A young man stepped out from behind the statue of a bird engulfed in flame. He looked to be no older than his mid-thirties. His hair politely swept to one side. His shirt topped with a scarf that reached down to the floor.

"Have you come to return it?" he asked. "My map?"

I reached for Maker's map, tucked deep into the bottom of my pack. As soon as I pulled it out, the man's face lit up.

"So you do have it!" he said. "I knew you were here to return—"

"Stop the charade. You're not Maker."

His head twisted to one side. "Oh? And what would make you say such a thing?"

Because you didn't say so when I asked, not that I'm too keen on revealing how I know.

Mim tugged at my arm. She was worried. Confused.

"Whether you are Maker or not, we don't have the time for all this. What do you mean it might kill you if I take the orb?"

The man made a wide gesture with his arm and gave a long hard sigh before he sat cross-legged on the floor, in front of the water fountain. "If time is of concern, I did have an idea in mind." He lifted his hand in the air and snapped his fingers.

Instantly, a series of loud thuds came from the hallway behind us. I turned in time to find the hall progressively slamming closed until the path was completely sealed off. Mim clutched onto my arm. We were trapped.

"Please, sit. I would hate to make you uncomfortable."

I took a step towards him. "Tell us what's going on."

"I'm sorry, would you prefer if we were interrupted in the middle of the story? Give a moment of your time and you may leave, no issue. I'm not here to impede your progress, I simply wish to answer your questions."

I hated to let someone so pompous have his way, but my curiosity was nagging at me to hear him out.

"Are you alright, Mim?" I asked.

She nodded.

"Fine," I said. "What's really going on with this orb?"

He cleared his throat. "Well, to say I know such a thing would be a simple lie, but I may provide some context to aid in your decision. From the beginning, I'll start. It may help you to understand.

"Really, it amazes me to think of how far this place has come. Not too long ago, inhabitants of The Realm were a rare thing to stumble across. Actually, I remember quite clearly when it was only myself and one other. I do believe she arrived before I did, though I never did get her to admit it. From the beginning, I was fascinated, both in her and in The Realm of Dreams. We didn't call it that back then, mind you, but only thanks to our efforts did we come to realize the Nature of this place."

"Are you telling me you were the first person who came to The Realm?" I asked.

He took a slow breath. "Myself and the woman with whom I was infatuated, yes. Can you imagine coming to this place without any of the introductions you were given? It was a ceaseless effort to learn even the most basic of things. The cycle of day and night, the rivers and the forests and the mountains, the places where the Nightmares lurked. Many things. Of course, we took it all one day at a time, and it wasn't so difficult when we had one another."

He sat for a moment, only staring at the orb.

"How does any of this relate to… that?" I asked.

"Yes, right. One day, it was a cold day, we discovered there was more to this place than what it appeared to be. I supposed we both thought of it as a sort of afterlife for a long while, and there wasn't so much to be studied when it held such a mystical sense. We were discussing the implications of a life after death, debating, in a sense. I was never so good at those sorts of discussions but they always seemed to interest her. She'd sit up straighter, speak a little louder. She was more engaged. I thought she deserved to partake in something she cared for, every now and then.

"But that day, something was amiss. She disagreed with everything. There was no common ground. More than anything, it seemed like she refused the idea of a life after death as anything other than an illusion. She got angry. I tried telling her that things were fine the way they were. We could move on with it, drop the topic. She didn't care. Then, she awoke to her Name. It was a spectacular event, really. A bright flash."

"A bright flash?" I asked. Like Mim's?

"Yes, the brightest I've ever seen, hers was. I would say I did quite well to work her up on that particular day. Although, it must have been a mix of things, looking back on it. The weather, my incessant insistence on being wrong, whatever other problems were on her mind, I'm sure there must have been many. Nonetheless, it all resulted in her awakening. A curious power, really, to think of an object and make it.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"At first she made practical things, things we missed. Clothes and soap and comfortable beds. Then she made things which we didn't know the names of. Things she invented or imagined. But the more she used this power, the more we wondered the true nature of The Realm. What really is this place, after all? If you can conjure anything you wish to exist, what sort of place are we living in?

"Eventually, more inhabitants came. We spent our time researching, studying their entrances and their exits. We were certain they must provide some clue. Who were they in their previous lives? What happened before they came? Could we predict what person might next appear, from when, from where? Soon though, there were too many to study them all. We looked at groups, at populations. Which chose to live where? Why? It was all wonderful work, but it began to bore her, I imagine.

"The business became dull, less important, or perhaps she just couldn't take the gradual pace of the work. That was fine to me. Rest, I told her. I'll do the ground work, I'll do the lab work, I'll write the theorems down and I'll run the calculations. She was worried a lot back then. Do you need anything? She'd ask. I can make you a nicer chair, a better desk, a hole that sees through walls. But I knew she was tired, and I never asked her for a thing.

"Was that where I went wrong, I wonder? Did she think herself useless to me near the end? I suppose that's what brings someone to sacrifice themselves, isn't it? This was the last thing she made. Her final work. I hated it at first, but after a while of hating, it becomes a dull task.

"It's a useful thing, this orb. It gives me the energy to work and to carry out a breadth of experiments. It's the only reason I'm still alive, probably. It gave the tree the energy that was needed to grow as tall as the ceiling. It even gives one the power of creation, after a while. That's how I made that map," he said. "You can keep it if you like."

The man stood and took a sharp breath. "Well, there you have it. I'm sick of this orb but it remains useful to me, so I don't particularly care if you take it. I'm sure it will imbue you with fabulous powers if you were to hold onto it, even for a short period of time. Nothing will happen to the tree. It will live on as it is, and one day it will wither and die, as it always should have. The people who live nearby may see some decrease in vitality, they'll probably grow sick more often. It seems only fair they should. Other than that, I don't think it will do much of anything.

"So, I wonder." He turned to look at me, and there was an upturn to his lip, a narrowing of his eyes. "Will you take it?"

Mim tugged at my arm again. "What if he's lying?"

I had considered that, but the way he told the story, the sorrow. I couldn't help but believe him. The man wasn't Maker, the woman in the story was. That orb, if anything, is The Dream Maker.

"You really don't care if I take it?" I asked.

The man shrugged.

Normally I'd have pounced on such an opportunity. The orb was what I'd come here for, after all. But something was still bothering me, a detail in his story that I'd latched onto. His research. There was something about the courtyard, too. The painting of the sky on the ceiling. My own sky. Not only that, the statues bothered me. Did the inhabitants of The Realm know of a phoenix? Surely they must, if they came from my world. But the man had mentioned something in his story. He spoke of where inhabitants came from.

And then, I remembered the patterned box from Goldwater's room, the entire reason I was here. Didn't The Dream Eater ask to get another box made by Maker? That would mean…

"What do you know about my world?" I asked.

He gave a blank stare. "What?"

"You made a box. It was blue and purple and had an intricate pattern, with a small golden lock. You made it, didn't you?"

"I make a lot of things…" he said.

"And this sky," I pointed to the ceiling. "And these creatures. This one's a phoenix. Right there, that's a griffin. And the one at the other end, with spread wings and a spiked tail, that's a dragon. They're all legends in my world. How do you know of them?"

His chin rose and his shoulders came back, as if to challenge my statement. "It's a little more complicated than—"

"Teach me," I said. "Tell me everything you know, all you've researched. I want to know how you got that box in my world. I want to know where else people come from. I want to know what it is about The Realm that makes it so special." I was panting. "I want to break it wide open."

He held his hands up as if to stop me in my tracks. "What are you talking about? The study of The Realm is a careful process, it's slow. I can't simplify its entire history into an easy and consumable package."

He was on the back foot, I could tell. I only had to press further.

"Then only tell the parts that matter to me," I said. "You know how to get me back to my world, don't you? There's a way back, The Dream Eater can do it, and you know how it's done."

He looked me up and down. "You're mistaken," he said. "I only made the box to specification. I don't know how he got it your world. Though, there is one thing you've discerned. There are many worlds where people come from before they end up here. The sky, these creatures, they are common in many. I'm sorry, I don't believe I have the information you'd like me to have."

"You're lying," I said.

"I wish I were. These are precisely the things I strive to learn more about. Why it is that those who end up in The Realm end up here? What precisely is the purpose of this place? Is there a purpose at all? I wish I were capable of answering these questions, but I am not. I apologize."

His words hit like the hilt of a dagger. I'd have rather been stabbed.

"You're not capable, huh?" I repeated with a sigh. "Well then, it's settled. I won't take the orb," I said. "And if I don't, I imagine you'll continue your research."

His gaze met the tile floor with a smile. "I imagine I won't have a choice." Then, his head jerked up, as if he'd come to a realization. "In the meantime, I'm certain The Eater himself could answer some questions for you. He's always had an intuitive eye for this kind of thing."

"Let me just get a hold of him," I said.

"That's what I thought, which is why I'll suggest the alternative."

"Alternative?"

"In fact, you're already closely acquainted with the foremost expert on the largest hint The Realm has to offer."

And as soon as he said it, I knew it was true.

"The Dream Keeper."