Step one: master basic skills—like, immediately. Step two: secretly learn everything else there is to know about dreamwalking. Step three: beat whoever I have to into the dust while stupid-face Rocky weeps into the dirt.
All in service of regaining my magic and saving my city, of course.
By the time the story ends, Grace catches her breath, and Susan stops chortling, I have a pile of cords as thick as my arm. Too bad the only lengths that aren’t untwisting themselves faster than I can replace them are those pinned in place by the weight of the fresh failures on top.
Susan puts one hand on my wrist, stopping me.
I shake her off. “Leave me alone. I’m getting it.”
“Yeah, you’re definitely not.” Grace pinches a ravelling cord between two fingers like a worm, or a twig, or a very skinny snake, or something equally thin and unpleasant.
Her stubby fingers untangle the strands, smooth, and re-twist them into a shining cord. She loops and fastens it around my wrist. “See? Like this.”
I yank, but it’s too tight to slip off. I need shears . . .
I stop mid-reach, suspicious. “I’ve almost got it. Stop distracting me.”
“So stubborn,” Grace says to Susan.
Cadence snorts. “Welcome to my nightmare.”
Susan wanders off. The door creaks open behind me, letting in the cool evening air. Goosebumps ripple across my skin.
“I’ll leave you to it, then.” Grace tugs at the cord around my wrist in passing. “Sweet dreams, grumpy.”
I scoff, still twisting, twisting, twisting as blisters burn, and break, and bleed. Ugly, broken cords pile up on the table. Footsteps, the soft thud of a latch as Grace cleans up for bed. Something tugs at the back of my mind but gives up almost immediately.
Alone again.
What was I thinking? I let the knotted strands drop. My hands shake. Grace’s wristband gleams, warm brown ripples catching the light.
It looks almost soft. I’m tempted to run my finger along it, but I’d only stain it.
“It’s nothing special,” Cadence says. “That’s literally the most basic thing you can create. It’s what they teach toddlers before they have the coordination to weave properly.”
I slam my hands down, tipping the bowl. Water splashes across the table.
What does she want from me? I never wanted to come here. I certainly never cared about making perfect beautiful little cords, and farming, and weaving, and fighting my way up the trainee ranks one step at a time, getting treated like I’m some useless wannabe failure instead of—I mean, I already know how to do everything I need to beat the Mara. I’ve woven the threads of dreams and bound nightmares, without any training at all, and I know how to take back my city.
“Maybe you did, once,” Cadence says. “And once upon a time your fingers learned to hold the threads and spin and weave like all the other little kids up here, you just don’t remember. So stop pouting and try already.”
“I am trying—”
“No, you’re whining. You’re fighting it every step of the way because you think you’re too good for this.”
The door slams open, but when Susan enters, it’s with a soft step and quiet eyes. I swivel to watch her place a basket by the sink, rinse her hands, dry them, and pull a chair up to the table. She reaches around me, alarmingly close and warm and smelling of growing things, and places her hands over mine.
I yank away, afraid she’s going to try to heal me again. I don’t want her looking at . . . at me. Not now. Not ever. But she gives me an annoyed little jab with her elbow and then takes my hands, covering them.
Her fingers are just as long as my own, if a little thicker at the joints. Her skin is stained in the creases and nail beds, and roughened with callouses and old scars. And if I flinch from her touch and try, repeatedly, to pull away, she doesn’t seem to take offence.
Slow, calm, inevitable, she guides my hands to the bowl, gathers fibres, knots and twists, and lays the finished cord to one side. She repeats the process, and again, and the fourth time her hands hover a breath away from my skin as I make the slow, deliberate movements on my own, if only barely.
The result is imperfect—but it holds.
Chapter 15: Balance
After I produce ten mostly-even lengths of cord, Susan shows me how to unwork and rework the ruined ones, still without speaking.
I get faster, less clumsy. The old pile shrinks, a new one forming on the other side of me, until there are none left to fix.
“Congratulations,” Cadence says. “You can now keep up with the toddlers.”
“I seem to remember it taking you more than a day to master these . . .” Susan raises her eyebrows.
“I was two, gran.”
I shove my chair back and head for the door. I don’t have time for this.
“It’s dark out,” says Susan. “And you missed dinner.”
“Not hungry.”
I slam the door, though it’s not Susan I’m angry with and she doesn’t deserve me mistreating her home.
The night is still, but for a late-evening breeze stirring the garden. Good. I don’t want an audience.
“But they’d be so amused,” Cadence says.
I slide my feet apart and bring up my arms, hitting out at the air with closed fists as if I’m facing an invisible opponent.
I need to teach myself to fight at least as well as those kids I saw today. By myself. Within the next fourteen days.
While also mastering everything else they know, because I’m not sure I even have fourteen days to spare away from Ange and the rest of the poor souls stuck within the barrier. Two weeks seems like an impossible amount of time to build my skills, and also far, far too long to wait. But this is the only path forward I can see right now, so I’d better get started.
I don’t have any time to eat, or sleep, or fail—or feel like an idiot. I jab at the air a few more times, aware of just how lame I must look, but a little less chilly with each attempt. When I try a sidekick, I stagger off the path. A dusty, herbal smell springs from the crushed leaves.
“I wish you wouldn’t.”
I scramble out of the garden. Susan stands in the doorway, wrapped in a bold-patterned blanket. Warm light streams out around her.
“Sorry,” I mutter, turning my back on her and planting my feet. “I’ll be careful.”
“Just come inside. Flailing around in the dark won’t get you any closer to passing an assessment or showing up your juniors.”
But the door thumps closed when I make no move to obey. The night seems darker and colder. I check behind me to make sure she’s gone, and try another kick. The garden leaps up and smacks me in the face. I sneeze and roll off a fragrant patch of fresh-crushed herbs.
“The bane of gardens everywhere,” Cadence says. “At least your clumsiness is legendary.”
I drive a fist into the ground and discover it’s not just made of dirt.
“That’ll leave a bruise.”
I chuck the sharp stone in her general direction. Which is nowhere.
“Next time, just toss it at your own head. Maybe it’ll knock something useful loose.”
I brush myself off and limp back to the path. “If I go inside, will you shut up?”
I hope she says yes. I’m sore and shivering and grimy and almost ready to quit— except I can’t.
“You don’t always have to do things the hardest way,” she says, sounding more serious. “You think I don’t want you to get my power back and take down Refuge, too?”
“You’ve done nothing but get in my way since before we got here.”
“They killed my parents. They took my memories, my body. They put you in charge. How could I not want revenge?”
“I was raised by monsters that taught me I was broken. My friends have been killed in front of me—more are probably dying right now. Just when I’d finally found a place and a purpose and the power to stop the dying, I lost it all. And now the one person who was supposed to
be on my side won’t stop dragging me down. So, please, tell me again how much better you are at everything,.”
“All right, over there?” A stranger looms in the shadows a few feet away.
I jump at the sound and backpedal for the door before he can get any closer.
The stranger grumbles but doesn’t chase me in. Susan leans out and waves reassuringly over my shoulder. It’s probably just a neighbour out for an evening stroll.
Sudden warmth burns my chilled skin, and the smell of cooking makes my stomach grumble. I slump inside without a word, feeling like the world’s biggest loser.
Susan waits for me to wash and eat before saying anything. She clears away the dishes and hands me one of my twisted cords, not as perfect as Grace’s but still holding its shape, more or less.
“You couldn’t do it this morning. Now you can. What changed?”
I blink, heavy and slow with sudden exhaustion. “I don’t know. “I got better?”
She hums. “Oh? How? When?”
I long to pillow my head on my arms and close my eyes. Instead, I turn the cord over, looking at the fine strands as they melt into one another. “Don’t remember. It just clicked.”
“No.” She taps the back of my hand. “You learned by touch, not thought. Thinking about it didn’t help. Learning where it came from, digging into your motivation to learn, none of that made a difference in your ability.”
I roll the cord between blistered fingers and wince.
“What did you see in the woods?”
I rub my eyes, not sure what brought on this sudden change of topic. “Trees?”
She gives me a look.
“Uh, Grace showed me how to harvest bark so it doesn’t kill the tree, and then we carried it back.”
“Good, what else?”
“We were attacked by a strange monster. Not a water monster, some other kind. Forest-monster, I guess. But then it just kind of went away again. Grace didn’t tell you about it?”
“She did. She said you tried to fight it for her.”
I blush, look down at my hands, scratch at a blister. “I knew she didn’t have magic, so—”
“Neither do you.”
I bite back a retort. She’s right. It had been like that last day in Freedom, standing against the attack, reaching for something to hit back with and finding nothing at the ends of my fingers but air. “I had to do something.”
“Why?” But she doesn’t wait for me to respond. “You wanted to help a friend. Protect her. That’s good but dangerous. You’re a child right now. You don’t have the tools to understand, or to take action.”
I wave the cord at her. “And this is supposed to help?”
“Balance,” she says, taking it from me. “Pull too hard and it breaks. Twist too tightly and it warps; not tightly enough and it unravels. But when you started respecting the material, really feeling it, you stopped hurting it and yourself. That was not a monster today.”
The light rippling over the cord has me so hypnotized I nearly miss her last comment.
“What?”
“The creature you and Grace encountered in the forest. It wasn’t a monster.”
“Sure looked like one.” I shudder: its inhuman form, that whirlwind of cutting leaves it sent at us . . .
“You want to learn to fight.”
It’s not a question. I nod anyway. Obviously.
“Why?”
“To save my home. My friends.”
“Then tomorrow you will learn what makes a monster.”
“I don’t have time to waste.” But the words slur and drag. I’m heavy with tiredness and confusion, and if my frustration can’t even push back the need for sleep, it certainly can’t shake Susan off as she shoos me off to bed.
I stumble against the new bed wedged into my room. Grace curls a little tighter under the covers in the other and groans. I blink, slowly coming to the conclusion that yes, she should be there—and then I yawn, and tumble into darkness.
GRACE CHIRPS ME AWAKE too early and keeps up a steady stream of chatter as we eat, garden, tour a new-to-me section of the city that holds workshops, repair shops, plant nurseries and an odd mix of garden-and-laboratory buildings where people wander around scribbling things while prodding at plants or playing with dirt. Then we harvest, cook (or, in my case, burn food and learn some more about composting), eat again, pointlessly twist more slippery strands of tree, progress to simple woven patterns, discuss but don’t actually start working with beads and thread, cook and eat yet again, and practice simple stances and blocks in the garden as night falls.
Turns out most people learn the basics of fighting around here, dreamwalker or no. Grace is happy enough to pass along what she knows, though she says it’s more about understanding your body and maintaining basic fitness than fighting anything, or anyone. Still, what little she’s able to show me is more than I knew this morning.
She changes the subject when I ask about Susan’s cryptic late-night lecture, and Susan refuses to bite when I bring up monsters in passing.
And then I’ve lost another day. I’ve barely learned anything. I have less than two weeks to catch up to and pass the younger students, and I just want to sleep but I can’t afford to, and—
Susan hands me some tea and settles back into her chair. “What did you learn?”
“Nothing useful. I’m running out of time and you made me do chores all day!” If I sound like I’m sulking, it’s only because I am.
“Did I? What a shame.” She sips her tea. “And what did you learn about monsters?”
“They love torturing me?” I cut my eyes at her meaningfully.
Susan smiles. “Good.”
I wonder if I can put in for a transfer. Isn’t there anywhere else I could stay? Another teacher I could be assigned?
“Where do monsters come from?” she continues.
The answer catches in my throat. From the fog. But also from the water, and apparently, from the trees, and—
“Borders,” I say, a little proud of myself for the insight. “They come from the edges of things.”
Susan leans in. “Good. That’s perceptive, and true. But incomplete—you had it right the first time. Monsters come from us. Which is why the creature you saw in the woods yesterday wasn’t one.”
“Sure looked like it.”
“No doubt.” She’s laughing at me.
I stand, eyeing the door.
“Sit down. We’re not done here, not until you know what you can and cannot get into a fight with.”
I keep walking.
“They’re our fault.”
I stop.
“The monsters. The others have always existed—the unseen, or rarely seen, creatures born of wave and wood. But we who could see them knew them as . . . perhaps not friends, but not enemies, either. We left each other alone. Until we didn’t.”
“They look like monsters.”
“They look like themselves. We’re the ones who made monsters of them. They’re of the earth and the waters. When we hurt it, we hurt them. When the damage became too great, they rose against us. It was self-defence.”
I turn on her, getting in her face like she’s the enemy, like she’s the one I have to defeat.
She catches my wrists, the beginnings of a silver mist trickling along her skin. “You’re angry. You’ve seen what they can do. I understand. But it’s our fault as much as theirs.”
“They struck first.”
“No. We did. They responded, tried to stop us. All creatures react to their environments. Theirs was killing them, so they fought back.”
“You don’t know anything.”
“I know what you and Grace saw in the forest did not want to hurt you. I know what you fought in that poor shattered city of yours desperately wanted to hurt you, and you it.”
“It held us captive! For generations! It killed, over and over again, and wanted more!” My face is hot, fists clenched. I tear away from her and slam the door to my room.
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She’s insane. No wonder she hasn’t been teaching me properly—she’s trying to protect the monsters.
Chapter 16: Fury
It gets easier after I stop listening to Susan. Grace seems worried but willing enough to help, even when I insist on ignoring our chores and training far away from Susan’s house every day. It’s bad enough living with the enemy—I don’t have to let her ruin my chances entirely.
Away from Susan’s corrupting influence, Grace is more willing to show me what I need to know. Drills to improve dexterity, free from the limitations of slippery strands and tangling threads. Stances for defensive and offensive attacks. Strike patterns—even I can tell she’s not great at them, but the clumsy moves she shows me are bound to be more useful than learning how to thin carrots and train vines.
After two days, I’m no longer tripping over my feet every time I move. Maybe I can pull this off.
But by a week in, and with only a week to go until the challenge, I’m stuck. Grace doesn’t have anything new for me to learn. I’ve even snuck over to watch some training sessions, memorizing and trying to copy the way the students move on my own later, striking against the side of a building or pulling the blows with Grace as a moving target.
The process frustrates both of us, creating little more than bruises. Cadence occasionally comes up with something helpful. More often, she sulks and interjects snarky commentary on my inadequacies.
And then Grace does something truly terrible.
“This is Steph. Say hi to Cady and Cole, Steph.”
Grace’s sister is a little taller than her, with the same round face, but darker of skin, eye, and expression. She’s stocky, but her sleeveless tunic and scraped-back hair show none of Grace’s softness.
“Freak,” says Steph. It’s not clear which of us she’s addressing until my feet leave the ground.
By the time I coax air back into my lungs and blink most of the stars away, she’s looming over me with a curious expression. I’m completely unable to work out how that a solid-looking girl went from standing a few feet away, to having her foot planted in my midsection, to me going airborne in a single whirling second.
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