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“Fool me once, shame on you,” the Nucrackers say in unison. “Fool me twice…”

I don’t listen to the rest. I let one of me parry the thrusts of the two Nutcrackers, while another me exits her body and creates a third copy of me.

It works—but the Nutcracker does the same, and there are now three of him fighting three of me.

Desperate, I create a fourth copy.

He does as well.

Fine.

Each version of me teleports to a different location on Earth—one to Big Ben, one to the Eiffel Tower, a third to the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and the fourth to the Brandenburg Gate.

The Nutcracker joins us in each location, his saber clashing with our katanas in a furious assault.

Each me has the same problem: Our slices don’t hurt his wooden body as much as his injure our regular flesh.

Still, we battle on.

That is, until the Big Ben Nutcracker says, “Screw this.” He turns himself into a nuke and kabooms with a mushroom cloud over all of London.

Puck.

The Big Ben version of me is gone now.

The rest of us fight harder, but the Nutcracker likes his nuke strategy, so he blows up his Eiffel Tower and Leaning Tower of Pisa selves in the same exact way.

We’re down to one on one again.

If he commits suicide one more time, we’re both going to be insane in the real world. Maybe it wouldn’t be that big of a change for him, but I don’t like that option.

Calling on my last remaining strength, I speed up my attack. The plan is to keep him too busy to turn himself into a bomb.

His saber nicks my wrist. Blood spurts out, but I’m fighting too hard to leave my body and heal the wound. Lunging forward, I slice his right shoulder, but my blade doesn’t hurt the cursed wood.

If I don’t figure out who he is, I’m going to lose. Soon.

He’s not Maxwell, but he is someone who knows me. Maybe someone I don’t think of as a dreamwalker. Someone who might’ve boosted his power recently and—

The puzzle pieces crash into place.

Parrying a saber slice, I allow myself a moment of distraction, willing my opponent to take the form I’ve just guessed to be his real one.

To my shock, it works.

The nightmarish face turns attractive, with symmetrical masculine features and strong dark eyebrows. Only the eyes stay the same.

I should have recognized those eyes the first time we met.

The Nutcracker is Ratridevi Bhairava, Valerian’s head of development.

Or as he likes to be called, Rattie.

Chapter Thirty-Six

“What gave me away?” Rattie asks in his own voice, skillfully parrying my next attack.

“I should’ve seen it sooner.” I keep talking in the hopes I’ll distract him enough to pierce his flesh. “Your development team teased you for overusing spiders and clowns, and the Nutcracker’s face is very clown-like. Not to mention, I’ve lost count of how many spiders you’ve thrown my way.”

As I speak, I parry and slice, but he’s too fast.

“Now that I think about it,” I continue, “an important character in the Nutcracker story is called the Rat King—not a far cry from Rattie.”

I block his counterthrust and cut his wrist, which bleeds in a mirror of my own injury.

Score. Talking works.

Encouraged, I go on. “The power boost is what really gave you away.” I glide out of his attack like a Kendo master. “You like to make the villains in your games look like you, and the big bad in the Lucid Dreamer project—who’s also called the Rat King—had your face in the demo that I tried.”

I see him slowing down from his wound, so I ignore my own blood loss and attack with renewed vigor. “You pretended to make yourself a playable character in the game ‘for replayability,’ but really, it was to get as much power as me.”

I don’t remind him about the other clue—how his video game design background makes him so formidable in the dream world. Why boost his ego? Instead, I execute a truly awe-inspiring set of moves that end with the tip of my katana pressed against his throat. “The problem for you is that I’m better than you.”

“Are you?” he sneers, and I realize his saber is in the same position against my neck.

Puck.

When I press the tip of my blade deeper into his neck, he does the same to me.

We’re back to the mutual suicide scenario—and I see determination in his eyes.

He might actually be willing to go insane together.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Deadly tension building, we stare at each other like two gunslingers.

Suddenly, Pom appears behind Rattie and sinks his teeth into the dreamwalker’s ear.

Wow. I guess all those bravery practice sessions haven’t gone to waste.

Rattie’s eyes widen and his head whips around, but Pom is already gone. There’s brave and there’s suicidal, and my little symbiont knows the difference.

It doesn’t matter, though. You snooze, you lose.

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