“Will you truly help me?”
The question came from Garnet — Princess Garnet, Shana had to remind herself. But regardless of who she was or what she needed, that question only ever got one answer from Shana, every single time.
With a grin, Shana answered right away. “Yes.” Altair barked once, wagging his little tail. “It’s a yes from him, too.”
Princess Garnet laughed at that with a lovely, musical laugh. “Thank you, Dreamer,” she said.
“Oh, no, Shana’s just fine,” Shana said. “I’m… not really all that big on titles.”
Garnet didn’t miss a beat. “Then I would be most grateful if you would call me Garnet, and forgo the formalities with me, as well.”
And with introductions out of the way, Shana and her team — Shias, Kathryn, Rae, Ben, Annabelle, and Heart — along with Garnet, had to get their bearings.
They were inside the Library of Solitude’s Dream. The Dream of a Location. That idea still left Shana reeling. The Library of Solitude was a magical, amazing place, there was no doubt about that… but for it to be alive? Alive and conscious enough to have a Dream of its own? That was astonishing… and exciting.
Only… the Dream itself wasn’t particularly exciting. No, it was more…
Foreboding.
The spacious corridors and great library chambers were dark and empty. It wasn’t like the Library of Solitude back when it had been infested with Darkness. This dark was more haunting, foreboding, but not malicious, not an active, evil force trying to overwhelm the place. The shelves were full of books, but the books were more like hollow boxes, without a single title, a single page, a single word. Picture frames hung on the walls, but bordered blank canvas. Statues stood here and there but were featureless, faceless, nondescript.
It all felt so very lonely. Like the word Shana had made up to describe it: solitudinous.
It certainly was very solitudinous. Even though they were a group, and had just added another to their number, the pervasive atmosphere of loneliness and solitude clung to them, inescapable.
“Is this… how all Locations Dream?” Shana asked. She’d asked Heart that before, but Heart didn’t know, couldn’t know — like she’d explained, entering the Dream of a Location was something the Dreamer, and Heart herself, shouldn’t be able to do. But Garnet was someone who could traverse the Dreams of Locations, and had done so before, so Shana directed her question at the princess.
“Every Dream is different, Shana,” Garnet said. She paced the spacious, empty meeting hall, an intersection that linked numerous corridors. She glowed, brightening up the space wherever she went. Her golden hair glittered, gleaming with a light all its own, and her pale blue eyes sparkled like crystal, and her dress looked as if it had been woven of sapphires, threaded through with silver, shimmering with every tiny ounce of light that struck it. She certainly fit the idea that came to mind when one heard of the Crystal Family. “The Crystal Palace was always grandiose, and there was always music there, in every single hall and chamber. Cartographer’s Waystation often has a very rustic, comfortable atmosphere to it, with a sort of quirky appeal that sets it apart from other Locations. And of course, no single Dream is the same, even for the same Location. Even when we dream a recurring dream, those are not exact replicas of each other. There are always at least slight differences.” Garnet spun to face Shana and her team. “The Library of Solitude’s Dreams have always been somewhat lonely like this, but…” Her face fell. “This is different. There is an emptiness here that I have never seen before.”
“So the books aren’t always hollow and empty?” Kathryn asked.
“No, Kathryn,” Garnet said, a pang of longing in her voice. “I often come here for guidance. Nearly every book you can dream of is in the Library of Solitude, but in her Dream…” her eyes glittered with wonder, “she contains knowledge that cannot be found anywhere in the Waking World. She sees so much in her Dream, things no one can see in the Waking World. If my family cannot be found anywhere by those in the Waking World, then surely there must be a clue in the Library’s Dream. And yet…” She bowed her head, halted her pacing.
“So the Library isn’t supposed to be empty,” Annabelle said. “I knew it didn’t feel right. I’ve never been in the Library’s Dream, but from the moment we came here, it felt wrong.”
“Yes,” Garnet said. “Something is wrong. There’s a distant, elusive dread that touches my heart, but I cannot place its source or purpose.”
“But why?” Shana asked, frustration building within her. “I… we saved the Library from Darkness. Why is her Dream…” And then she trailed off, fear flickering in her heart as she began to put some pieces together.
“What is it?” Rae asked.
“Could it… be a Nightmare?” Shana asked in a soft, frightened voice. She turned to Heart. “It could happen, couldn’t it? If a Location can Dream, then it could also…”
“Perhaps,” Heart said, closing her golden eyes and bowing her head, thinking carefully for a moment. “I am not sure. Dreamworld is my home and responsibility. For whatever reason, my knowledge and authority does not extend to the Dreams of Locations. This is a place between — between the Waking World and Dreamworld. It is as unfamiliar to me as it is to you.”
“What about you, Garnet?” Kathryn asked, a hand on her hip and a smile on her lips, characteristically unperturbed by the potential danger they were in.
“I’ve never experienced a Location’s Dream being a Nightmare,” Garnet said, her hand going to her chin as she thought. “My teachings… covered potentialities. Never was the word ‘Nightmare’ used, but… yes. Yes, I do believe you may be onto something. Mineria spoke of how fear can affect the Dreams, and when I asked how a Location can fear something, she told me not to think of Locations as having the same kind of consciousness as people. But with that in mind, if some kind of fear or dread has seeped into the Library’s Dream… it may very well have turned into something else. Something that she may not be able to handle on her own.”
“And we have experience with handling Nightmares,” Kathryn said, smiling at Shana. “Right?”
“Right,” Shana said, but she wasn’t reassured. “What if… that distant, elusive dread that Nocta talked about, that was starting to seep into the Dreamworld… what if that’s spreading to the Dreams of Locations? Even of Daylight Bastions?”
“A great, pervasive Nightmare, still in its infancy,” Heart murmured thoughtfully. “Could something so terrible be real?”
“If there’s trouble with the Library of Solitude,” Shias said, “then we should go to the center, shouldn’t we? Even in its Dream, that should still be the center of its power.”
“Yes,” Garnet said with a nod. “That is a sound plan, Shias.”
“Is there a Dream Forge in the Library’s Dream, too?” Shana asked.
“There is,” Garnet said. “Come, let us go and see if things are amiss at the center. And along the way, let us be vigilant. Every clue is valuable.”
“Let me help lead the way,” Annabelle said, walking up front with Garnet as they left the meeting hall and began their journey to the center. “I… can feel something like what you were talking about, too. I couldn’t feel that dread in Dreamworld, but here, it’s clear to me. It’s like…” She shook her head. “I’m not sure. But it seems like it originates from the Library’s center.”
“Is there a Light Catcher in the Library’s Dream?” Shana asked as they strode down a corridor that contained the door to the Light Catcher’s chamber in the Library in the Waking World.
“No,” Garnet said. “At least, I have never seen it here.” She reached the door to the Light Catcher’s chamber and opened it, but inside was an empty room. There weren’t even signs of a Light Catcher once being there.
“Maybe the Waking Library is enough to protect its Dream?” Ben asked, tapping his fingers against his thighs, drumming out a staccato rhythm.
“Have you been to the Dreams of other Bastions?” Rae asked.
“I have, Rae,” Garnet said, “and none of them have ever had their Light Catchers or Daybreak Engines. Perhaps you’re onto something, Ben.”
“Because it’s different for Locations than for us,” Shias said, his customary deep, introspective look in his eyes. “You said that Locations are Waking and Sleeping at the same time. So their Dream always exists. It’s not like us, where the Dream ends when we wake up. They’re always awake… and always sleeping. So it’s more likely that the Waking Location could protect the Dream. When we enter Dreamworld, we have to sleep — we’re vulnerable. But it’s not the same for Locations… or is it?”
“That is how I have always perceived it, and how it has always been taught to me,” Garnet said. “But… now I begin to wonder.” She and Annabelle, in the lead, stopped at the base of a grand, spiral staircase that ascended to the next floor.
“What is it?” Rae asked, holding her Talisman — an acrylic charm of Reginald Feline Meowmont III — ready, casting about with an alert gaze.
“The sense of dread is thicker here,” Garnet said softly.
Annabelle nodded, a brief, slightly pained expression crossing her face. “It’s like the Library’s afraid,” she said. She was the first to start up the stairs. “We should hurry.”
They hastened up the stairs and continued down a long, curving corridor — the Library was designed as a series of concentric rings, corridors connecting vast hub rooms full of bookshelves, and as one went closer to the center, the curvature of the corridors was more pronounced. They emerged into a hub room, and exited that through a hall with a service desk, and out from there onto a raised, glass-walled corridor that walked over the Library’s Inner Gardens. But as the others hurried across this hallway-bridge, Shana came to an abrupt stop, gasping at a sharp pain in her chest.
It lasted only a moment, but with it came an impression, an instinct, and Shana turned to the glass to her left, gazing out at the Inner Gardens. She felt as if an invisible thread was tugging at her heart — sharply at first to get her attention, but now gently — and she followed where that feeling directed her.
There, dozens of yards out across the Inner Gardens, she saw… a person?
“Shana?” Shias asked, the first to notice she’d stopped and coming back for her. He rested a gentle hand against her arm. “What is it?”
“We’re not alone,” Shana said, nodding slightly, and Shias followed where her eyes were directed. Shana didn’t dare pull her gaze away from the person out there, for fear that they’d suddenly disappear. They were barely a shadow, too far away in the dimness of the Library’s Dream to have any details made out about them. But Shana thought the figure looked familiar, somehow. Yet the perfect memory that she and Shias both shared could only get her so far — she was getting a variety of impressions, but they were all female. The shadow reminded her of her mother, and Chelsea, and Fae, and Maribelle, and so many others, people she’d known a long time and people she’d only met recently.
And then she noticed a strange detail. It looked as if the shadow wore a cape.
Shana turned suddenly, as Heart arrived, the second one to return to Shana’s side. She stared at her, but not so much at her as at the silver cape that wrapped around her shoulders, billowing out around her cobalt-blue dress.
“What is it?” Heart asked. And then everyone was asking, as they rejoined her at the glass wall.
Shana turned, and the shadow was still there. Watching her. Waiting.
The tug on her heart remained, gentle, yet firm. What would happen if she didn’t follow it?
“We need to follow her,” Shana said, nodding to the shadow out upon the gardens.
“But what about the center?” Annabelle asked. “Whatever’s wrong with the Library of Solitude is coming from there. And it gets stronger the closer we get.”
“Hopefully, this’ll only take a moment,” Shana said. “Or… well… I’m sorry.” She smiled apologetically at the others. “I… can’t go to the center. Not until I’ve met with her. She’s calling to me. If I try to ignore her, I don’t think she’ll let me.”
Shias had wariness clear and sharp in his eyes. “Then we all go together,” he said. “There’s no way we’re leaving you to her alone.” Altair wagged his tail, barking twice in the affirmative.
“I agree,” Garnet said, gazing out at the shadow, narrowing her eyes. “If there is someone else here, I am inclined to believe they mean us — or the Library — evil.”
“Maybe,” Shana said, almost absently. She was already walking across the corridor to the other side, but she kept her eyes on the shadow. Her feet seemed to move on their own, and she was only dimly aware of Shias and Kathryn taking up protective positions around her, of Altair padding along right next to her feet. All she could think about was the shadow, and this tug at her heart.
When they reached the end of the corridor, and Shana lost sight of the shadow, she almost felt as if her heart would break. It was too much to bear, she couldn’t stand it, and as soon as she saw the stairs she raced down them two at a time, nearly careening into a wild tumble multiple times, only saved by Kathryn and Shias keeping pace with her, helping her balance. Voices spoke to her, voices of warning and concern, but…
Why can’t I hear their words?
It was the strangest feeling, and yet even that question was only dim in her mind, an absent curiosity. She wasn’t concerned about anything except the shadow. As long as she could see her again…
Shana emerged into the Inner Gardens and paused, breathless, desperate, looking where the tug on her heart directed. There! The shadow, still there, still watching, still waiting. A smile spread across Shana’s lips, and relief flooded her heart.
And then she was running again, along stone pathways between rose bushes and ornate statuettes, until she passed beneath the flowering archway into the courtyard where the shadow waited. The shadow spread her arms, and Shana raced to leap into those arms, to embrace her…
But was stopped.
Shias clamped a hand on one arm, Kathryn on the other, the pair of them holding her back, and Altair stepped in front of Shana, back arched and tense, tail high, eyes fixed on the shadow.
“Let me go!” Shana said, pulling at Shias and Kathryn. “Let me go, let me go to her!”
“Shana,” Shias said, his voice calm but firm, the first voice, the first word, she could make out. It pierced through the fog of her mind, like a lighthouse showing her the way home, and for the first time she looked away from the shadow, slowly, to meet Shias’ eyes.
Shias was staring right at her, and Shana was grounded in the eyes of her twin, dark and calm and steady, bringing her back to her senses. Slowly, very slowly, she looked away, looking with clarity at the shadow.
She was no longer a shadow, though. And Shana was shocked at the woman before her. She looked so much like Heart, with smooth, shining skin and hair and eyes, like something out of a dream, clear yet insubstantial, the texture of her form and clothing so startlingly unique that there was no point of comparison except for Heart.
But the colors were different. Where Heart had magenta skin and golden hair and eyes like the clouds and sky of Dreamworld, the woman in the courtyard, the once-shadow that tugged on Shana’s heart, had shimmering, flickering forget-me-not blue skin and silver eyes and hair. Heart’s dress was cobalt-blue and her cape silver, while the stranger wore a dress of pure white and a cape of darkest black. She was beautiful, like Heart, but where Heart was inviting and warm and kind, this woman felt cold, distant, detached.
“Who… are you?” Shana asked slowly, still shaking off the fog that this woman had cast over her mind. “What do you want with me?”
The woman slowly tilted her head to the side, as if confused by Shana’s question. For a long, long time she was silent, staring, and Shana was unnerved by her gaze. Who was this strange mirror to Heart, so similar yet so different?
“You do not know?” the woman finally asked, piercing a silence that had hung so long Shana nearly jumped at the voice. She spoke slowly, her voice rich yet soft, like the caress of a cool night wind, like a spell, enchanting and magnetic, threatening to once more cast a fog over Shana’s mind, draw her in against her will.
“No,” Shana said, finding her voice, shaking her head for emphasis and to keep her wits. “Will you tell me?”
Silence stretched on once again. The woman didn’t blink, not once, which was unnerving.
Slowly, her gaze drifted past Shana to Heart. “You do not know?” she asked again in that enchanting voice.
“I do not,” Heart said, replying much more confidently and easily than Shana had. “Will you tell us?”
The pause before the woman spoke was shorter this time, but she still spoke in a slow, measured pace. “How can you not know?”
And Shana felt a sudden pang in her heart — a pang she realized wasn’t her own, that it had come from this woman. Though her voice and expression betrayed no emotion, Shana felt the sorrow and anguish in that question. The fact that they didn’t know who she was broke the woman’s heart, too deeply for words to ever express.
“I’m… so sorry,” Shana said, bowing her head, tears stinging her eyes. “Please… tell us. And we won’t forget, not ever. I promise.”
“You promise?” the woman asked. Shana looked up, met her unblinking gaze, and nodded.
“All of you,” the woman said. “You must all remember. Please. Promise.”
Shias and Kathryn hesitated, but Garnet and Annabelle quickly and confidently promised. So did Heart, and then Rae. Ben looked to Shias and Kathryn, the holdouts, waiting.
“I promise we won’t forget,” Kathryn said, her voice and expression tight with wariness.
“I promise,” Ben echoed almost immediately.
There was a long pause, Shias watching the woman, and then slowly, his gaze slid down to Altair. “He’s still tense,” he whispered. Shana looked down and saw Altair’s tense, protective stance… and was surprised.
Altair could always tell good from bad. He could always tell if someone was dangerous or safe. And at first, she was worried that she’d betrayed her dear little Summon, betrayed her trust in his instincts.
But, her mind connected to his, she learned what no one else could see. Altair wasn’t marking this woman as a threat. He was tense…
Because he didn’t know.
He was confused, uncertain, he couldn’t read whether this woman was friend or foe, and so he stood ready to defend Shana, hedging his bets.
Thank you. If things go wrong, I know you’ll be ready.
She shared that message with Altair, but also with Shias, just with her eyes, without saying a word. Slowly, Shias nodded.
“I promise,” he said to the woman. “Please tell us who you are, and none of us will forget.”
“To not forget is different from remembering,” the woman said.
“We meant it the same,” Shana said. “I’m sorry. We do promise to remember. Please, tell us who you are.”
The woman was silent, staring, her gaze taking their entire group in as one. Slowly, for the very first time, she blinked. When she spoke, Shana knew what she was going to say an instant before she said it, as if it had been the most obvious thing in the world, and she’d only just now put the pieces together. She wasn’t the only one — at the same moment Shana realized it, Altair also relaxed, sitting, wagging his tail gently, watching the woman with kindness.
“I am the Eternal Flame,” the woman said.
The Eternal Flame. The heart of the Dream Forge, the flame that Shana had carried to restore the Library of Solitude and rescue it from Darkness. That was why the woman had felt so familiar, Shana realized — and why the blue of her skin was so familiar, why it shone on its own, rippling and flickering as if fire blazed cool and steady within.
“I… never realized,” Shana said, bowing her head. “I’m sorry. I only ever saw you as the fire, never as… more.”
“I am the fire,” the Eternal Flame said, as if she didn’t understand Shana’s confusion.
“But if you are, then why are you here?” Shias asked. “Why are you standing here alone, watching us, waiting for us?”
“I am always alone,” the Eternal Flame said. “I am the heart of the Library of Solitude.”
“Then… but shouldn’t you be in the Dream Forge?” Kathryn asked.
The Eternal Flame slowly tilted her head to the side. “I was,” she said. Again Shana felt a pang of heartbreak, this time born of physical pain and rejection, all emotions and impressions that the Eternal Flame didn’t betray in voice or expression. “Something else is there now.” The way she slightly stressed else was the first time there was a hint of emotion in her voice, a faint mixture of fear, dread, and anger.
“So that is why the Library’s Dream has gone so wrong,” Garnet said.
“The Dream becomes Nightmare,” the Eternal Flame said.
“Oh! Is that why we were able to come here?” Shana asked. “Did you call us here? So we can set things right?”
“I did,” the Eternal Flame said.
“I didn’t think that was possible,” Heart said. “The Dreamer and I… we are not meant to travel between Waking and Sleeping.”
“You have missed one detail,” the Eternal Flame said. “The Library of Solitude and the Dreamer’s Heart have a pact. Through that pact, a connection. Without you, I would not be here.”
Shana thought back to the journal of Lady Kodoka’s she’d read in the Library, where she’d learned about the Dream Forge and what she must do to save the Library — and how those measures had come to pass. Lady Kodoka had met, not the Dreamer, but the Dreamer’s Heart directly, through means she’d never explained, and that Heart said could not be explained. But the pair of them had made a pact, connecting the Library of Solitude to the Dreamer’s Heart, and bringing forth the Dream Forge — and the Eternal Flame that rested within.
“I thought that was only for rescuing the Library from Darkness if all other methods failed,” Shana said. “But it goes deeper than that?”
The Eternal Flame stared at her, silent for a long moment, unblinking. Only the flicker of her skin and the faint movement of her torso in time with her soft, steady breathing offset how unnerving her still, unblinking gaze was. “You carried me,” she said. “I am a part of you, always.”
And Shana was struck by the specific language. The Eternal Flame wasn’t a part of the Dreamer’s Heart, or every Dreamer to come…
You. She meant Shana, directly. Shana, who had carried her through darkness, through rain, through mud and muck, through pain and blood…
She and Shana were bound to each other. How could they not be? Shana never would have thought of it, but now that it was set before her, it seemed as plain as day.
And so there was only one thing to say.
“How can I help you?” Shana asked.
“To the center,” the Eternal Flame said. “Unseat the usurper. Restore my seat, so I may restore the Library’s Dream.”
She turned away, and Shana reached out for her…
But the Eternal Flame was gone.
At least, it seemed that way. Shana and her team were alone in the courtyard. But Shana could feel the faint tug on her heart, this time not leading her somewhere outward… but inward.
Oh. I see.
Shana’s heart fluttered, and smile touched her lips.
You’re a part of me.
She turned to her team, her confidence and direction restored. “Everyone ready?” she asked. “It’s time to go to the center and fix everything that’s gone wrong!”
As her team displayed their readiness, and they all started back on the path to the center, Shana found herself reflecting. It had been a long time since she’d first been on a similar journey, through a dark and empty Library of Solitude to the center, a journey to rescue and restore.
She’d been so frightened, then, so unsure. She’d been separated from Shias, from Kathryn, from Rae, from Ben. And the trial that had awaited her had been painful, tortuous, the hardest thing she’d ever done by an impossibly long shot. For a long time, she’d dreaded having to undertake a similar trial again.
But this journey to the center was different. She wasn’t frightened. She had her twin, and her closest friends. She carried the Eternal Flame, but she wasn’t afraid of where that would lead her, of what pain or trial she might have to face.
She was ready. And when they reached the center, and began descending through the Library’s massive, startlingly empty central tower to its center floor where the Dream Forge awaited, she was leading alongside Garnet and Annabelle.
And she could feel the sense of dread and fear that they’d spoken of, now. It was thick, like it clung to the air, she could almost see it like a mist, like a fog, like a cloud. It was heavy and hot and oppressive… or it would have been.
But all of them had each other. And with them was Heart, her presence, warmth, and joy radiating to all of them.
And within Shana was the Eternal Flame, as well. She had been harmed and hurt by the mysterious usurper, and she did fear him…
But she also had confidence in Shana.
Down the stairs they went, to the next floor, and then down another flight of stairs.
And then… the center. Shana led directly now, Altair right alongside her, Garnet and Annabelle and the rest of them following. Around the stairs, behind them, to the Dream Forge.
There it was. When Shana had first come to this point in the Waking World, she’d had to press a pedestal to bring the Dream Forge into being, but here in the Nightmare, it was already there. A six-foot tall cylinder served as the center, while around it were concentric rings descending outward — steps. The central cylinder was hollow, and resting within it, at least in the Waking World, was a magenta-and-gold sphere.
Here in the Nightmare, there was a sphere, its domed top raised out from the Forge so it could be seen even from the base of the steps, but its color was indistinguishable. It had gone dark, lightless, colorless.
And atop the dome, atop the Forge, legs crossed, hands on his knees… sat a boy. He couldn’t have been more than five years old, at least in appearance, small and rail-thin, dressed in a simple, loose black shirt and pants. His feet were bare, his skin pale but not unnaturally so. Thick black hair hung long in the front, bangs nearly reaching down to dark eyes that glittered with amusement above a teasing grin.
He was staring straight at Shana. And Shana knew immediately that this boy, despite all appearances, was the usurper that the Eternal Flame feared.
“Welcome home, Shana,” the boy said, his voice full of amusement and excitement. “I’m so glad you made it while I’m still young. It’s more fun to play when we’re young, isn’t it?”
“I’m not here to play,” Shana said, filing away the question what does he mean by home? for a later time. She stared up at the boy with a defiant glare, not willing to give him any ground. “You’re going to leave. Or we’re going to make you.”
The boy pouted, but it was clearly an act. “Oh, Shana, don’t be like that,” he said. “I just want to play. Won’t you play?” His pout vanished, and he waved a dismissive hand at her, scoffing. “What am I saying? As if you had any choice. There’s no going forward for you without playing the game.” He turned his gaze on Garnet and Annabelle. “I’m pleased to see you brought the Princesses with you. A pair of Princesses! What a treat! I so look forward to making them mine.”
“As if!” Kathryn said, brandishing her ribbon-wand Talismans. “You’re not making anyone yours.”
“On the contrary,” the boy said, sitting back, hands resting against the back of the Forge, his feet dangling and kicking playfully over the edge of the front. “I’m going to make all of you mine. Might as well, since you’re all here. And while the Princesses are a treat, oh, the best part is front and center.” He leaned forward, eyes glittering with a hungry, malicious glint. “Shana. I’m really so glad you’re here. My life wouldn’t be complete without you.”
Shana’s stomach turned, and she fought the urge to grimace. No, she’d present a strong, defiant front, and end this danger as fast as possible. “That’s enough! I have a lot of important work to do, so I don’t have time for your games. We’re ending this, right here, right now. Get down from the Forge, or I’ll make you.”
And the boy cackled with rolling laughter. “Oh, that’s so cute! You think you can actually win! This is going to be the best!” He leaned forward, and then held up his hand, thumb and middle finger pressed against each other, his dark eyes glittering. “Let the games begin.”
Shana, Shias, and Kathryn charged, closely followed by the others. But no one was fast enough. The boy, the usurper, snapped his fingers…
And everything went dark.