Chapter 48

I'm standingunder a shower that sprays tomato juice instead of water, soaking the pink tutu I'm wearing. A purple llama stands just outside the stream, chewing the shower curtain.

"Can you pass me the body wash?" the llama says in a Scottish accent, after the curtain is kaput.

I obligingly reach for the bottle, only to notice something missing from my wrist.

Pom isn't where he should be.

Of course. I'm dreaming. For the millionth time, I wonder why such absurdities as the tutu and the llama don't clue me in.

Recalling what happened right before I fell asleep, I change my outfit and head for my dream palace.

I'm lucky Chester fell where he did. Was that his luck or mine? It's possible that his probability power guided my fall so as to save him from Hekima's trap. Hopefully that means I can figure out how to do exactly that.

Pom materializes in front of me. "Did it help when I let you see what I see?"

I pull him close and fluff his fur. "Yep, but no time to talk. I think I have a plan."

"Good luck." His ears turn black. "If you don't mind, I'll stay out of it—I have a feeling it's going to be scary."

"Suit yourself."

I teleport to the tower of sleepers. A few Councilors are already here, but not Hekima. He must not have reached REM sleep yet.

Since Kit is here, I enter her dream. Surprise, surprise, she's dreaming of an orgy.

I interrupt the proceedings. "Hey, Kit, this is a wet dream. We need to talk."

When she looks at me, I remove the naked people and the bedroom from around us and replace them with a recreation of the Council meeting chamber—or at least the way the place looked before Hekima's massacre.

"Have a seat," I tell her, and fill her in on everything that's happened.

By the time I finish, her eyes are almost as wide as Pom's. "I can't believe it was Hekima. But that does explain what happened to me. I saw Colton admit that he was the murderer, and then he attacked me."

"I bet Colton thought you admitted the same thing."

"So many dead." She shakes her head mournfully.

"About that. Filth and Kain's deaths—"

"—are Hekima's fault." She turns into Hekima and imitates cutting a throat. "I'll make sure the rest of the Council understand that you, Felix, and Ariel aren't guilty of anything, nor is anyone who killed a colleague due to Hekima's trickery. Don't worry."

Great. And it's almost true. No one needs to know the particulars of Filth's demise. He had it coming, but Ariel could still get into trouble unless Hekima takes the blame.

"Thank you," I say.

Kit reverts to her usual guise. "What now?"

"I'm going to bring more Councilors here and ask you to bring them up to speed."

Leaving her, I go back to the tower of sleepers and enter Nina's dream. She's flying over a field of daisies. I take to the air and loft up next to her.

Her eyes boggle.

"You're in a dream," I say.

She floats down to earth and bends to literally smell the flowers. "Seems so real."

"I know."

She rubs her forehead. "Did I really—"

"Let's hold off on the explanation for a moment." I take us to the dream version of the Council meeting room. "Kit, please tell Nina what happened. I'll get the others."

Without waiting for a reply, I return to the tower of sleepers and get Chester, followed by Colton, Isis, the siren, and a few other Councilors.

Eventually, I spot Hekima in one of the nooks.

My sleep grenade has finally worked on him.

I return to the Council meeting place.

"Do you have a plan?" Isis asks when I appear.

"I do. But before we go into that, I want to make sure we're all good." I look at each Councilor one by one. "Is my execution canceled?"

Isis raises her chin. "The majority of the Council is here, and we've voted for amnesty in your case. Furthermore, I'm still going to heal your mother."

My heart leaps. "Today?"

"If we survive Hekima," she says with an eye roll. "Are you ready to talk about your plan in regard to that little problem?"

I take a deep breath and face the Councilors. "The plan is simple. You all try to wake up. Meanwhile, I'll go into Hekima's dream to make sure he keeps dreaming and therefore can't thwart you. Once you're in the waking world, knock him out."

"I'll do it," Kit says eagerly.

"I'm closer to him," Chester says.

"Doesn't matter who," I say. "Just wake up."

"How?" Nina asks.

"Will yourself to wake up. If that doesn't work, use a little bit of pain."

Chester disappears right away, but most others stand there with expressions of concentration. Then Kit punches herself, and that wakes herup. Colton does the same and also disappears. Nina looks like she's having trouble, so I give her a jolt to assist her.

When the last Councilor is gone, I take myself to Hekima's room in the tower of sleepers. It would be extremely unfortunate if he happened to wake up beforesomeone could knock him out.

Making it a point to turn myself invisible, I touch him on the forehead.

* * *

Hekima is sittingon a couch reading a book. A confused expression appears on his face. He lowers the book to his lap and raises it again, and even I see the text is different on the second go. His confusion deepens.

Crap. What he's just done is one of the many techniques lucid dreamers use to determine whether they're in a dream or not, a bit like what I do with Pom on my wrist. Text often becomes blurry and changeable in dreams. If Hekima ascertains this isn't real, he could wake himself up.

I gently shoot him with my power to keep him in the dream state. It's not a surefire method; if he punches himself the way he did in the graveyard, he could still wake up.

As if hearing my thoughts, Hekima stands up and raises his fist to do exactly what I don't want him to do.

I make his couch grow two plush arms like a giant teddy bear, and the arms grab him by the wrists, preventing him from hurting himself.

He looks right at me. "Ah, Bailey. I'm definitely dreaming."

To my shock, I become visible.

What the hell? Is this what had happened the last time I'd been in his dream? Maybe I hadn't forgotten to make myself invisible after all. Maybe he'd done the same thing to me then.

Hekima gives me a level look. "I'm an experienced lucid dreamer. I may not be able to enter other people's dreams, but I'm not so easy to fool."

He looks at the teddy bear bindings, and they turn to dust.

Puck.

Before he can punch himself, I teleport to him and grasp his wrists myself. No matter how good he is at lucid dreaming, he can't wish me away.

"You can't wake up even if you hit yourself," I say, hoping he can't read the lie on my face. "I have you sedated."

His lips curve in his grandfatherly smile. "I grew up side by side with your kind on Soma. I know all the tricks."

"Soma?" I ask, partly to stall for time but also because I'm genuinely intrigued. I've never heard of this place before, and it sounds like I should have, if it's where a bunch of "my kind" live.

Hekima cocks his head. "You're not from Soma? Then perhaps this will work."

An arc of pulsing red energy streams from his fingers into my head.

Pucking puck.

He's trying to use his illusion powers inside a dream—and it does work.

Well, sort of.

I'm back in the gladiatorial arena, but I'm also still holding his wrists. This odd state of being isn't like Pom letting me see through his eyes, but more like the werewolf's dream, where I'm being torn between two places at the same time.

The biggest orc I've ever seen ambles into the arena, and the crowd goes wild.

Hekima tries to twist out of my hold.

Puck. To fight the orc, I'll need to let go of Hekima's wrists. But what would happen if I didn't fight the orc? I'm dealing with an illusion, but inside a dream. For all intents and purposes, there's no difference between those two, so if the orc kills me in a dream, I might die, and the consequence would be murderous insanity. If this is similar to the werewolf situation, though, maybe the solution is the same as it was there.

Leal's so-called multibody technique.

The orc is almost upon me. I don't have time to dwell on the fact that the multibody thing failed the last time I tried it. I'm just going to have to trust in the mind-boosting power of sleep.

I zoom out of my body and create a second Bailey in the path of the orc, this one with fiery hair. Straining my bodiless self to the point of fainting, I will myself to enter both bodies.

Bam. The orc smashes his fist into my stomach—the stomach of the me with fiery hair.

It worked!

Fiery Me crumples in pain, but the me still holding Hekima's wrists feels nothing but the illusionist's struggles. Fiery Me hits the orc with everything I have, and the orc flies through the arena and crash-lands in a crater.

The crowd pees their pants in excitement.

Hekima tries to headbutt me. I make my head the consistency of a plush pillow to make sure he doesn't feel any pain.

At the same time, Fiery Me teleports to the weakened orc and waits for the crowd to quiet. As soon as it does, the flaming hair rises from my head and torches my opponent to a crisp.

Some in the crowd have heart attacks.

Hekima bares his teeth. "You're powerful. Even some of the dreamwalkers on Soma couldn't do the multibody technique."

Soma again—and the place sounds more interesting by the moment. Both of me reply in unison, "Tell me more. What is Soma? Where is it?" At Hekima's incredulous stare, both of me add quickly, "I'll do my best to get the Council to go easy on you if you tell me the truth."

Kit or Chester must be about to knock him out by now, but I almost wish they weren't. My question isn't a stalling tactic. If Soma is where dreamwalkers live, I want to learn all about it. With Mom refusing to speak about our roots, I've always wondered if—

Hekima's face twists. "We never should've left Soma. Siti would still be alive. On Soma, we—"

A shriek of unspeakable pain erupts from him as his dream bursts like a soap bubble, and I find myself back in the tower of sleepers.

Puck. Just when he was getting to the good part, someone knocked him out. Oh, well. Hopefully I'll be able to question him when he recovers. They didn't execute me right away, so there should be time.

I give myself a jolt and wake up.