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“So by process of elimination,” he says, “it’s the werewolf.”
I nod mournfully. “Which blows. They’ll make me go into his dream to check, and he’ll make me go insane.”
“It’s all moot now.” Pom points behind me, and I whirl around. “He woke up.”
He’s right. The werewolf isn’t in his nook anymore.
I exhale the breath I was holding. “It’s just a stay of execution. They can ask him to go to sleep again.”
Pom’s fur darkens. “Maybe whatever you find inside Nina’s black windows will be so damning you won’t need to dreamwalk in him in the first place.”
“Maybe,” I say and seek out Nina.
She’s still asleep.
Oh, well.
Here goes plan B.
Chapter Thirty
This time, Nina’s dreaming about eating sushi. She doesn’t use chopsticks like the customers nearby. Instead, pieces of raw fish dip themselves into soy sauce and fly into her mouth.
The windows in the restaurant are black, just like the windows from her other dreams.
“Remember me?” I slide into the booth across from her, pick up a piece of raw salmon, and plop it onto my tongue. If someone were to put a gun to my head in the waking world to make me repeat that action, I’d probably refuse. Death by gun is certain but less painful than having your brain eaten by the parasites that live in raw fish on Earth.
Nina looks around. “This is a dream?”
“I imagine the Mandate would prevent you from using your powers in a human restaurant,” I say.
“You’re right.” She looks at the windows. “I think I remember what you’ve come here to do.”
“Yep.” I follow her gaze. “Now which is the one to avoid?”
“That one.” She points at the black window nearest the restaurant entrance.
“Got it.” I eat a piece of fatty tuna. “So I just fly in?”
“That’s what Leal did.”
I stand up, already bobbing a few inches off the ground. “Before I go, I was wondering… Why didn’t you tell me about the black windows earlier?”
“I needed you to know I wasn’t guilty. After all, my black window is a motive for me to kill Leal.”
I lift my eyebrows.
“I would’ve killed him if he’d tried to use whatever I forgot against me,” she explains with the calmness of someone discussing the weather. “Same if he’d tried to make me remember whatever I forgot.”
Note to self: Definitely don’t piss off Nina.
“Makes sense,” I say. “But why do you think Leal set up a dead man’s switch in the first place? Why use your dreams?”
A piece of squid sails into her mouth, and she looks thoughtful as she chews. “For all we know, he might have another fail-safe besides me. Or many. When I asked the same question, he said computers could be hacked and that lots of hackers would be eager for that job. But dreamwalkers are rare, and dreamwalkers who know about black windows are rarer still.”
She’s got me there. I nod wisely.
“You know what? Try that window.” She points at the black glass to my left.
“Why?” I float higher.
“I don’t know.” She studies the window intently. “I’m hoping that on some level I know which ones have something to do with the murders.”
That’s good enough for me. “Let’s go for that one, then.” I confidently torpedo into the black window she just chose.
I half expect the onyx glass to shatter around me, slicing my skin, but instead I end up plunging into a freezing black lake. Struggling to swim, I will myself to become lighter than water.
It doesn’t work.
I will the water to become saltier and thus heavier, but that doesn’t work either—nor does willing myself a life vest.
My ragged breathing speeds up. What the hell? I try exiting my body so I can strategize, but I’m stuck inside myself as much as I’m stuck in this lake.
Fine. I’ll just swim.
Stroke after stroke, I edge closer to the nearest shore, testing my powers as I go. Changing water to clouds doesn’t work. Teleportation doesn’t, either. I call out to Pom but get no answer. So odd.
Unlike the times I’m in a subdream, I know that I’m in the dream world now. It’s just that my powers don’t work. I guess I’ll have to do the obvious—just keep swimming.
I focus on swimming, only swimming. And swimming. And swimming. My breathing grows labored, yet the shore is still far away. After what feels like an hour, every muscle is aching, even some I didn’t know I had.
The shore is still a mile away, and I feel like giving up.
But I can’t sink. Sinking will either kill me—and make me go insane—or it might be the way one “fails to enter” a black window, which carries the penalty of losing power for the day.
Gasping for air, I let the motions of my arms and legs become my whole world. With every excruciating stroke, I tell myself that my muscles aren’t really burning, that it’s not real air I’m greedily gulping. Everything around me is as real as a mirage.
