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As if hearing my thoughts, Hekima stands up and raises his fist to do exactly what I don’t want him to do.
I make his couch grow two plush arms like a giant teddy bear, and the arms grab him by the wrists, preventing him from hurting himself.
He looks right at me. “Ah, Bailey. I’m definitely dreaming.”
To my shock, I become visible.
What the hell? Is this what had happened the last time I’d been in his dream? Maybe I hadn’t forgotten to make myself invisible after all. Maybe he’d done the same thing to me then.
Hekima gives me a level look. “I’m an experienced lucid dreamer. I may not be able to enter other people’s dreams, but I’m not so easy to fool.”
He looks at the teddy bear bindings, and they turn to dust.
Puck.
Before he can punch himself, I teleport to him and grasp his wrists myself. No matter how good he is at lucid dreaming, he can’t wish me away.
“You can’t wake up even if you hit yourself,” I say, hoping he can’t read the lie on my face. “I have you sedated.”
His lips curve in his grandfatherly smile. “I grew up side by side with your kind on Soma. I know all the tricks.”
“Soma?” I ask, partly to stall for time but also because I’m genuinely intrigued. I’ve never heard of this place before, and it sounds like I should have, if it’s where a bunch of “my kind” live.
Hekima cocks his head. “You’re not from Soma? Then perhaps this will work.”
An arc of pulsing red energy streams from his fingers into my head.
Pucking puck.
He’s trying to use his illusion powers inside a dream—and it does work.
Well, sort of.
I’m back in the gladiatorial arena, but I’m also still holding his wrists. This odd state of being isn’t like Pom letting me see through his eyes, but more like the werewolf’s dream, where I’m being torn between two places at the same time.
The biggest orc I’ve ever seen ambles into the arena, and the crowd goes wild.
Hekima tries to twist out of my hold.
Puck. To fight the orc, I’ll need to let go of Hekima’s wrists. But what would happen if I didn’t fight the orc? I’m dealing with an illusion, but inside a dream. For all intents and purposes, there’s no difference between those two, so if the orc kills me in a dream, I might die, and the consequence would be murderous insanity. If this is similar to the werewolf situation, though, maybe the solution is the same as it was there.
Leal’s so-called multibody technique.
The orc is almost upon me. I don’t have time to dwell on the fact that the multibody thing failed the last time I tried it. I’m just going to have to trust in the mind-boosting power of sleep.
I zoom out of my body and create a second Bailey in the path of the orc, this one with fiery hair. Straining my bodiless self to the point of fainting, I will myself to enter both bodies.
Bam. The orc smashes his fist into my stomach—the stomach of the me with fiery hair.
It worked!
Fiery Me crumples in pain, but the me still holding Hekima’s wrists feels nothing but the illusionist’s struggles. Fiery Me hits the orc with everything I have, and the orc flies through the arena and crash-lands in a crater.
The crowd pees their pants in excitement.
Hekima tries to headbutt me. I make my head the consistency of a plush pillow to make sure he doesn’t feel any pain.
At the same time, Fiery Me teleports to the weakened orc and waits for the crowd to quiet. As soon as it does, the flaming hair rises from my head and torches my opponent to a crisp.
Some in the crowd have heart attacks.
Hekima bares his teeth. “You’re powerful. Even some of the dreamwalkers on Soma couldn’t do the multibody technique.”
Soma again—and the place sounds more interesting by the moment. Both of me reply in unison, “Tell me more. What is Soma? Where is it?” At Hekima’s incredulous stare, both of me add quickly, “I’ll do my best to get the Council to go easy on you if you tell me the truth.”
Kit or Chester must be about to knock him out by now, but I almost wish they weren’t. My question isn’t a stalling tactic. If Soma is where dreamwalkers live, I want to learn all about it. With Mom refusing to speak about our roots, I’ve always wondered if—
Hekima’s face twists. “We never should’ve left Soma. Siti would still be alive. On Soma, we—”
A shriek of unspeakable pain erupts from him as his dream bursts like a soap bubble, and I find myself back in the tower of sleepers.
Puck. Just when he was getting to the good part, someone knocked him out. Oh, well. Hopefully I’ll be able to question him when he recovers. They didn’t execute me right away, so there should be time.
