In her dreams. She was going to meet Detective Nathan Wall in her dreams. It was an entirely frightening, unnerving, and exhilarating prospect. She could still remember the conversation she’d had with Nate after she’d fallen asleep in the dwarf’s den, after he’d accused her of comparing him to her dream Nate. Well, soon he was going to be her dream Nate.

  Ebony’s gut twisted about, and there was a flurry of activity in it, like an entire hoard of butterflies were flapping around in anticipation. What would it be like? To meet someone in a dream? To meet someone real? Not your version of that person, not your simulation of what they looked like and how they acted, but the real deal?

  What would he think of her? Would he be able to guess the most personal memories, feelings, and beliefs that she identified with and that ostensibly made up her soul, simply by walking around in a dream of her own making? What would she reveal to him?

  What would he do?

  Even though there was nobody to hear the conversation that was going on inside her mind, Ebony still blushed. What would happen if she had that dream? The dream that she’d often had about Nate in the past, before all of these dream shenanigans had begun, the dream that she often quite, quite enjoyed? Dear god, what would he think?

  Ebony began to fan her face and bit at her lips industriously. While everyone else was busy trying to find out the true identity of the creature, Ebony was being girly and entertaining situation-inappropriate fantasies.

  At least it was distracting her. The prospect of meeting real Nate in her real dream was at least keeping her mind off the prospect of meeting the real creature in the exact same dream. It would be there, she knew that. Three is the magic number. Her third dream would be her last.

  They worked for several hours.

  She had to admit she was growing ever more tired, and she occasionally rested her eyes closed, hiding her face in a book so Aaron or Harry couldn’t snap at her to wake up.

  Every time she did, one of the wizard magicians would hand her another book.

  The creatures they were giving her to look at were all pretty close to the mark. When she’d had the stupid thought that the two wizard magicians might be able to help her, she had vastly underestimated how effective they would be. Every time they handed her a creature, they would get closer to the mark. She would look at the strange pictures depicted on the paper, and read the often horrible and fantastic sounding descriptions, and flurries of recognition would grow in her. She was getting closer, she knew that, but the closer she got, the more agonizing it became that she wasn’t there yet.

  “I want to know how exactly something so powerful and old could connect with Ebony in the first place. How did it find her?” Aaron asked through a heavy sigh. “After all, if it had simply been cruising through Vale, and had come upon her truly by chance, then we would have felt the increase in magic in the city.” He shook his head and massaged his eyes. “But I have received no reports of unusual magical activity in the past several days.”

  Something clicked in Ebony’s mind.

  “I don’t know, perhaps Ebony met it somehow,” Harry offered, his voice filtering up from the store below.

  That was it; she’d met it before. Or at least something like it.

  Before either Aaron or Harry could figure it out, Ebony snapped her book closed. “It has to do with the Forms. I’ve met them, and they are some of the oldest creatures in all of existence.”

  Aaron looked across at her, expression slackening as he obviously realized what she was saying made sense. “You had considerable dealings with the Forms, and they gave you those visions.”

  “Of course,” Harry said with a blunt laugh from downstairs, “how stupid of me not to think of it. I really am not on my game at the moment. Damn and blast that stupid creature for messing with my store and messing with my mind.” Harry appeared, shooting up from downstairs as if his body was a rocket. “You,” he pointed right at Ebony, “have been touched by the Forms. They are powerful, they are old, and when they gave you their visions, they would have given you something more.”

  Ebony blinked at him.

  “What are you suggesting? That they left some kind of door open in Ebony’s mind?” Aaron asked quickly, eyes narrowed.

  “Ebony, among all of us, has been touched by something ancient. I mean, I have to admit, that in my time, I have collected some extremely old books, that I have touched some extremely old magical talismans, and that I have fought some extremely geriatric dragons.” Harry had a finger up, and he was waggling it as he proclaimed his achievements. Then he went right back to pointing at Ebony. “But even I have not experienced something that old.”

  “Why does it matter?” Ebony looked at him suspiciously. Was he suggesting the Forms were behind this? Because she couldn’t believe that. She’d experienced them directly, and she couldn’t entertain the possibility they’d harmed her in any way. It was hard to explain, but she trusted them.

  “When you experienced the Forms, you experienced something older than nearly any other thing in existence. And I guarantee you that whatever creature is playing havoc with your mind and my store, it’s nearly equally as old. Now, little witch, surely I don’t have to explain the rest to you. By experiencing the Forms you experienced the ancient, and your mind suddenly aligned with an entirely new set of possibilities. Well, if you could call them new, I would call them ancient. But by seeing and being touched by the Forms, you now know directly of possibilities older and more fundamental than anything I could imagine. And remember, to us Wizards, the passage of time brings power; and the ancient far more power than anything else combined.”

  Aaron gave a stuttering and obviously impressed sigh. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “And magic, Ebony, as you know, walks hand-in-hand with possibilities. The Forms showed you what it was like to be ancient, and all the possibilities that come along with that, and the creature that’s out there shares those possibilities.”

  Ebony’s eyebrows clinked down as she understood what Harry was implying. “That’s extremely tenuous. Just because I have met the Forms and they are ancient, doesn’t mean that I’m somehow more likely to meet other ancient things; that’s just ridiculous.”

  “I think you will find that it’s not. And I think you will find that far from being tenuous, it is, in fact, true. Predictability, little witch, is based on previous experience. The more you experience it, the more likely you are to experience it again. And you have experienced the ancient and incredibly powerful once before. And look at this – you are experiencing it again.”

  Ebony shook her head. Maybe her experience with the Forms did have something to do with this, but there had to be more.

  “Look, Ebony, I might not exactly agree with what Harry is saying either, but there is something more that we have not considered here. Do we really know the full reason for why No-Name was trying to contact the Forms? I mean,” he quickly glanced toward the two magician wizards who were still dutifully searching through books at the other end of the room, “we know that it has something to do with the Portal. But that does not mean we know exactly every detail and every facet of what No-Name was up to.”

  Ebony looked at him sideways. “Do you think he’s somehow responsible for this?”

  Aaron was weary, his usual faultless appearance looking worn out and tired. “I don’t know,” he sighed heavily, “and it might not even be important. Because our primary concern is the creature itself, which I’m almost certain isn’t No-Name. He may have had some dealings with it, granted—”

  “Then perhaps he was the one who put it on to me,” Ebony interjected. “I don’t know why, but maybe he held a grudge at the fact we trashed his sewer palace and now he wants revenge. Or perhaps this is all part of his plan in order to bring something through from the Other Side of the Portal.” Ebony quickly reeled off the details of her theory, and she was confident that not only was it more likely than Harry’s attempt at rationalizing this impossible situation, she could appreciate how easy it would be for someone with No-Name’s power to enact something like this. The wizard had gained access to Ebony’s mind in the past, and presumably there would be nothing stopping him from doing it again. Perhaps when he had stolen into her mind all those months ago, he’d left a seed of some description, some kind of backdoor which now allowed the creature entry into Ebony’s dreams. Now that made sense. Far more sense than the strange explanation Harry had offered.

  The more Ebony thought about No-Name, the more she thought about the final vision the Forms had given her. She hated it. The terror, the horrifying memory of watching all her friends, family, and her city crumble to dust. She was reminded in that instant of something she should’ve never forgotten – powerful emotion creates powerful magic and attracts it. The sheer amount of fear and regret that concentrated within her at the mere mention of that vision were so powerful that, if it were used for magical purposes, they could be effective indeed.

  Perhaps that was the truth behind Harry’s theory. It wasn’t that somehow her interaction with the ancient Forms had made it more likely that she would meet other ancient creatures, as if the Forms would somehow go back to their houses and pass on her contact details to all their friends. No, it was that the Forms had given her a memory, an incredibly powerful emotional memory, and that memory was now capable of drawing up strong magic within her. Even though she had experienced many things in her life previous to her meeting with the Forms, Ebony had never had a single, distilled moment of fear so exquisite and so undeniable. The traces of it were deep in her mind, their roots permeating all her private fears, her hopes, and her desires. The threat of the total annihilation of Vale was a constant backdrop to her life these days.

  And that kind of raw emotion attracted raw power.

  And that was a clue.

  She still wasn’t 100% sure how the creature had gotten into her mind, though she was fond of the theory that No-Name had somehow planted some kind of seed when he had stolen her memories several months before. But now she realized with a kick of strong certainty that whatever the cause, her memory of the destruction of Vale was the clue.

  Because there was one fact she’d not shared with anyone up to this point, not Nate, not Harry, not her mother, and certainly not Aaron. Even before this whole scenario with her dreams had begun, Ebony had had the occasional nightmare. It wasn’t unusual for anyone, let alone a witch, to have the odd night terror. Yet Ebony had always had such a soft and gentle relationship with her dreams, that when the nightmares had started less than two months ago, they had been cause for mild surprise. Considering their content, though, she’d just rationalized them away, because the dream was simple, and it was something she had experienced before. It was the vision from the Forms. Occasionally, maybe once every couple of weeks, she would dream through it again; go through everything just as it had occurred the first time round. Even though the memory was a painful one, she had chosen to believe that rather than a sign the vision had traumatized her in any way, it was simply a silent and subtle reminder from the Forms that she should not forget the importance of her work.

  “What are you thinking about?” Aaron asked, his expression searching as his gaze darted to and fro over her face.

  “I think I have a clue,” she said, voice quiet.

  “What is it?” Aaron’s voice was quick with interest.

  She didn’t get a chance to answer.

  There was a bang.

  Aaron tried to maneuver his body over the stairwell so he could presumably see what exactly had caused the highly unwelcome sound.

  Then there was another bang, this time coming from one of the windows upstairs; the sound of the rattle and shake of the glass distinct even from one floor below.

  “Stay here, Ebony,” Aaron said quickly, trying to float upwards, grabbing hold of the stairs and using the railing to pull himself forward.

  And then there was a bang from the window right behind Ebony. She jumped, startled, her body shaking as it floated.

  She turned, heart pumping in her chest and stared out of the window. There was another bang, and she could see the glass buckle under some kind of pressure. But there was nothing out there but blackness and stars.

  She put one hand over her mouth and one palm flat on her chest.

  “Harry?” Aaron called from the floor above. “Harry? What the hell is going on? Where is it coming from?”

  Harry wouldn’t answer; he was obviously far too busy holding back whatever was out there. Though Ebony couldn’t see anything, she was starting to feel something. Tendrils of anticipation and dark emotion were starting to wind up her body, as if they were tight bandages constricting each part of her in turn.

  It was a vibe, and it was a strong and dark one.

  “It’s trying to get in! It must have found us,” Aaron called from above, voice wild.

  Just as the window behind her gave another almighty bang, one of the magician wizards, Mr Sandy Hair, handed her a book. It was the strangest, most inappropriate time to do it; reading wasn’t suggested when there was a high probability that an incredibly powerful magical creature would break the spells surrounding your space-worthy bookstore and suck all the oxygen out of the building.

  “Harry? Harry? What can I do? What can we do to help you?” Ebony tried, giving a yelp as another bang issued from the window near her.

  Mr Sandy Hair pointed to a page of the book he’d handed her. His expression was even, and it appeared to promise something. And that promise was just enough to get Ebony’s attention. Out of habit, her brain clearly not thinking correctly considering the current situation, she glanced down at the page he was pointing to.

  She stopped.

  She recognized it. This was it; this was the creature trying to get into her mind.

  On the page, there was no drawing and there was hardly any explanation. What there was, however, was a list of words: everywhere, nowhere; found, lost; past, future; real, dream. Then there was a simple statement that ran underneath the list in cursive, perfect handwriting: it lives between them. It’s called a Relator. An ancient creature from the dawn of time, it feeds off perception itself. It can’t be graphically depicted, because it can’t be seen. It’s like a parasite that can infect the mind of its target, embedding itself directly in every sense and every perception. It will twist, turn, and force its host to perceive reality in its own way. Its goal is to replace the identity, completely infect and take over the self. The host will no longer relate to their own soul, their own sense of identity; they will relate only to the Relator. This creature is considered to be one of the most dangerous in all of the known universe. Yet thankfully, it has been extinct for innumerable years.

  Ebony almost dropped the book. Her heart rattled as the window beside her banged again.

  “We need to ensure those spells don’t break,” Aaron called from above, his voice growing louder as he pulled himself down using the stairs until he was back on the second level. “We can’t let them break.”

  Ebony didn’t need to ask what would happen if they broke. She imagined that they would break and the house would break, and pretty much everything would break in unison.

  She nodded.

  “Look, I don’t know what you are,” Aaron turned to the two wizard magicians, “but we need your help.”

  They nodded evenly and immediately got to work. Perhaps they really were halfway between a wizard and a magician, because they appeared to have the theoretical knowledge of the former and yet the practical skill of the latter.

  “Harry is fighting it,” sweat glimmered across Aaron’s brow. “But we need to do anything we can to help him.”

  Ebony nodded. No, they needed to do more. They needed to find a way to stop this. She was starting to realize the only way to do that involved going deep within herself and pulling the creature out like the parasite that it was. Harry and Aaron’s plan to hide them by blasting themselves off into space had obviously worked for several hours, but Ebony didn’t doubt that the creature had been able to find them again not because it had a powerful telescope and some friends at NASA, but because it was connected to her. As long as it remained connected to her, there would be nowhere they could hide, nowhere they could run, and hardly anything else they could do. It was becoming clear that there was only going to be one solution to this problem. And surprisingly, it was a solution she would have to come to while sleeping. Not many magical maladies can be solved by ignoring them and going to bed, but this would be an exception.

  She swallowed hard. “I have to dream.”

  Aaron shook his head. “You aren’t ready. We don’t know what the creature is—”

  She held up the book, her knuckles white as her fingers clutched it tensely. “I know what it is.”

  “Harry is halfway through fighting this thing, and I have to help him. If you go into the dream now, there will be no one to watch you—” Aaron began again, voice growing more desperate.

  “If Harry fails then we all fail. This has to stop, and the only way to stop it is for me to go back to where this all started. To go back to sleep, to go back to my dreams. It’s been trying to invite me in, trying to get me to walk through all of its doors. Well, it might just be time to take up its invitation.”

  Aaron looked sick from fright. “Ebony, you can’t. This is too dangerous. If we work together, we can all help Harry to hold off the creature.”

  “For how long?” She replied quickly. “It’s too powerful, Harry has even admitted that. It knows where we are, and it isn’t as if we can keep on using those transport spells to pop around the galaxy; it will just find us, and we will run out of magic quick smart. We have to go right to the root of this problem, and there is only one way to do that.”

 

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