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Pom materializes in front of me. “Did it help when I let you see what I see?”
I pull him close and fluff his fur. “Yep, but no time to talk. I think I have a plan.”
“Good luck.” His ears turn black. “If you don’t mind, I’ll stay out of it—I have a feeling it’s going to be scary.”
“Suit yourself.”
I teleport to the tower of sleepers. A few Councilors are already here, but not Hekima. He must not have reached REM sleep yet.
Since Kit is here, I enter her dream. Surprise, surprise, she’s dreaming of an orgy.
I interrupt the proceedings. “Hey, Kit, this is a wet dream. We need to talk.”
When she looks at me, I remove the naked people and the bedroom from around us and replace them with a recreation of the Council meeting chamber—or at least the way the place looked before Hekima’s massacre.
“Have a seat,” I tell her, and fill her in on everything that’s happened.
By the time I finish, her eyes are almost as wide as Pom’s. “I can’t believe it was Hekima. But that does explain what happened to me. I saw Colton admit that he was the murderer, and then he attacked me.”
“I bet Colton thought you admitted the same thing.”
“So many dead.” She shakes her head mournfully.
“About that. Filth and Kain’s deaths—”
“—are Hekima’s fault.” She turns into Hekima and imitates cutting a throat. “I’ll make sure the rest of the Council understand that you, Felix, and Ariel aren’t guilty of anything, nor is anyone who killed a colleague due to Hekima’s trickery. Don’t worry.”
Great. And it’s almost true. No one needs to know the particulars of Filth’s demise. He had it coming, but Ariel could still get into trouble unless Hekima takes the blame.
“Thank you,” I say.
Kit reverts to her usual guise. “What now?”
“I’m going to bring more Councilors here and ask you to bring them up to speed.”
Leaving her, I go back to the tower of sleepers and enter Nina’s dream. She’s flying over a field of daisies. I take to the air and loft up next to her.
Her eyes boggle.
“You’re in a dream,” I say.
She floats down to earth and bends to literally smell the flowers. “Seems so real.”
“I know.”
She rubs her forehead. “Did I really—”
“Let’s hold off on the explanation for a moment.” I take us to the dream version of the Council meeting room. “Kit, please tell Nina what happened. I’ll get the others.”
Without waiting for a reply, I return to the tower of sleepers and get Chester, followed by Colton, Isis, the siren, and a few other Councilors.
Eventually, I spot Hekima in one of the nooks.
My sleep grenade has finally worked on him.
I return to the Council meeting place.
“Do you have a plan?” Isis asks when I appear.
“I do. But before we go into that, I want to make sure we’re all good.” I look at each Councilor one by one. “Is my execution canceled?”
Isis raises her chin. “The majority of the Council is here, and we’ve voted for amnesty in your case. Furthermore, I’m still going to heal your mother.”
My heart leaps. “Today?”
“If we survive Hekima,” she says with an eye roll. “Are you ready to talk about your plan in regard to that little problem?”
I take a deep breath and face the Councilors. “The plan is simple. You all try to wake up. Meanwhile, I’ll go into Hekima’s dream to make sure he keeps dreaming and therefore can’t thwart you. Once you’re in the waking world, knock him out.”
“I’ll do it,” Kit says eagerly.
“I’m closer to him,” Chester says.
“Doesn’t matter who,” I say. “Just wake up.”
“How?” Nina asks.
“Will yourself to wake up. If that doesn’t work, use a little bit of pain.”
Chester disappears right away, but most others stand there with expressions of concentration. Then Kit punches herself, and that wakes her up. Colton does the same and also disappears. Nina looks like she’s having trouble, so I give her a jolt to assist her.
When the last Councilor is gone, I take myself to Hekima’s room in the tower of sleepers. It would be extremely unfortunate if he happened to wake up before someone could knock him out.
Making it a point to turn myself invisible, I touch him on the forehead.
Hekima is sitting on a couch reading a book. A confused expression appears on his face. He lowers the book to his lap and raises it again, and even I see the text is different on the second go. His confusion deepens.
Crap. What he’s just done is one of the many techniques lucid dreamers use to determine whether they’re in a dream or not, a bit like what I do with Pom on my wrist. Text often becomes blurry and changeable in dreams. If Hekima ascertains this isn’t real, he could wake himself up.
I gently shoot him with my power to keep him in the dream state. It’s not a surefire method; if he punches himself the way he did in the graveyard, he could still wake up.
