When Wes came back to himself, the Witch of the Wood was fleeing to the waking world with Klaus in tow, and Wes couldn't even lurch to his feet before they were gone. He staggered to the center of the room, a terrible hollow space opening up in his chest. The ceiling had frozen in place, no longer churning out nightmares. Emery, Morrigan, and Klaus were all gone. The sounds of combat ceased outside, and then Marcia charged through the door, bloody and bruised but still on her feet.
"Pestilence went to the waking world. What happened?" she asked, but Wes found he could no longer speak.
He opened his gateway, and they left the Dream.
Trevor van der Gelt's house was empty except for a scared Coop, and harsh winter daylight streamed through the windows. Both Van der Gelt and Mr. Lowe must have been out. There, finally free of the castle, Wes held Coop in his lap and explained what had happened, and Marcia listened through all of it. She did not rage, like he expected her to; all her energy seemed to have been used up.
They simultaneously and without speaking aloud decided to return to Fenhallow. With no other means of transportation, they walked. Their feet dragged through the snow. Somehow, the silence of the world under all that white was comforting; it made Wes feel as if nothing more could happen to him, as if life had been put on pause for their long march home. There was nothing waiting for them there but more horror. He didn't know which one of them reached out first, but he and Marcia held hands for most of the walk, both squeezing as hard as they could.
The police found them before they ever reached Fenhallow's gates. They were escorted back to campus, where they were met by the dean and no less than five high-ranking members of the Hypnos State, people whose names and faces Wes didn't care to remember. They found Coop in his bag, but let Wes keep him while he was questioned.
He tried to explain the story, but details slipped from his grasp like water. He remembered the big things—the pile of body parts, Ridley, the witch, Death, Emery—but everything else slid away. When they asked about Ridley, they tried to take her pick hammers, but he wouldn't give them up.
It was Dean Ashworth who convinced the State members to allow Wes to keep them.
"They were his sister's," Aldrich said. "He's the only one who can use them now."
Then Wes sat for a long time in the same room where they had once been tried in front of a jury. That felt like a lifetime ago. His head now swam with the small catches of what he could remember from the Dream, things he knew to be true but now felt only like nightmares. He was no dreamhunter. He couldn't save anyone.
Coop was curled in his lap, asleep. It was the only comfort in the room, the weight of a small thing that still needed him.
When Aldrich Ashworth returned, he was alone. Wes could feel it in his eyes whenever the dean was nearby, that very subtle resonance of a dreamform coming near its dreamer. The dean's face was weary but closed off; he perched on the edge of what had once been the jury box and took his glasses off to clean them.
"Did Moxie and Temper make it back?" Wes asked. Even to himself, his voice sounded dead.
The dean nodded. "They exited the Dream when the castle began to disappear. They're in the sleep clinic infirmary now, recuperating. Mr. Temper lost an arm and part of a foot. Moxie avoided most injuries due to her long range and crowd control abilities. Neither suffered bad poisoning, thankfully."
"That's good."
Dean Ashworth took a hard look at him for several long moments and finally said, "Edgar has come out of his coma."
Wes looked up.
"I just spoke to him," Aldrich continued. "For the first time since Fenhalloween. He's groggy, but awake. It will take time for us to know the ramifications of him killing his doppelgänger so early, and of the blockage Morrigan created in his dreams." He paused, looked down at his hands. "He wants to speak to Emery."
Wes began petting Coop so he didn't grab a chair and break it. "The witch threw her," he said, though he'd already told this part at least three times. "It threw Morrigan first, then it threw Emery. There was only darkness outside the tower."
"She's not dead," Aldrich said.
"How do you know?"
He moved to sit beside Wes, then reached into the breast pocket of his shirt and removed two small figures. Little people with black hair and blue eyes and clothes in bright primary colors that rolled in the palm of his hand. One looked like Emery, one like Edgar.
"I made these for them when they were born. When they were both old enough, I taught them how to color them with dreamforms. The colors are the first permanent dreamforms either of them made, before even armor or weapons. If the figure ever loses its color...well."
If the dreamer died, the dreamforms went with them.
Dean Ashworth replaced the figures in his pocket. "The witch wouldn't have been able to throw her out of Edgar's dream. If I had to guess, I would say she's still there."
"She can't make her own gateways, though," Wes said. "And the Dream was getting to her."
Dean Ashworth looked away, then looked back. "We'll send a search team after her, but I have to prepare you for the worst. If she and her doppelgänger were both thrown, there's a chance she's been taken. If Morrigan doesn't get to her, the Dream very well might. Even the strongest dreamhunters can only resist the Dream for so long before it envelops them. She'll stay alive there indefinitely, but bringing her back will mean returning her memories of who she is and helping her fight her way free, and that's much more difficult." He paused. "Her grandmother was lost to the Dream shortly after Emery's father was born."
"Who's going in after her, then?" Wes asked.
"I would go myself, but I'm afraid seeing me would only drive her deeper into the Dream." Dean Ashworth sighed. "Edgar would be the most potent if she does need that reminder, but he's too young and too fragile to be risked like that."
"What about her parents?"
Aldrich met Wes's gaze over the rims of glasses. "I received word from the State that Liam and Zoya have disappeared. No one is sure of their whereabouts."
"Doesn't the State keep something to tell them if dreamkillers have died? Like you with the figurines?"
"It does," said Aldrich.
"So the State knows they're not dead."
"It does."
"They deserted?"
"They wouldn't desert their post unless their children were in trouble, and the State would never allow that information to reach them."
"They were captured."
"Liam Ashworth and Zoya Volkova would not be captured by an enemy."
"So then where—" Wes trailed off. Aldrich hadn't blinked.
They wouldn't be captured by an enemy. Only by someone they thought was an ally. Maybe someone who gave them orders.
"That's why they haven't come back?"
"Nothing else would keep them from Emery and Edgar. There's a reason they were sent to the other side of the world. The only enemies of the State are doppelgängers and bonds between dreamhunters."
Wes's hand stilled on Coop's back. "You knew that, and you still let Emery think she was alone. You tried to have us put through dream death."
"I voted against it at the trial," Aldrich said. "But I can't offer any excuses for my actions. I've made many mistakes in my life. These past months have been the worst of them. I'll do what I can to bring Emery back, but I can't promise anything."
Wes went back to stroking Coop; the raccoon stretched his body so far he almost rolled off Wes's lap, and Wes had to gather him up and hold him close. He didn't want to listen to any more. He just wanted to sleep—sleep forever without dreaming, and forget everything he had ever seen.
"I am sorry about your sister," Dean Ashworth said. His voice sounded far away, and Wes didn't look up. "If she returns to you, you should advise her to avoid Fenhallow. She should probably leave the Sleeping City entirely. Any Hypnos State employee who encounters a fused doppelgänger is required to kill it. Again, Wes—I'm sorry. I'm sorry you had to live through any of this. I'm sorry any of it happened."
Wes heard Emery in the back of his head, sharp and scathing: If you're so sorry, you should have done something when it mattered.
But she wasn't there to say it, and he could no longer open his mouth. He sat in silence until Aldrich Ashworth strode to the door. Before he walked out, Aldrich said, "I doubt there will be a trial this time. Mr. Warwick's witch is currently floating above a parking garage downtown. It seems wherever she goes, the veil between the waking world and the Dream thins out, and it becomes easier for nightmares to come through. Not to mention his doppelgänger is loose as well. There will be changes to Fenhallow and the city soon, and punishing you and Ms. Montgomery is low on the State's priorities."
Wes sat alone for a while, then tucked Coop back into his duffel bag and left the building. No one tried to stop him.
Outside, the campus was quiet beneath a light snowfall. It was night, and in the distance, Van Der Gelt Tower was a purple beacon downtown. Wes stood at the top of the administration building steps and looked around at the buildings coated in frost, the statue of Iltani and Fabian Fenhallow, the trees and shrubs hidden beneath the white, and he was reminded of Emery's dream. Moscow at night in the snow, the palace and its statues. Emery had always seemed less guarded when it snowed. Softer.
Emery wasn't dead. Neither was Ridley, in some way. And Death was out there too, waiting for him.
He still had work to do.
The End
Until the Beginning