “Together,” Tovah murmured.

  She’d only guided by accident before, or against her judgment. She’d never sought to help dreamers face their troubles the way Ben and Spider had. Hell, the way Edward had, in his own manner. Shaping this way took more effort than anything she’d ever done in the Ephemeros, but with her friends beside her, Tovah pushed forward, up and out. She opened herself to the world around her and sought to respond to what filled her. She shaped.

  Somewhere and everywhere, fears became real. Horror and anger warred, swirling. The boy, face without expression, was pushing harder than they were.

  “Just wake up, son,” Spider said.

  The boy shook his head. The woman and the beast shuddered, but remained silent. “I can’t! Don’t you know, I can’t?”

  “You have to try!” Ben’s grip tightened on Tovah’s. “You don’t want this. We know you don’t.”

  The boy shook his head again, harder. He looked at the woman, then the beast, held tight in his grip. He looked up at Tovah, his blue eyes swimming with tears.

  “I can’t wake up! I can’t. I can’t do it. They’ll be there when I wake up. And they hurt me…” He broke into sobs.

  He wasn’t lying. Truth outlined every word, giving each a rim of gold as they passed through his lips and hung in the air between them. He looked again at the woman and the beast, this time crying out, shaking them.

  “I can’t let go. I can’t wake up. I can’t let go!”

  Tovah’s heart broke, watching him, but she didn’t let go of Ben’s or Spider’s hands. “Let us help you. Let us guide you. You have to face your fears.”

  The boy shook his head so hard his hair whipped around his cheeks. Tears flew from his face and turned to glittering ice when they landed on the sand. The woman and beast in his grasp were shrinking, becoming smaller versions of themselves. Puppets. They squirmed and wriggled but couldn’t get away.

  The mountains dissolved and reformed to become damp gray cinderblock walls. Concrete replaced black sand and cobweb-laced beams filled in above their heads, blocking out the night sky. One narrow window had been covered with black paper, the edges hinting at sunshine but not letting it through. The only light came from a small camping lantern settled on a table askew on three legs.

  The boy sat on an army cot covered with a blanket of undetermined color. He held his red-and-white ball in both hands. His feet dangled, barely able to touch the floor. In the dim light, his eyes looked dark, not blue, and white tear-trails snaked through the grime on his pale face. He stared past Tovah, Ben and Spider, still holding hands. He wasn’t looking at them.

  Tovah looked over her shoulder to the wooden door set into a wall that looked newer than the rest of the basement, as though it had been built especially to enclose this space. The door itself was battered but solid, with a crystal handle of the sort found in very old houses. The keyhole beneath it winked with light, showing no key filled it from the other side.

  “Where are we?” Ben’s murmur turned her head toward him.

  “This is where he is in the waking world, I think.”

  Spider made no comment on that. His hand twisted in Tovah’s, pulling her with him as he stepped forward. Ben moved, too, at the tug of Tovah’s hand in his.

  “Son. We want to help you. If you wake up—”

  Now the boy gave them his attention. He clutched the ball to his chest. “They’re coming.”

  For the first time since she’d learned the truth of the Ephemeros, Tovah felt she was watching from the outside instead of being a part of the action. They were there, all of them, but only the boy had control of the scene. She was an observer, only, could shape nothing but was affected by nothing, either.

  Their trio had moved back along the wall, away from the bed and the door, which opened. The boy cringed, drawing his legs up to move back along the cinderblock wall behind his cot. He made no sound.

  “Heya, little bastard.” The man who came through the door wore dirty work trousers and the sort of shirt mechanics wore, flapping open over a stained white T-shirt. A leather leash wrapped itself around his fist several times, the end of it attached to the collar of a large wolfish dog that growled immediately and lunged toward the boy.

  The boy still didn’t cry out, just retreated. The man, laughing, moved forward, letting the dog lunge close enough to snap at the boy’s feet before yanking the animal back hard enough to make it yelp.

  “Leave him alone,” said the woman who came through the door next. She carried a tray and edged around the dog, making like she meant to kick it. The dog backed off. The man did, too. “Look what I brought for you to eat.”

  She settled the tray on the bed next to the boy. On the tray was a bowl of what looked like vegetable soup and a hunk of Italian bread, along with a glass of water.

  “Now all you have to do is make a message for your mom and dad and tell them you want to come home. You know how we like you to do it.”

  She pulled a hand-held tape recorder from her pocket and held it out. The boy scooted away. Quick as spit, the woman grabbed the boy by the scruff of the neck and yanked him closer. The man laughed. The dog went into a frenzy of barking, its jaws snapping. It lunged closer until the man je
rked it away by the leash.

  The recorder clicked on. The boy said nothing at first, until the woman’s fingers dug deeper and the dog was allowed closer. She held him still while the dog barked and snapped inches from his face, until his terrorized screams filled the room.

  “Mommy, Daddy! I want to come home! I want to come home! Please!”

  “You know,” said the man when the woman had tossed the boy back to the bed, “you could just tell him to scream. He prolly would.”

  The sneer she gave him said it all. “But that wouldn’t be as much fun, would it, asshole?”

  Together with the dog, they left the room and the boy sobbing alone on his cot.

  Tovah’s stomach lurched to her throat as the scene unfolded, and her heart went out to the boy. He sat and reached at once for his ball. The food was left ignored. He bent his head over the toy, his small shoulders hunched. Empathy swept over her and Tovah made to let go of Spider and Ben, but Spider clamped his hand tight around hers.

  “Don’t, Tovahleh. Don’t let go.”

  “Everything makes so much sense, now,” she murmured. “Poor, poor boy. No wonder he doesn’t want to wake up.”

  “Tovah.” At Ben’s murmur she turned to look at him. He met her gaze with his, then looked back at the boy, who was staring at them in silence. “I don’t think he’s asleep.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  “If he’s not asleep, what is he?” Her hands inside the others’ sweated and cramped, but she didn’t let go. “Is he like Spider?”

  Spider sighed softly. Together they watched the boy on the cot. He’d stopped crying and turned his face to the wall. Tovah looked at Spider, whose gaze was fixed intently on the boy.

  “Spider? Is he like you?”

  “He’s not really here,” murmured Spider. “I mean…I think he was here, but this is still the Ephemeros. We’re all still dreaming. He’s dreaming us.”

  “Whoa,” said Ben with a flash of the dry humor Tovah found so appealing. “What a mindfuck.”

  “Am I a man who dreamed he was a butterfly? Or a butterfly who dreamed he was a man?” Spider’s husky chuckle lifted Tovah’s spirits. If he could joke about this, maybe it meant they weren’t so bad off.