“He’ll come to you again when he’s ready, Stevie. He just needs time to heal.”
I nod, grateful for the reassurance.
“If we’ve ruled out sleep-walking,” Doc continues, “the next best explanation is the worst one.” He sighs, tapping his fingers against the desk. “Someone is trying to get to you from the astral—essentially, to break into your subconscious and channel enough power to affect your conscious reality.”
“So you think it’s more than just a vision? Someone is actually trying to hurt me?”
“Sends a powerful message either way, right?”
“But… how does that even work?”
“No one is totally sure. The realms are extremely complex—just when you think you’ve figured out how something operates, the rules change. All we know for certain is that realms are fluid, permeable, and they often overlap.” He leans forward, elbows on the desk, and makes a sphere with his hands. “Picture a child blowing bubbles through a wand. Sometimes they chart their own course. Other times they collide, and either pop or absorb into one another. Sometimes they even stick together.”
“Then there’s that cool trick where you blow a bubble inside of another one.”
“Precisely.”
I try to picture what he’s describing, but we’re rapidly approaching mind-blowing territory here. “So if I’m traveling in my dream realm bubble, and someone else is traveling in another bubble, and we bump into each other…”
“A skilled mage or witch can slip between them.”
I lift the holly branch, twirling it between my fingers. “And bring things out, back into our material realm?”
“Yes, though I’ve never seen it happen before.”
“Oh, yay! More special snowflake powers for my collection!” I smile, but it doesn’t last. “If I can be hurt in my dream realm, does that mean I can be killed?”
It’s the age-old question, right? If you die in your dreams, do you ever wake up?
Doc’s energy turns icy. “We aren’t going to let that happen, Stevie.”
“Unless you plan on pumping me full of caffeine and dousing me in ice water every time I nod off, I don’t see how you can stop it.”
“At the risk of sounding controlling and overbearing…” Doc frowns, deepening the lines around his mouth. “I don’t want you sleeping alone, Stevie.”
“Great, me neither!” I laugh. “My bed is officially open for business. Shall we put a message on the student website?”
“This is serious, Stevie. If the Magician and his dark minions are trying to reach you in the astral, that means that any time you’re asleep—literally at your most vulnerable—they will have the advantage. We don’t know how many there are, which realms they have access to, how much power they’re amassing, how often they can actually get to you. But judging on your visions and dreams, they’ve got more than enough firepower to wreak havoc.”
“Setting aside the topic of my sleeping companions,” I say, “what’s the connection between my dreams and the actual campus? Everything I saw unfolded right here. The buildings, the pathways… I got a little turned around in the mist, but it still felt like Arcana Academy, right up through the end.”
“There’s no doubt in my mind that what you’re seeingisthe academy. We just don’t know whether it’s a glimpse into the Dark Magician’s twisted mind—into the destruction he hopes to cause here—or a premonition of events that have already been set in motion. Events we can’t stop, but can only prepare for.”
“Neither scenario bodes well for us.” Gazing down at the blackened branch, I’m struck with another thought. “Wait. If what I’m seeing is the academy, then the cave—the one with the Fool and the baby-eating druid—exists somewhere on campus.”
“I would imagine it does, though I’ve never seen it.”
“Should we try to find it?”
Doc picks up the branch again, gazing at it as if it holds the key to every one of life’s mysteries. “No.”
“But… why? It could hold clues to the Magician’s plans, or the objects, or even my mother’s prophecies. She was there at the end, Doc. I know it was her. She—”
“There’s only one place where holly thrives on campus, Stevie.” He drops the branch and meets my eyes across the desk. “The Void.”
The Void.
A shudder wracks my body as Kirin’s warning from my first day here echoes in my mind.
