“His father created this place,” I tell them. “He’ll find a loophole.”

“Hex Galilei has no more power here,” Stranna says. She believes Galilei is dying in the high-rise.

“Because you killed him?” The question comes out before I can think through the wisdom or foolishness of asking it. I plunge on. “I thought Adelphoi didn’t kill—you only die.”

“Not all of us hold to that conviction,” Stranna says quietly. “Our friend, Jeremy, attacked the high-rise.” She says this like an apology. “He hoped by killing Galilei the Nightmare world would collapse.”

“I don’t think it works that way,” I say.

“We’ll find out soon enough.” She doesn’t realize I’ve plugged Galilei’s LifeSuPod back in. Undone all of Jeremy’s work. Will it bother her or relieve her?

“Actually . . .” Stranna and Erik look at me. Waiting. I owe it to them to say what I’m about to say, no matter their reactions. “I saved him.” Silence. “Hex Galilei. I got his physical body and LifeSuPod to a source of electricity.”

Stranna looks a bit green. “That’s why you stole our truck? To save the Emperor’s father?” Her voice pitches. “You’re still on his side?”

“Galilei has the cure.” Coming from me, my defense falls flat.

“You think he’d give it to us? Tell us how to deconstruct the empire he built?” As apologetic as she sounded moments ago, she seems irritated that Jeremy’s murder didn’t pan out.

I can understand the internal conflict.

“We’ll demand it.” I spread my arms wide. “Unless you want to stay in this world of darkness.”

“For having created a so-called cure, you’re really not that much of a genius.” She beckons to the boy who has an arrow in his calf. He limps over and sits at her feet. “Neither the Emperor nor his father will give us anything.”

I don’t bother telling her that Luc rescued Galilei from the Tunnel and he’s regaining strength in the very coliseum we fled. “Nole created the cure attempt. I’ve never been the genius. I just figured out the final bits, which didn’t work anyway.”

The kids are silent under our heated discussion. Stranna seems to notice this and takes several calming breaths. “Okay, so Galilei is now getting stronger because you saved his body. We have to prepare for whatever attack he’ll launch.”

“You and Erik need to assemble a plan, because I may be dead by the time we figure out anything.”

“Dead?” Stranna looks up from tending the boy the arrow pierced. He whimpers, but she already has it out and is bandaging his leg with a cut of cloth from her toga. I suppose that’s an advantage of wearing Roman garb: trim off the hem and you have bandages without losing style.

“I have no more Sleeps, and I’m not an Adelphoi. I probably have five more Tenebra days at best.” I don’t meet her eyes. The reason I’m dying is because I betrayed them, stole her truck, and tried to save myself with a LifeSuPod. Had I stayed at the Adelphoi house, I might have had longer.

But they can’t save me now. Not with what’s happening here in the Nightmare. No one is going to wake up and use what’s left of their gas to track me down and find my body in that forest.

And I’m done always trying to rescue myself.

It feels kind of nice existing for someone else now.

Stranna’s voice is thick as she turns back to the boy. “If we go anywhere, Erik will give you a piggyback ride, okay?”

The boy nods.

“Sorry, Cain.” Erik sounds truly bummed and claps a hand on my shoulder. “Thanks for helping us out.”

Heidi sidles up to me. “I’m cold.”

“We should find a place to bunker down,” Erik says.

I inspect the expanse before us. Cold gray rubble, but as I limp around chunks of stone, I catch little threads and tiny blinks of light, like veins of ore. Whenever I look closer, they disappear, but instead of seeing empty destruction, something awakens inside me. It’s the same feeling that drew me to the wheat field. The promise of more. Of something good.

This place isn’t dead.

It’s merely forgotten.

“We don’t need a place to bunker down. We need a place to live.”

“We’ll find one,” Stranna assures me, but her eyes settle on the horizon, like we’ll be traveling for a long time until we do. I admit I’m curious what’s beyond this rippling border wall we cut through, but somehow I know that’s not where my final days need to take me.

“It’s a wasteland.” Erik follows my gaze to the rubble in front of us. “We can’t build anything from this—certainly not in the state we’re in.”

“It’s not a wasteland,” I say. “It’s a blank canvas.” I walk up to the nearest chunk of stone and touch it with my burned and bleeding hand. Warmth fills my body just like it did when I was standing in the wheat field.

The stone shoots up from the ground, stretching and widening and growing like one of those nature videos on time lapse. Each stone multiplying and finding a shape, fitting together like a living puzzle. I stumble back, and the growth stops, but not before a perfectly formed castle turret stands before me with a toothy top for defense. It has windows partway up and is definitely not Roman. It’s much more . . . Harry Potter.

Stranna gasps. “How did you do that?”

“There was light in the stone.” That’s all that makes sense. Well, maybe it doesn’t make sense, but somehow I knew the light was waiting for direction. I’m merely surprised it listened to me.

“You should try it.” I step forward and touch another stone, holding a mental picture as the warmth floods me again. This one grows like the other one but moves stones aside as it finds its proper place. I laugh in amazement.

It’s absolutely pure creation.

The second tower settles, and in between the two turrets is a tall wooden drawbridge with copper chains. The kids shriek.

“He’s making us a castle!”

They swarm the structure, running around the lone piece of wall and drawbridge, shouting suggestions.

“Keep going!”

“I want my own room!”

“We need a moat!”

“Can we have a pet dragon?”

“It needs a garden . . . and all the princesses need pretty dresses.”

“I don’t want a dress—I want a sword!”

I want to keep going. Keep creating. My mind grows tired, but my body doesn’t. It’s like I’ve worked a full day drafting a dreamscape—my creative well half empty, but the inspiration still going strong.

Stranna gapes at it all. “I don’t understand. You can’t use nightmist in here.”

“It’s not nightmist. It’s . . . something else.” The same thing that made those cardinals. “I think it’s like your phoenix. How did you make her?”