“Don’t taunt them, you overgrown orangutan!” Adelle snapped.
Jack looked at Adelle and gave her a have you met me? look and then turned his attention back to Marshall. “What happened when you tried to shift us out? It looked like you were fading, but… that isn’t possible in the ’Scape. Didn’t anyone tell you?” Jack’s levity wasn’t reflected in his eyes. Their impossible color swirled anxiously.
“I was. If Adelle hadn’t found my generator and shoved it into my hands, I’d be nothing more than a pattern of pretty lights in the air.” Marshall clutched the stone in his hand.
While awake in the Real, a dreamwalker couldn’t directly access the Dreamscape and had to rely on stored magic alone. Once they were tapped out, not only would they be unable to use magic, but their bodies would slowly begin to unravel without the magic of the Dreamscape to support them.
It was because of this danger that each dreamwalker carried a stone that could serve as a backup source until they could make it back to the Dreamscape to tank up once more. He never imagined that the first time he’d needed to use one would be in the Dreamscape itself.
On a good day, Marshall was brimming with more magic than most guardians ever dreamed of—it was one of the reasons he was being scouted for the position of praetor. But he had used a lot over the past day, and like a fool, he hadn’t bothered to fill up again once inside the ’Scape.
Before now, he’d never needed to. Once inside the Dreamscape, his soul naturally called the wild magic of the universe to itself until its reserves were awash with power. Until that happened, Marshall could draw from the ’Scape itself for anything he needed.
He thought about how weak he’d felt when he touched the walls of the inner bailey earlier. “I think the walls are spelled to draw magic from our bodies. Can you feel it?”
“I can. It’s like they’re vibrating, though that’s perfectly normal.” Adelle’s voice had grown ragged. “I’m going to have to tap my generator soon.”
“What about you?” he asked Jack.
“I still have some left, but now that you mention it, I do feel off my game today. I’ll give it a look, but I’m pretty sure it’s perfectly normal.”
It wasn’t surprising to hear Jack still had reserves. He had an even bigger tank than Marshall.
“Be careful. When I tried to get us out of here, the spell took everything I had left.”
“Roger that.” Closing his eyes, Jack tested the bounds of the spelled wall while Marshall and Adelle watched the nightmares as they inched closer. “Damn clever witches. They’ve got us nice and trapped. These perfectly normal walls are easily defeated—from the outside. Of course they have that covered by entwining a nothing to see here spell to keep us from being suspicious. Now that we’re all inside, the walls will drain us until we fade into nothing.”
“Sounds perfectly normal,” Adella said through gritted teeth.
“That’s going to get old real fast, just saying.” Jack grabbed Adelle and spun her around in a little impromptu dance while she spat curses at him like an angry cat. “Hey wall, make her say something less boring, like, ‘Jack is prettier than me, and I’m planning to die mad about it.’”
He yelped and let go when Adelle kicked him hard in the knee.
It wasn’t funny, but it was Jack. so… it was a little funny. Marshall wasn’t allowed to be funny when shit hit the fan, though, so he pretended like Jack hadn’t said anything.
Marshall glared at them both and continued to discuss their mutual problem, “That would explain why they’ve herded us against the wall.”
“They’re just waiting for it to do what they’re afraid to do themselves. Cowards!” Adelle spat in the direction of the nightmares trying to herd them against the wall.
It was an apt description. Spawned from the fears of sentient creatures, nightmares had little fight in them once they were faced head-on. One-on-one, a nightmare could never hope to defeat a dreamwalker, but with their current numbers, they were a sure bet against three rapidly fading dreamwalkers.
If Marshall was alone, he would throw himself into the mass of dripping, oozing monsters and take as many of them down as he could before they ate him.
He didn’t see his team allowing that, but he knew that even if they had all been at full power, they would have been hard-pressed to defeat a thousand or so nightmares at once.
As a guardian team, one of their primary jobs was to keep nightmares from banding together in numbers like these. Fire’s objective here was no longer reconnaissance.
Marshall knew they had to find a way to destroy these monsters before they established roots in the ’Scape and began to build a power base. Once that happened, they were nearly impossible to dislodge, and innocent people would suffer for it. But first Fire had to make it out alive.
“You know what we have to do, right?” Marshall asked, doing his best to keep his voice from shaking.
Adelle took his hand. “We can’t let them get out of here to feed on the dreamers.”
Jack took his other hand. “No heroics, boss. Remember, we have to get out of here so we can stop whatever they have planned for that boy and his champion.”
His friend knew him too well.
“I haven’t forgotten, Jack. How much do you have left?”
“Well, I tanked up when we got here, so almost enough to unmake enough of these bastards and make a run for it—but not quite.”
“Well aren’t you special,” Adelle grouched, making Marshall think she’d made the same mistake he had in forgetting to fill up in Marshall’s ’Scape.
A wave of dizziness passed through Marshall again. His new supply was being drained at an alarming rate. Even though his generator had packed a punch, it hadn’t come close to topping him off, and soon he’d be right back where he’d started—fading into nothingness.
“Addy, tap your generator. Jack, have yours ready. I’m going to take almost everything you have.” Marshall made a silent promise to himself that he would get his team out alive.
No one else was going to die for Marshall.
His team responded by sending their power into him. He closed his eyes as Jack’s star-streaked rainbow joined the flickering ember of blue he had left. Before he could do anything, it surged toward his magic and surrounded it like a dragon protecting its horde.
Adelle’s warm amber glow followed, smaller but still brighter than Marshall’s. He felt their worry as they realized how low he was, and he sent, :I’ll get us through this. I promise.:
:All of us.: His sister clarified.
:Yes.:
The gestalt created by their joined magic might be able to take out the horde right now, but Marshall would surely die in the process and the Blaikes would still be out there causing trouble. He needed to try something different. Something a witch wouldn’t think of.