When she woke up, Girasol apologized profusely for what had happened. Before she did anything else, she dressed Henry’s arm. It was in a terrible state, the skin thin and tight, torn in places, leaking that awful grey liquid that wasn’t blood. Girasol treated it as best she could. She had an ointment from some other world, and while she wasn’t a magician, there was magic in it, and it soothed his arm, spreading a cool numbness that almost masked the pain. After that, she bandaged it from top to bottom. The fingers couldn’t uncurl anymore, even when external force was applied.

Henry forgave her; he never thought of doing otherwise. It was basically all his own fault anyway. If he hadn’t messed up his quest, he wouldn’t even be here right now.

She offered to let him stay at the bar, but he told her he would return to Ruby’s place, that he wanted to take care of it while Ruby was gone. Girasol gave him a hard look. “Don’t run off,” she said.

“I won’t,” said Henry.

“I mean it,” said Girasol. “I’m an adult. I know I messed up, but I can help you. I will help you.”

Henry swallowed. “I know,” said Henry. “But there’s things I have to take care of myself.” He put his hand on his bad shoulder. “You’re not a magician, after all.”

She winced, but she nodded.

When he got home, Henry copied the sigils on his bandage from memory onto a scrap of iron. He unbound his arm at the shoulder and bent the metal around the joint before tying it back up again. It was uncomfortable but far from the worst thing he was going through currently, and the touch of his native element enhanced the spell greatly. He couldn’t afford to let the curse spread any farther.

When that was done, he ate all the food in the icebox; mostly desserts and a pound of salmon. He watched the icebox as he ate. It was a kind of knockoff Coolerator done up in pastel pink that looked like a 1950s fridge. Before his eyes, it slowly started to transform into a device more accurate to Letters’ time period. Henry furrowed his brow, looking over at the window box. The succulents had transformed into tulips while he wasn’t looking. He sighed. Now that Ruby was gone, the projection was becoming less whimsical. It had been her dream of Rhone, after all, and now it was becoming the average of everyone else’s.

All the more reason to get going. With the food consumed, Henry got to work sketching circles of protection into the floor. He had few enough of the proper materials, but the Achlydes were Hermeticists. He knew how to invoke the protection of dozens of angels and demons, gods and saints. It was why the coming of age quest involved going to another plane in the first place; contracting or stealing from some otherworldly entity was the cornerstone of the clan’s magicks.

First, he needed to channel, properly channel from an Earthly god. He was running on fumes after the fight, and while his magic reserves were vast, the disruptor had drained him almost fully. He was also slightly concerned about all the dream magic he’d been consuming lately. While it seemed fine, he wanted to feel the touch of his gods, the comfort of ritual. He darkened the room, lit some candles and incense, and he sang.

The rituals of the Achlydes clan were ancient practices plucked from diverse traditions, tested and proven, purchased for the use of the bloodline with ancient favors. They typically did not require faith. In this case, Henry invoked Cybele, a mother goddess of the east. He had no wine, but he’d scored some dark rum in one of the clubs (it tasted like flat Coke here). He had no hand drum, but he drummed on the floorboards with his dying fist.

One of the candles blew out. He thought he heard the distant sound of a lion’s growl. In his mind’s eye, he perceived the silhouette of a mural crown, all symbols of Cybele. A trickle of earth power streamed into his spirit. And then…

Nothing. The ritual hadn’t failed, it was merely ineffective. “Am I too far from Earth?” he muttered, and regretted not going with Fenetre.

But no. He had more resources here. He had a Dream Lord. All Henry would have to do is fall asleep.

He channeled again, slurring up dream magic with an ease that seemed suspicious now. When he was done, he touched his belt buckle for courage and said a prayer for his father; not a rite to Cyebele, Mithras, or Sophia, but a simple whisper into the void for guidance. The Achlydes had boiled religion down to a dry science, but it made Henry feel better to imagine he was heard.

After that, it was as easy as lying down and closing his eyes. As soon as his head hit the rolled up coat he was using as a pillow, he fell through the dream marbles like a stone in the ocean. He saw Leila languishing in her prison. He saw Ayane and Ghun; he was wreathed in smoke and holding her head, turning her this way and that, like an over-aggressive child playing rough with a puppy. Henry did not see Ruby.

He willed himself to ignore these visions and to fall toward the grey land, toward Phobetor’s domain, and so he did. The wheeling chaos of passing dreams suddenly stopped, hard enough that if he’d had a body Henry would have been smashed against the ground. Quickly, he exerted his will, dreaming that his wards had come with him, that he had a body that could fight. He made himself look healthy and strong, but his right arm didn’t want to cooperate; it was just a faint thing of silver smoke in the shape of an arm, sharp edged like a beam shining into fog.

Henry took a deep breath, touched his belt, and called out, “Phobetor!”

The Dream Lord, emerged from the fog, his golden robe blooming into existence first, followed by his mask and then the rest of his body. “Twice more, Henry,” he warned.

Henry swallowed. “I want knowledge. I can offer—”

“Dreamsilver,” Phobetor cut him off. “I will accept no other payment from you.”

Henry looked down at his wispy hand. Back with his body, it was almost all dreamsilver. A few pounds at least. The limb was dead, but part of him still held out hope it could be healed. And beyond that, he didn’t have the heart to…remove it.

“One question,” said Phobetor, raising an ebony claw. Henry wondered what he would ask, but then— “One question for each of your fingers. From the first knuckle upward.”

Henry trembled. It was all going wrong, he was letting the demon set the terms. But he knew intrinsically that he had nothing else of equal value, and as a figment Phobetor probably valued dreamsilver even more than mortals did. But there was another matter.

“I can’t just let you have my flesh,” said Henry. “You could use it to hurt me or control me. I can’t possibly agree.”

“I swear an oath upon the Styx that your payment will be consumed and digested, not used for contagious magicks,” said Phobetor. It felt like someone ringing a gong in Henry’s soul, and he knew that the oath was binding.

Henry knew it was safer this way, but his spirit still rebelled against the prospect of being eaten, even partially. His body back in Rhone was breathing hard, but his spirit body still projected control. The demon had put him on the back foot. He needed to add his own conditions. He swallowed a sharp lump in his throat and said, “no payment until the transaction is complete.”

“Agreed,” said Phobetor.

“And I do not agree to give you all five of my fingers,” said Henry. “You’ll have one per question asked. That’s it.”

Phobetor weighed the deal, staring at Henry with his golden eyes. At least, that’s what Henry assumed he was doing. He had not moved since he arrived, save to raise his hand and lower it once more. “Make sure they are good questions.”

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

Henry lifted his spectral hand and slowly uncurled his pinky. “In exchange for my pinky,” Henry started, “tell me why I was unable to kill the doppelganger and how I can correct it.”

Phobetor hummed. “You have been too long in the Dreamlands, eaten too much of dream food and drunk too much dream drink. You have slept in the Dreamlands for days, though the time passed quickly for you. You have channeled dream magic too extensively. And much of your flesh and bone is now dreamsilver. You are too much of this realm and not enough of your own. You are a figment with a body, and a doppelganger can only be killed by a real person.”

Henry listened, his mouth dry. His aunt hadn’t warned him about such things, but it made sense. He had never been intended to be in the Dreamlands for longer than a few days. And this is what came of it. “And?” Henry prodded. “Go on then, I asked how to fix it.”

Phobetor grumbled. “Surely that is two questions.”

“Fine,” said Henry. “I’ll give you my ring finger for that information. But I need actionable intelligence. You can't just tell me that she can be killed and then force me to ask how.”

A growl emanated from the demon’s chest. “Do not presume to give me orders.”

Henry bit his lip, then he bowed his head. “You’re right, I apologize. You can have my pinky now, and I think that will be the end of our conversation—”

Phobetor moved, so suddenly it hardly looked like he moved at all. One moment he was there, and another moment he was much, much closer, right up against Henry’s wards, with eddies of fog whirling around him, as if he’d moved very fast. He raised a clawed finger to the ward. A yellow spark fired off at the point of contact. He dragged his claw along the ward as if it were a pane of glass between them, tracing a curlicue of sparks like a child writing his name with a sparkler. “You need an infusion of concentrated earth magic,” he began. “Directly to your cursed hand.” Henry let go a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. “It will anchor you to the material plane and balance your spirit. You must use an array of sigils. The formula is complex. Take care to memorize it, as I will not repeat myself.”

Henry stood and stared as Phobetor drew a sigil directly on the ward. It was backwards, but his aunt’s training kicked in. There were more instructions besides the sigil, which Phobetor expounded on as he drew. Henry realized he was a tutelary spirit, more than a mere bargainer demon. In a way this was a relief. He knew the information would be good, and that Phobetor would not try to trick him. But he didn’t let his guard down.

“Thank you,” said Henry. “This has been quite enlightening.”

“Nothing more?” asked Phobetor, golden eyes narrowing to hard points in the hollow of his mask. “I can tell you where you may find a source of earthen magic to suit your purposes, and how to harvest it.”

“I have a lead,” said Henry. He bowed his head. “Once more, I thank you.”

“Is there nothing else you want to know?” asked Phobetor, pressing his palm against the ward. The sigils he’d drawn began to break apart as more and more sparks shot across the surface like cracks. “I can tell you about the woman you call your aunt. I can tell you the name of your father, and your mother’s last words.”

Each sentence filled Henry with a mixture of dread and desperate curiosity. But he refused to be tempted. He bowed his head once more, and said, “I’ll be going now.”

And before Phobetor could respond, he woke himself up.

Henry jerked to his feet in the middle of Ruby’s flat. It had mostly finished transforming while he was gone, perhaps because he’d stopped paying attention to it. He looked down at his cursed hand, half expecting his fingers to already be gone. No, it was whole, as whole as it was this morning, at least. He looked at the wards on the floor. Was it safe to cross? He took a tentative step—

The wards burst apart as Phobetor appeared, grabbing him by the wrist and lifting him into the air. “I forgive you this once,” said Phobetor, “Because your intention was only to flee, and not to cheat me. But you know now that I can and will find you wherever you go in the Dreamlands. So hold onto your courage from now on, and do not let ignorance compel you to run ever again.”

Henry screamed as Phobetor forced his pinky and ring fingers to spread flat. It seemed the hand was not quite dead yet after all; it certainly wasn’t numb. No sooner was it done than the demon’s teeth clamped down on the first knuckle of his pinky, slicing through the joint as neatly as kitchen shears. Henry couldn’t bear to look, but he could feel his blood, his good red blood from deep within his body, rushing out of the wound.

A second bite. Another scream. The awful sound of metal on bone as Phobetor chewed and swallowed.

Then it was over. Phobetor dropped him on the ground.

Trembling, curled on the floor, Henry clutched his hand to his chest, trying to stop the bleeding with his coat. “Was that the third time?” The question came unbidden to his lips.

“Is the knowledge worth your middle finger?” asked Phobetor.

“No,” said Henry.

“Alas.” Phobetor put his fingers together in front of him in a triangle. “Then here endeth the lesson.” The triangle flashed gold, and with that he dissolved into a cloud of yellow vapor, and was gone.

Henry struggled to his feet. He had to fight not to go into shock or lose consciousness, and he could feel it threatening him more and more as the seconds ticked by. Ruby had a first aid kit, and he used it to tape a wad of gauze to his stumps, then spent the next fifteen minutes desperately cooking a potion to close the wound in her teakettle. He had to work with a mix of both real and dream ingredients. The results of such could be chaotic, if not disastrous, but it was all he had. He wasn’t too frightened; he’d grown quite adept at making the potion, as his time in Rhone went on and the injury got worse. But he was shaken, on the verge of collapse, and his fear might make it go sour.

When the potion was done he poured it into a pot with a chunk of ice. The potion was bright pink, and quickly thickened into syrup. Henry ripped the gauze off and plunged his hand into it. It was still hot, so it stung, but the pain was quickly relieved.

Magical healing was hard to do, and generally it could only accelerate the natural processes of the body. There were exceptions; some people had the gift to take injuries away from others and into their own body, and some rituals transferred life from a sacrifice into the intended target, and once a generation there was a miracle worker that could provide true healing at negligible cost; sometimes the latter left behind relics with a trace of their power. This potion was nothing so lofty, but it seemed to work faster in the Dreamlands than it would on Earth. When Henry drew his hand out, the stumps had sealed up, though he could still see silver nubs in the center. He felt a little bad about Girasol’s ruined bandage work, but such was life. He waited a moment for his pulse to even out, and then he got to work rebandaging his hand. Soon he would be moving on.

Henry put his clothes in the washer, then washed himself with a sponge and changed his clothes. His blue coat was all splattered with silver liquid and blood; this he cleaned with a spell (it was not machine washable).

His glasses had bent in some fall or other, but the frames were metal, so fixing them was trivial. A crack had formed down the lens; they were rock crystal, so he fixed that easily too. He felt like he was stalling, but on the other hand, he was going into occupied territory.

Henry got his things together. With his clothes in the wash, it was just his backpack, his journal, and his copy of Desert Reign . To it, he added the bundle containing the broken pieces of the disruptor. He wondered if this apartment belonged to anyone when Ruby wasn’t here, if it would even still exist when he left. Henry had the idea to preserve this room in his mindscape, meditating until every detail was burned into his mind. Even if it disappeared from this projection of Rhone, he would carry it in his heart.

The washer finished washing. He took the clothes out and put them in the dryer. He was definitely stalling, he thought. Oh well. He tore the last page out of the journal and scrawled a note for Fenetre and Girasol.

> I’ve spoken with a Dream Lord, Phobetor. I gave him some dreamsilver in exchange for true answers. I’m going to Desert Reign, a fantasy novel projection . Fenetre, Have you read it? In French they call it La fille de l’eau. Of course, you’re not actually French so I doubt that matters to you. There’s a djinn there tormenting the locals. I need a piece of his body to finally take care of Leila. Then the nightmare will be over and I’ll finally be able to sleep.

>

> Girasol, I’m sorry for leaving, I know you said you would help but I don’t want to involve anyone else like Ruby . I can do this because it’s my fault my duty. I’m already dead in a way

>

> Sincerely,

>

> Henry Sinclair of the Achlydes

Henry didn’t want to waste paper so he just crossed out his mistakes. There were plenty of them; for all his practice his handwriting was still dreadful. In fact he rewrote it several times before he was satisfied with the neatness of it. As he tore the page from the book, the emotion threatened to overwhelm him. But he refused to let himself cry again.

He sat there waiting until the dryer shut off. Henry sighed. With how time worked in the Dreamlands there was very little waiting. It just jumped ahead to when the next thing happened. It was like he was a character in a book, and his own dream marble was pushing him through scenes. He took his clothes out of the dryer and folded them as best he could with one working hand, then stuffed them into the backpack, pulled out Desert Reign and began to read.