Part V The Sleepers
KAI SALONGA WAS NOT SUPPOSED to be afraid. He was the Nightmare Weaver, made to be fearless in the dark. But fear was all he knew as the door shut between the sleepscape and Dovermere. Between him and Baz.
The door wouldn’t open again no matter how hard Kai slammed his fists against it. He screamed Baz’s name until his throat sliced itself on the edges of it, until he tasted blood and all the defenses around his heart shattered at his feet like glass. He fell, defeated, to his knees.
The stars looked on, mocking him.
A hand squeezed his shoulder. “There’s nothing for it, Kai,” Luce said in a quiet, forlorn voice. “The door won’t reopen. We owe it to those we left behind to keep going.”
The boy he’d left in the past. The daughter she’d abandoned in the future. How would they ever make their way back to them now?
“Come along, you two,” Clover called out in a voice that was far too chipper. He was already moving down the path of stars, his gait light, his grin full of bright confidence. “We’ve got a universe to save.”
Luce helped Kai to his feet. They stared at each other, him the boy of nightmares, she the girl of dreams. And as they started walking through the dark, following the only hope they had left, Luce said, “Don’t be afraid.”
But Kai was. It was impossible not to be. Baz was gone, and without him, the dark Kai had known became an unfathomable abyss.
There was no pretending here. No armor to hide behind. Only visceral fear and the certainty that he had seen the boy he loved for the very last time.