Dream Chaser (Bailey Spade 3)

“The Council offered him a seat?” I exclaim. “Already?”

Kit bites her lip. “He was the natural choice. Hekima showed us how useful an illusionist can be and—” She stops. “Never mind that. I can’t believe you had a twin. Must be hard learning that you lost her, and in such a way.” As she speaks, she morphs into a copy of me.

Ariel gives me a worried glance. “How about we talk about something else?”

“It’s okay. I didn’t really know her.” As I look at my face on Kit, all I feel is a peculiar type of numbness. “Hard to grieve someone you didn’t know existed.”

What I am mourning is my perception of my mom as someone who’d be unable to kill her daughter, even under the potential influence of an evil deity.

Seeming to understand, Ariel squeezes my shoulder.

Itzel looks uncomfortable with all this. Adjusting her breathing mask, she asks, “What did that world look like? The one you saw in your mom’s memories?”

Glad to have something to do, I recreate the clearing where I saw my sister killed. I place the tall forest around us just like it was in Mom’s memory, with the blue-green trees shaped alternately like baobabs and coral reefs, and I even add in the odd skies that imply the planet is an odd pretzel shape instead of a sphere.

Everyone looks around, mouths agape.

“That sky…” Felix exhales in awe. “So cool.”

Ariel turns to Itzel. “Is this a ring world? Built by your kind, maybe?”

Itzel shakes her head. “It could be gnome built, but the structure isn’t a ring. It must be two counter-rotating cylinders. Reminds me of a spaceship design I’ve read about on Earth—O’Neill colony.”

She clears the grass at our feet and draws a rough sketch of the design in the dirt.

Everyone stares at it blankly.

Itzel huffs in frustration and gives Felix a defeated look. “You need an Earth pop-culture reference, don’t you?”

“No,” Felix says.

“Yes,” Ariel says at the same time.

“Interstellar,” Itzel says. “Cooper Station, at the very end.”

“Oh, yeah,” Felix says, looking up with even greater wonder. “So you think this is a spaceship?”

“That’s a philosophical question,” Itzel says. “Any planet can be said to be a spaceship, especially if the planet was artificially created the way this one must’ve been.”

Kit loudly yawns. “I’m dreaming, yet you’re about to put me to sleep.”

“Guys.” I snap my fingers to get their attention. “There’s one thing we haven’t touched on yet—the most worrisome aspect of what I’ve learned.” I look at each of them in turn. “Do any of you know how a god of nightmares could be a real thing?”

“Maybe he isn’t a god, per se,” Felix says. “Not in the way humans think of them. Maybe he’s just a powerful dreamwalker or something similar who was worshipped. With enough mojo from human faith, many of us can become like gods.”

“He might be right,” Ariel says. “There was a Phobetor in Greek mythology, and he had the same job. If more worlds have the same myth about a specific Cognizant, his powers would’ve grown beyond anything we can imagine.”

I look around furtively. “How about we call him Collywobbles going forward? Especially when in the dream world?”

Valerian was insistent that we shouldn’t say Phobetor’s real name, and now that I’ve encountered him, I can no longer dismiss his concern as paranoia.

Kit nods. “No problem. Can you show him to us? Collywobbles?”

“I don’t think I want to do that here either,” I say. “I have this bad feeling. Like if I bring him about, he’ll actually come to life.”

“Hmm.” Felix picks up a fallen leaf from one of the trees. Weirdly, it’s shaped like a hexagon. “Could that be why he appeared to you in the first place?” he asks. “If your mom was taken over by him, as you theorized, that means she must’ve—”

“We agreed not to talk about that,” Ariel snaps at him, casting a cautious look in my direction.

“I’m okay.” I square my shoulders, ignoring the painful tension in my neck that somehow persists even in the dream. “If he’s right, how about we don’t talk about Collywobbles at all? At least not here.”

Everyone falls silent.

“Maybe we should all sleep on this,” I say. “If anyone has good ideas in the morning, get in touch.”

They agree, so I let them go on sleeping and return to my cab.

When I get to my apartment a few minutes later, I collapse into my own bed. But I can’t sleep, my mind replaying everything in a nauseating loop.

Finally, after what feels like hours, I drift off.

I’m walking through Times Square, doing my best not to touch the thousands of tourists and natives, which is harder than it should be. Above us loom skyscrapers adorned with screens playing flashy videos, most of them advertisements. All seems ordinary—until a vaguely familiar music begins playing.