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“I already spoke to Fabian,” the wind replies in Valerian’s voice. “He’ll subdue you if necessary.”
Fine. I do my best to even out my breathing. The scent of salty ocean air conspires with the sweet aroma of flowers to calm me.
It takes an hour or so, but eventually, I drift off.
Chapter Thirty
Arms outstretched, I’m flying in the skies on Gomorrah, dodging skyscrapers in my way.
Wait a second. When did I learn to fly? This must be a dream.
I check my wrist. Yep. Pom is missing.
I halt my flight and take myself to my dream palace.
Pom is here, his fur a happy purple.
“Hey, bud,” I say. “How are you?”
I don’t tell him our lives are in danger, but there’s a chance he knows via an unauthorized snooping inside my mind.
“I just finished some exposure therapy.” His fur turns brown. “It goes better and better each time.”
Whew. He hasn’t yet picked up on the danger. “Excellent. How about you work on it some more while I take a trip into Valerian’s dreams?”
“You want privacy?” he asks, the tips of his ears turning a jealous green.
“It’s not what you think,” I say, though I hope that we do find time for what Pom is alluding to. “I’m trying to learn a secret from Valerian, and if he sees you, he might get skittish.”
His fur takes on a light orange hue. “You’ll tell me the secret though, won’t you?”
“I will,” I say solemnly.
“Unless it’s gross or scary,” he amends.
“Sure. I doubt this one will be, though.”
He nods, ears flopping, and I teleport into the tower of sleepers, right into Valerian’s nook.
He’s here. It’s now or never.
I place my lips on his to make contact and dive in.
Valerian is making out with a dream version of me. She’s really into it, and so is he. We’re in his bedroom, and both of the windows are black—which is what I’m here for.
“Great job with the dream,” I say after I’ve watched my fill. “They say when you practice something while sleeping, you get better at it in the real world.”
He looks at me—a second version of me from his perspective—and recovers from surprise with record speed. “You think I need to get better at this?”
“No. You’re a sex god,” his dream version of me says in a sultry voice.
Though feeling jealous in this case doesn’t make sense for multiple reasons, I still take perverse pleasure in making her disappear.
Valerian looks vaguely disappointed. Heaving a sigh, he points at the black window nearest us. “That’s the one with Soma memories. It’s one of the few things I know.”
I head toward the window in question.
“Wait,” he says. “We want to break it so that I get the memories back when you’re done.”
“I have no idea how to do that.”
“I do.” He comes up to me and takes my hand, his touch giving me warm tingles even in the dream world. “Just bring me with you when you go.”
Oh. I can do that. I think.
I make us both fly into the window, and he squeezes my hand tighter as I make contact with the black glass.
I plunge into icy black water.
Two problems are apparent right away.
First is that a rope is wrapped around my waist. It attaches me to a rickety boat, inside which is an unconscious Valerian. This must be the side effect of dragging him with me.
What’s more worrying is the size of the body of water around us. It’s either a sea or a small ocean—I can’t see a shore in any direction. The last time I tried to swim through something like this, I drowned, and that time, I didn’t have to drag a boat with Valerian along.
Then again, I’m supposed to be more powerful now. Maybe that could give me an edge?
I try to use my powers, willing myself to become lighter than water so I can float. This didn’t work before and doesn’t now. I will the boat to fly like a balloon, but it doesn’t.
All right. I’ll swim the old-fashioned way.
I swim for what feels like an hour with a freestyle stroke, then switch to breaststroke and swim some more. Still can’t even see the shore. The rope makes it awkward to do a backstroke, so I switch to butterfly and swim that way for a while.
After what feels like a day, my every muscle aches and the irritation from the rope burns messes with my concentration.
I keep on swimming. It becomes a meditation, with my movements as the mantra. One arm after another. I think only about swimming. And swimming. And swimming. My breathing grows more labored, yet the shore is still nowhere in sight.
A part of me wants to give up and sink, but I can’t. If I do, I’ll be kicked out of the dream world with my powers depleted. More importantly, I want to learn about Soma and give Valerian his missing years back.
