The Spinner of Dreams

by K. A. Reynolds

  Annalise gripped her silver dagger in one hand and twisted the Spinner Queen’s locket in the other. She knew how it felt to love someone the Fate Spinner had stolen. She’d have done almost anything to have her grandparents back—and even then, she’d still had her mom and dad. Mister Edwards was alone. After going through this maze and giving everything for her dream, she wasn’t that same girl who’d left home scared of everything.

  Only yesterday, she wouldn’t have harmed a living creature for all the love and confidence and uncursed hands in the world. But now she was a dragon slayer—a defeater of giant arachnids, chimera, and skeletons—a girl with a fire unicorn—a friend to another brokenhearted soul. They had changed here, in this labyrinth. And that meant something to Annalise.

  “Do you mean what you said, Mister Edwards?” Annalise asked him, staring at her boots. “That I—I mean, that you consider me a friend?”

  Chin trembling, he nodded and met her eyes. “Yes, Miss Meriwether, that is indeed true. And even though I agreed to help her before I knew you, that still doesn’t make it right. But”—he wiped his eyes and smiled defiantly at the Fate Spinner in the glass—“while the Spinner of Dreams may never grant my dream after what I’ve done, I promise no matter what happens, I’ll help you reach the Dreamland gates.”

  Esh-Baal lowered her head to Mister Edwards, sniffing him, golden eyes blazing. “He is telling the truth.”

  Annalise smiled at Esh-Baal, then at the sad black fox. “I know.” She felt no malice for Mister Edwards. How could she, when she’d betrayed her own parents by sneaking away after her dreams and leaving them behind? “No need for sorries, Mister Edwards. I understand.” She looked over at the Fate Spinner, staring with haunted eyes at the locket around Annalise’s neck. “Fate and dreams make us do desperate things, especially when they involve those we love. Besides,” Annalise continued brightly, “you didn’t lead me here, not really. I’m the one who left home to face her. With a little help from my new friends, I found my way here on my own.”

  Mister Edwards exploded into a grin and rushed Annalise with a hug. “Thank you, Miss Meriwether. Thank you!”

  The creature behind the iron door shrieked loud enough for Annalise to rush to cover her ears. From the way its voice carried, it sounded as tall as the door.

  Esh-Baal lowered her wing for Mister Edwards to climb aboard. He looked at Annalise uncertainly, tail between his legs.

  “Her name is Esh-Baal,” Annalise said with a small laugh. “Her flames are cool, but her scales are slippery, so be careful.” Reluctantly, Mister Edwards scrambled up Esh-Baal’s bone-and-leather wing. “And hold on tight.”

  Annalise sheathed her dagger and tucked her locket under her cloak. Then, blackberry hair wafting gently in the hot, dry wind, heart screaming with fear in her chest, she climbed up Esh-Baal’s wing after him.

  The Fate Spinner applauded, unfazed. “How touching. So noble of you to forgive him when you’re both seconds from death.” The spectators stomped and cheered when the Fate Spinner stood. “Not that it matters,” she said with a smug grin. “You won’t survive what comes next.” She drew closer to the mirror and motioned to the obscured crowd. “When you are defeated, this is what you will become.”

  The fog over the spectators cleared at last.

  Chapter 30

  You Must Believe

  There once was a girl with the most beautiful dream anyone could ever imagine. Annalise, born with one hand twice the size of the other, wanted her dreams to come true. But the Fate Spinner did everything in her power not to let that happen. And no matter how kind the girl was, or how much she loved or tried or gave, the world spat Annalise Meriwether out.

  At least it had until now.

  Thousands of glowing white wraiths occupied the stands circling the gladiator’s arena. Like the chimera before them, the spectators were shackled in place. They snarled. They lunged at their chains. They thrust evil-eye talismans before them and shot wicked glares at Annalise and Mister Edwards, atop the fire unicorn’s back. “KISMET!” they chanted. “LONG LIVE THE FATE SPINNER!”

  Esh-Baal turned in a circle, fires glowing with rage. Annalise stared at the spirits head-on.

  “You don’t deserve a dream!” one shouted.

  “If we can’t have what we want, why should you?” another howled.

  “Go back, you freak!” the wraiths screamed. “Back to the maze where cursed dreamers belong!”

  The creature hidden behind the gigantic door to their right battered the iron, denting the metal, shaking the trees and walls. But the Fate Spinner kept her polished onyx eyes on Annalise. “The wraiths in the stands were just like you once. Delusional dreamers, loyal to my sister. Now they’re dead to the world, and their dreams are dust on my floor. There’s no hope for dreamers like you.” The Fate Spinner shifted her gaze to Mister Edwards. “And no redemption for traitors like him. Your fates are set. Give up. You will never have your dreams.”

  Annalise gripped her dagger tighter, burning the wraiths’ faces into her memory. Their words swarmed around her, trying to bite their way into her heart, to make her bitter like them. Yet all Annalise felt for them was pity.

  She’d come too far to become one of them.

  Strange noises erupted from beyond the arena wall at their backs. Not the starving cries of a bloodthirsty monster like the one behind the iron door but the happy cheers of—

  Children?

  Esh-Baal and her riders turned.

  A grinding rumble echoed as the wall opened near where Annalise and her unicorn had entered the arena. Two dreamers leaped through the opening, cheering excitedly, as if they’d just burst into the green fields of Dreamland. Once they were through, the labyrinth stones rearranged, and the opening vanished.

  Nightingale and Bowie.

  “Ah!” the Fate Spinner said, relaxing deeper into her throne. “Right on time. How delightful.”

  Annalise and Mister Edwards dismounted Esh-Baal and hurried to greet their friends.

  “What are you two doing here?” Annalise asked. Her mouth went suddenly dry. Their skin was covered in dirt and cuts; their jeans and leggings, shredded; their hair tossed with debris. Annalise wondered what horrors the Fate Spinner had put Nightingale and Bowie through.

  “We could ask you the same thing,” Bowie said. “How did you get here?” He glanced between Annalise and Mister Edwards, the wraiths and Esh-Baal, with a mixture of disbelief, anger, hurt—and awe. “And where did you find a unicorn?”

  Annalise smiled gratefully at Esh-Baal. “I didn’t,” Annalise answered. “She found me.”

  Nightingale circled Esh-Baal, eyes sparkling despite her worried expression. She reached out to touch Esh-Baal’s neck and laughed when the dark unicorn leaned into her hand. Nightingale’s enchanted grin quickly fell into dismay. “This was supposed to be the end of the labyrinth.” She faced the Fate Spinner’s reflection. “This was supposed to be Dreamland. I don’t understand.”

  Bowie glared at the Fate Spinner. “We won our final challenge. We beat the cyclopes and the red-eyed wolves. We made it to this big, elaborate, white-framed mirror, and we saw the arched gates of gold in the reflection. Crows even flew down and gave us tickets to see the Spinner of Dreams. But when we went through the mirror to Dreamland, we ended up here.”

  Nightingale nodded. “It doesn’t make sense.”

  “What color were the crows that gave you tickets?” Mister Edwards asked quietly.

  “Black,” Bowie replied. “Why?”

  “They belong to the Fate Spinner,” Mister Edwards answered. “The white crows are loyal to the Spinner of Dreams, and though they may watch over dreamers from above, they are not permitted inside the labyrinth walls.”

  Nightingale shook her head, blinking around her in disbelief. “We thought we’d be seeing our parents. We—” Her voice jagged. “We thought we’d won our dreams—but again, the Fate Spinner stole them away?”

  “Fate tricked us.” Bowie clenched
his fists and approached the Fate Spinner’s dark glass. “How could you trick us again?”

  “Wait.” Nightingale froze. “What if this arena is the end? What if this entire labyrinth is a trap?”

  Gooseflesh rippled Annalise’s neck. That can’t be true.

  The creature behind the large door threw itself against the iron harder and shrieked in frustration.

  Bowie gaped at his sister, revelation dawning. “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me. What if Dreamland doesn’t even exist?”

  The Fate Spinner stood and applauded, shouting, “Bravo, Mister Tristle! You and your sister have discovered what very few are privileged to learn. That there really is no hope left for dreamers. And more importantly,” she added with an innocent pout, “Mister Tristle is right.” The black crows screamed. “Dreamland died years ago.”

  Mister Edwards stroked his ragged black tail and blinked rapidly up at Annalise. “That can’t be right . . . can it?”

  Nightingale, Bowie, and Mister Edwards looked hopeless. They looked tired. They looked done. But Esh-Baal, breathing flames and pawing the earth, still looked prepared to fight.

  Annalise stood before the dreamers and spoke. “No. It isn’t true, and you mustn’t believe her.” Annalise remembered Dreamland from the Spinner King’s memory—vibrant, lovely, and very much alive. “This is her trick. Her lies are the true curse of fate. The illusions, the slivers of fear, the doubt she puts in dreamers’ heads? They’re designed to lead us astray.”

  “Sorry to disappoint,” the Fate Spinner replied, all trace of humor gone. “But it is very much true. I may be a lot of things, but I am no liar.”

  The Book of Remembering.

  Maybe the book would show her the truth—images, clues, information that proved the Fate Spinner was lying about Dreamland.

  As Annalise reached for the book, the Fate Spinner continued. “If you need more proof,” she said, motioning to the wall to her right with an excited grin, “my labyrinth has something to show you that might convince you. . . .”

  An odd, small mirror, set between two shadowshine trees, opened in the wall, and a horrific image swirled into view.

  “Mom and Dad!” Nightingale threw her hands over her mouth and ran to the mirror where her parents appeared inside the Fate Spinner’s red palace. They were guarded by twin dragons—one black, one white. Their parents’ hair was smoking, their clothes burnt. The two squatted in the corner in fear as the dragons bore down. “They look alive. Bowie . . . are they alive?”

  Bowie lunged at the Fate Spinner’s glass without answering her and screamed, “Let them go!” He banged his fists on the mirror and was blasted back.

  Nightingale ran to her brother.

  Mister Edwards stayed by Annalise’s side.

  “I won’t let them go. Not unless Annalise agrees to work with me,” the Fate Spinner said sweetly. “Isn’t that right, Annalise?”

  A chaos of black crows screamed at her shoulders. Esh-Baal reared, flaming hooves kicking the air, blazing with all the fires of the underworld.

  But at that moment, an unexpected pain drew Annalise’s attention. The dark mark Annalise thought was dormant sizzled with energy—like static building before a storm. Mister Edwards stared at Annalise’s great hand and smiled with a sliver of hope.

  “You’re a monster,” Nightingale shouted at the smug Fate Spinner. “A monster without a heart!”

  “Well, that may be. Nonetheless, it doesn’t look like your parents will make it, does it?” The Fate Spinner shrugged and batted her eyes. “A shame, since I just gave them back their lives. Oh, speaking of parents, look who I found, Annalise. You will be so pleased.”

  The view in the mirror changed.

  “Annalise!” Mattie Meriwether shrieked behind the mirror, pounding the glass.

  “Mom?” Annalise rushed in front of Nightingale and Bowie and gaped in horror. Her mom was trapped in a dead end of the labyrinth. Four enormous night wolves snarled behind her.

  “Save me!” her mom shrieked. “Don’t let me die!”

  Black smoke rolled through the mirror, and her dad appeared next.

  In another dim corridor, her dad stumbled through the labyrinth, bleeding through ragged clothes, ivy twining around his body, dragging him down. He kept falling and getting up, but each time, the ivy pulled tighter.

  “Annalise,” he groaned, meeting her gaze. “Be a good girl. Let your dreams go.” He fell. The wall opened like a mouth. The ivy dragged him inside. “I beg you—GIVE YOURSELF TO HER!”

  Annalise heaved in breath after breath, mind scrambling. Her parents would never ask her to do those things. Would they? Were these images real, or was the Fate Spinner playing them for fools?

  “However,” the Fate Spinner went on, twirling her staff, “I am a generous enchantress, so if you walk into my mirror now, I’ll agree to let your friends and their loved ones leave my labyrinth unharmed.” The Fate Spinner motioned to the black-smoke mirror. “As a bonus, I’ll even restore the traitor’s husband to flesh and blood.”

  A new image bloomed in the glass.

  “Mister Amoureux!” Mister Edwards uttered a forlorn cry. The statue of a silver fox, hung by a chain in a dungeon, twisted slightly. A devil-like beast with rose-red skin, black eyes, and curved horns pushed the stone fox back and forth with an ominous laugh. One hard swing would shatter the fox statue against the wall. Mister Edwards fell to his knees before the Fate Spinner’s mirror. “I beg you, please. Let him go.”

  The Fate Spinner clicked her pointed black nails on her staff. “Traitor. You only have yourself to blame for any hurt your husband endures. If Annalise doesn’t comply, he will end up shattered on the dungeon floor. Or, if I’m generous, I’ll restore his life—only to have him spend eternity as my servant. Every day I’ll remind him why he’s here. When I use him as a stool or my monsters’ plaything. When he’s crying and alone. When I work his tender paws to the bone, I’ll remind him he’s suffering because his partner chose to help a cursed stranger over him.” The Fate Spinner turned to Annalise. “Give up, and I’ll free them. Fight me, and they die with you.”

  Nightingale and Bowie whimpered quietly, sneaking desperate glances at Annalise. Mister Edwards wiped his tears on his arm, eyes low and ashamed.

  “No!” Annalise shouted. All eyes turned to her. “We mustn’t listen to her. Instead of believing in those fighting to keep us from our dreams, believe in the cats that led us to the train and the bravery it took to follow them. Believe in the strength we’ve built within us to get where we are now.” Annalise stroked Esh-Baal’s black scales with care. “Believe in your parents’ love and in the love of Mister Amoureux. Because the end of the labyrinth isn’t a place many live to see, and I believe we’re almost there.” Annalise paused. “Believing you’re worthy of your dreams is where the magic of the Spinner of Dreams lives. That’s the secret the Fate Spinner doesn’t want you to know. That’s the reason we dreamers are here together.”

  “That’s enough,” the Fate Spinner spat with disgust. “It’s over. This is your end.”

  The white crows drew closer to the domed bars.

  Their cries sounded like cheers.

  Annalise turned her back on the Fate Spinner. “If we believe in the Dreamland outside the Fate Spinner’s gates, she cannot defeat us!” In a quick thrust, Annalise raised her dagger to the sky. A blast of fireworks shot from the tip of the blade, lighting the dark in gold.

  No, not fireworks—butterflies.

  The poets of hope.

  The golden-winged butterflies poured from her dagger, eclipsed the bars, and circled higher than the white crows. In the magic of their fluttering wings, the sky shone. “See your world as your dream, you will live, as you deem . . .” they sang.

  A shimmering dust of sunlit mica fell from their wings, and suddenly, the view began to change. On the horizon, the golden spires of a grand palace of clear crystal quartz arose. Four tattered flags bearing the profile of a woman in a crown of crow
s and horns snapped from the turrets. Annalise, Mister Edwards, Nightingale, and Bowie blinked at the heavens, reflections of Dreamland in their eyes.

  The crowd sighed and calmed. The monster behind the door quieted and stilled. The poets’ magic dusted the arena in glitter.

  Dreamland exists for those who don’t give up.

  But her friends still didn’t look convinced. They turned back to the small mirror where they’d seen their family, where the stone fox still dangled now, uncertainty clear in their faces.

  The Fate Spinner fumed behind her mirror, glaring at Annalise, a cloak of shrieking black crows at her back. If she’d seen the poets of hope and the images of Dreamland their magic produced, she didn’t let on.

  “That was quite a speech, Annalise,” the Fate Spinner said like a calm before a storm. “Too bad every word is a delusion born from your broken dreamer’s mind.” The images of Dreamland drifted away, but the butterflies remained—soaring over the spectators who trailed the tiny poets in awe. The Fate Spinner’s voice rose in a boom. “I HAVE YOUR LOVED ONES BEHIND MY WALLS! And if you do not give yourself to me, you will end up like those fools in the stands. Believing in my sister and her dreams won’t get you anywhere but dead!”

  Annalise’s dagger hummed in her white-knuckled grip.

  Her dagger.

  If the images were illusions, and her dagger shattered illusions . . .

  Esh-Baal glanced at her intensely, horn blazing with new fire, the thread linking them shining bright. Annalise’s dark mark pinged with an electric charge she recognized as a signal of rightness. A signal that her instincts were true.

  “What say you, Annalise?” The Fate Spinner leaned forward, a flash of annoyance crossing her face when Annalise raised her dagger high.