It had been a weird few days. Well, it had been a weird fourteen years. But only counting the—what? Five, six days?—that Benno had spent outside of D’doak’s shed since being taken from his trailer, a lot of weird shit had happened. A lot of really weird shit.

And he wasn’t going to say that this was the weirdest—that would be untrue—but it was definitely up there.

He was in three places. Or at least that’s what it felt like. From the waist down he was on the Shenandoah. He determined this because he felt his shoes skidding on the smooth marble—though he couldn’t see it. He couldn’t see it because from his vantage, there was a belt of interminable darkness around the middle of his body. The Lacuna, he figured, the fabric between Realms, sucking him backwards, bearing down on him with as much force as he’d ever felt in his life.

His upper half, on the other hand, was still in Kerr’s mudroom.

He clutched the tennis racket. The tennis racket refused to budge. The sheer fixity of the thing proved to Benno that this desperate last-ditch shot in the dark had been correct. Mara had been trying to tell him the whole time, but he was too dense to figure it out. Until now.

But he hadn’t accounted for what this would mean if Gemma attempted to recalibrate him. Three competing potencies now battled for dominance: the potency of the Gemstoke, the potency of Benno, and the potency of Kerr. Well, not Kerr. The potency of Sul itself, which had destined Kerr to remain stuck in his Realm.

If Benno had to guess, he’d say Gemma failed first, and Sul failed last.

Benno’s knuckles whined and his jaw clenched as the strings of the racket’s face rippled and bulged. A shape emerged in it. Bleary eyes. A long, horsey face. A mouth, twisted in pain, with too many rows of teeth. It surfaced from the strings, showing forth until the racket was no longer a racket but flesh, the handle a neck with a beige-suit-clad body extending beneath, and the rim a pair of ears, which Benno clutched in each hand.

Kerr’s face, gaping in rage and stupefaction.

Benno’s sneakers skidded on the marble floor of the Shenandoah, looking for traction. He dug his fingers into the bone behind Kerr’s ears, feeling it bend and give until it caved and hot blood geysered forth like water from a busted hydrant.

Kerr’s eyes clenched shut and his mouth widened, exposing more teeth down the tunnel of his throat that bristled like baleen, jangling softly like damp wind chimes. His hands—vascular and pale—juddered frantically at Benno’s wrists before tensing into knurled claws as Benno dug deeper, his own teeth gritted, his arms shaking, a roar bubbling up from him as the force of the Lacuna bared down until, with a final burst of strength, Benno crushed Kerr’s head into a pulpy thuck of skin and hair and ribbons of blood, his hands closing on something inside, something that would give no further. And as he rushed backwards, suddenly untethered from the mudroom, he looked into the mirror—identical to the one inside August—cradled in his palms, Kerr’s blood blasted from it as if by a gust of wind, and saw himself in it, and his hands opened, paralyzed by some nonnegotiable force, and the mirror went dark as he shot like light itself and sprawled onto the floor of the Shenandoah.

It had been a weird few days.

He sat up slowly. The bridge was empty and cast in dark purple light. He stood and wiped his hands on the front of his shirt, leaving dark red streaks. Ice and mud melted from his sneakers in a puddle on the marble floor.

“Gemma, where’s Onus?”

…ROOM 000003.

“Is he okay?”

…HE IS IN STABLE CONDITION.

Benno wiped his face. Two down. Four to go. Then Sul. His fingers traced the pyramid jutting from his forehead.

—dlorsulpadigumdlorsulligdlorsularutdlorsultheor—

Benno frowned. The silent words seemed louder. Not louder, faster.

—dlorsulpanopdlorsulvestitdlorsuletchifod—

Angrier.

His fingers felt along the seam where the pyramid protruded from the bone of his skull. They felt along the side, then the top—then hit something.

—dlorsuletodlorsulumbilicot—

Another seam. Another edge. Another point.

—dlorsulbrecha—

Another pyramid.

Directly behind the first, emerging from Benno’s hair. The same taut skin. The same unyielding hardness beneath. The same size and shape.

Some unforeseen symptom of killing a Warden.

Benno’s fingers pattered from one pyramid to the other. Despite the silent, seething words, despite the ugly protrusions—despite everything else—the appearance of a second pyramid brought with it into Benno’s pulse a giddy anticipation.

He was pleased.

This was working.

#

Onus sat in Edda’s bed, propped up on a pile of pillows, blankets folded over his legs. He was pale, and his cheeks were flushed, but he looked better than he had. He sipped from a bowl of steaming soup, which he set on the bedside table as Benno entered.

Holes scurried from Onus’ lap and leapt onto Benno’s chest.

“How’d it go?” Onus asked, his voice thin.

Benno looked down at the couch-sized cat, sleeping on the floor. The glass triangle on her collar was concealed beneath the bulk of her body.

“It’s done,” Benno said, then added: “He was a tennis racket.”

Onus nodded, eyeing the new pyramid on Benno’s head. “I can see.” He tried to sit up, then belched and leaned back. “The Chieftain oversees the Twins’ armies,” he said. “She is rooted to war, like Kerr to his Realm, and August to the Bathhouse. Before I was imprisoned, she battled on the front lines in a Realm called Albeddon. But that was a long time ago. The fighting might have shifted elsewhere. I’m sure Gemma will know. Give me a few hours to regain my strength, and I will be ready.”

Benno nodded. “I’m going back first.”

“Back where?”

“To Kerr’s Realm. I want to make sure they’re okay.”

“Who?”

“Mara and Zev.”

Onus’ orange eyes held Benno’s for a long moment. Then he looked away. “You could have just killed them,” he said, staring off into a corner of the bedroom. “You could have killed them and then simply gone through the house destroying everything in sight until you inevitably managed to get your hands on Kerr. But you didn’t. You chose to engage with him. You chose to play out his scenes.” He looked at Benno. “Why?”

—dlorsulgestdlorsuleffeldlorsulmefylin—

Benno shrugged. “It worked.”

“No.” Onus shook his head. “You had no compunction in killing August’s chattel. You have blood on your hands—enough that a little more would not be noticeable. So explain to me what is different now.”

Electorate sighed in her sleep.

Benno ran his fingers through the hair on the back of his head—where he could nearly feel the soft breath, the nuzzle of a small nose—his pinky brushing the pyramid. “August’s chattel were too far gone,” he said. “Killing them was a mercy.”

“There’s something else,” said Onus, looking deeply at Benno.

Benno held his breath for a moment. “Sul has my son,” he said, and in saying it, any lingering doubt dissolved.

Sul has my son.

Onus’ eyes narrowed, and he tilted his head. “What?”

Benno stroked Holes’ petals. “I don’t know how, but…” He went to Electorate and knelt beside her. She looked up from heavy eyes. “These cats,” Benno said, taking the glass triangle between his thumb and index finger and angling it toward Onus. “They enter people’s dreams, right?”

Onus nodded, then leaned forward, peering, his brow furrowed. “Is that…” His eyes scanned the space behind Benno’s head. “Is that your hair?” Benno stood up. “When my son was a little boy, we used to play this game. He called it climbing the daddy tree. It was silly, simple. He would climb up my back and hang on around my neck. He loved it. He would nestle his face into the back of my hair and he would laugh and laugh.” Benno wiped his eyes. “That’s what this cat is seeing right now. She’s seeing through my son’s eyes.”

Onus chewed this over, his mouth a narrow line. “These cats,” he said, leaning back and massaging his belly. “Edda bought them from Ann-Copse Fenix, the widow of Lessit Fenix, a wealthy baron in the Realm of Ayora. The widow bred them, as far as I understand, as a hobby, later in her life. When we were young, Edda and I visited the Fenix estate with our father, and Edda took a fascination to them then and there. Dream prowlers, Ann-Copse called them. Able to enter people’s dreams. Or half-enter. I never really understood…” He sat forward again. “You think this cat is watching your son dream?”

Benno stroked his beard. “I think she’s watching Sul dream.”

“I don’t understand.”

Benno nodded slowly. “That’s me in that collar.” Benno touched the back of his head, and in the collar, his hand appeared. “Someone is dreaming about me. But they’re dreaming about me as I am here. Right now. That is not a normal dream. Do you know any anyone other than Sul who could dream across Realms, and into reality?”

Onus shook his head. “But what does Sul have to do with your son?”

Benno stared at the triangle on the cat’s collar for a long moment, half-concealed by the pillows, then shook his head and shrugged.

“So this explains your sudden determination to slay all of Sul’s Wardens.” Onus said. “I thought you were just being a team player.”

“Whatever method Edda used to locate—or try to locate—the Gray Wastes is gone with her. This is the next best option. At the very least I’ll get Sul’s attention.”

Onus gestured to the cat. “You may already have it.”

“More attention.”

“Forgive me for saying this…” Onus’ voice softened. “But your son is dead. You watched him die.”

“He died in my arms.” Benno looked at the cat, whose collar was once again hidden beneath her huge, sleeping body.

“Your thinking…” Onus trailed off, his stomach grumbling. “I just don’t follow.”

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

Benno stood. “Rest.” He turned and started for the bedroom door. “We’ll leave for Albeddon when I return.”

“As I said…” Onus adjusted a pillow behind his back. “The front in Albeddon might have shifted. We’ll need to look into where—”

“It’s Albeddon.” Benno paused at the door. “Langley mentioned it when I was in Luridia. She said the Twins were there, too.”

Onus nodded slowly. “Almost a thousand years of war…” He scoffed. “It must be a barren hellscape by now.”

Benno shrugged. “As long as there’s no cake.”

#

The snowy woods dripped in the sunlight.

Benno’s sneakers scrrrched in the snow as he made his way toward the cabin. There were footprints—dozens of them—jagging in all directions from the cabin and into the trees: shoes and bare feet; human and animal; hoof and paw. Benno looked up at the cabin’s low roof. There was no smoke rising from the gnarled chimney. The woods smelled like nothing. The only sound was the dripping of melting snow and the occasional scutter of a squirrel.

Inside, the cabin was nothing like it had been. A single, small, sooty room. An odor of wet wood and damp soil. Nothing but the rotting floorboards and the concrete beneath. No sign that anyone had been there in years or decades.

Benno backed out of the cabin and let the door swing shut. He eyed the triangle scrawled on it. Triangles… Pyramids… Patterns in chaos. Apophenia. Or maybe not. Or maybe everything meant something. Or maybe there was no difference.

He walked around the cabin, eyeing the footprints. It was impossible to discern which were fresh—if any. He considered the possibility that Mara and Zev had died when Kerr did, that their lives were somehow contingent on his. It was also possible—though Benno doubted it—that they hadn’t been real at all, that they were a manifestation of Kerr’s demented sense of art. A third possibility was that they’d escaped, made it somewhere safe once Kerr’s spell over them had broken. He could ask Gemma. There was a fifty percent chance she’d have an answer…

Then Benno heard a sound, and stopped in his tracks. He looked up through the trees. A voice, distant, calling out.

“Zev! Zev!"

Mara’s voice, somewhere deep in the woods.

Benno jogged toward it.

#

Mara staggered, barefoot, through the snowy woods. She held a sooty blanket wrapped tight around her, which trailed on the ground. Her breath billowed as she panted, her panicked eyes scanning the trees.

“Zev!” She shouted, her voice hoarse. “Zev!”

Benno slowed to a stop forty feet away, afraid to startle her.

“Zev!” She turned in a circle. “Zev!” Her eyes found Benno, and she froze.

Benno raised his palms. “It’s okay,” he said. “I’m here to help you.”

Mara hugged the blanket tight around her. She looked at Benno through the trees with distrust and a stern, guarded fear. Any of the playfulness induced by Kerr was gone, and though her eyes were still red from prolonged crying, they were now dry.

“You’re real,” she said, not a question.

Benno nodded. “The person who did this to you, he’s dead.”

Mara’s gaze faltered as she thought this over. “I know,” she said. “I mean, I don’t know, but… What is the date?”

Benno brought Gemma to his lips. “Gemma, what is the date in this Realm?”

…FRIDAY, FEBRUARY EIGHTEENTH, TWO-THOUSAND TWENTY FIVE. THE TIME IS THREE FORTY THREE PM.

Mara’s nostrils flared. “Twenty-five… Two-thousand twenty-five?” Her lips trembled a silent word. “We were in there for two years…”

Benno took a few steps toward her. “It’s over now,” he said. He nodded toward her bare feet, a dark shade of red. “Let me get you some boots.”

“Two years…” Mara stared off through the trees.

“Gemma, some snow boots for Mara. And a coat.” Benno caught them as they fell and offered them forward.

Mara stayed where she was. “Two years…” A clump of snow fell from a bough nearby, drawing her attention. She shivered and turned in a circle. “I need to find my fiancé,” she said. “He’s out here somewhere.”

“I’ll help.” Benno tossed the coat toward her, followed by the boots, which all landed at her feet. “We’ll find him.”

#

They found him kneeling at the base of a boulder, still in his shorts, his skin light blue. Icicles had formed along his brow, and his eyes were rolled back almost to the point that his irises were no longer visible.

Holes crept out of Benno collar and peered down. “He looks like Jack,” he said.

Benno nodded.

Mara walked slowly toward Zev. The coat and boots Gemma had fashioned for her were too big—a symptom, Benno figured, of not being synchronized to the subject—and she stumbled a little before falling to her knees in front of her fiancé’s frozen corpse. She touched his cheek gently with her fingertips, then withdrew and clutched her hand as if she’d been burned.

Benno watched her, standing back.

Mara took slow, steady breaths. “It was our first vacation since we got engaged,” she said. “He wanted to go to the beach. Somewhere warm. I thought it would be fun to get out into nature. We found this place listed online. It was a great deal. Good reviews. The woods looked beautiful in the pictures. It reminded me of a cabin my grandfather used to have, that we would go to in the winters. He used to take me hunting…” She pushed her oily hair back from her face, and again touched Zev’s stiff skin. This time she did not withdraw. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “We should have gone to the beach. We should have had our whole lives…” She lowered her head and for a long time—a minute or more—she was silent. Then she looked back over her shoulder at Benno. “Is it really over?” she asked.

“Yes,” Benno said, then thought for a moment. “How much do you remember? About the two years you were here?”

Mara stood, dusting snow and ice from her knees, and looked at him gravely. “All of it.”

Benno nodded. “His name was Kerr. He was a—”

“I know,” Mara interrupted. “I know all about him… It’s like his thoughts were in my head. All his twisted fucking thoughts. Every little demented idea that crossed his mind came into mine. And the whole time he was making me—me and Zev—parade around in there, doing…” She looked down for a moment, then raised her head and cleared her throat. “I know everything. I know about Kerr. I know about Sul. I know about the War and the other Wardens. I know about you.”

Benno smoothed his beard.

“I know that you killed another Warden,” Mara went on. “Someone named August. Kerr didn’t think this was possible. He was scared of you. But he was also… I think he was tired of being stuck here. Nearly a thousand years in this place. I think he was almost grateful that you were coming. Scared, but grateful.”

“Do you know—did he know—why I am the way I am. Why Sul did this to me?”

Mara thought for a moment. “No. When you killed the other Warden, that was the first Kerr learned about you.”

Benno nodded, disappointed, then smoothed his beard. “And Sul… Do you know what it is? Do you know what it looks like?”

Mara shook her head. “I think Kerr had forgotten. He was like us—just normal like us—before. And something was happening to him. Something is happening to all the Wardens, but to him even faster.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know exactly… It’s like they’re falling apart. It’s like they’re dying.”

Benno blinked out at the snow and ice, and for while neither he nor Mara spoke.

“I’m so sorry,” he said eventually. “You were trying to tell me where he was. The whole time. I didn’t understand.”

Mara nodded and looked down for a moment. “But then you did,” she said.

A stretch of silence unfurled.

“I can help you get to a hospital,” Benno said. “Or a police station. Whatever you need.”

Mara crossed her arms, her fingers barely visible from the sleeve of the oversized coat. “And tell them what?” she asked. “That a Warden of Sul kept me and my fiancé trapped in a shack in the woods? That he controlled our minds and made us play out his perverse fantasies for two years? That we were rescued by a Permanent and the Lonely Son of the Scattered King?”

Benno shrugged. “You could just tell them you were kidnapped.”

Mara sneered. “I don’t want to live through all that. The questions, the pity. Not after what I’ve been through. Not after what I know.”

“What about your family? I’m sure they miss you.”

“It’s just my brother left. He’s… We’re not close. All I had was Zev.”

“Friends?”

Mara shrugged. “I moved around a lot.”

Benno nodded. “So what do you want to do?” he asked.

Mara looked at Benno with an expression that left no doubt whatsoever that she meant whatever she was about to say. “I want to help you kill Sul.”

#

Benno gave Mara a room across the hallway from his, and a Gemstoke.

“If you have any questions,” he said, standing in the hall. “Ask Gemma.”

Mara said nothing, and closed the door.

Benno wandered a ways down the hallway. He considered returning Holes to its room for a bit before he did what he had to do next. But Holes had seen it all by now. And the truth was Benno liked having the little flower with him.

He brought Gemma to his lips and spoke the simple directive. The dark swallowed him, and the whir rose up, and then he was standing amidst the steam and the white tiles.

From up ahead, a distant roar. It could be anything, but Benno knew it was screaming. A cacophony of horrible screaming.

Pain itself.

He glanced into the small tiled room where he’d found the body with the mutilated crotch. Now empty. He passed through the room where he’d seen the man and woman whipping and scalding their own son. He passed through room after white tiled room. All were empty. All were impeccably clean. The only sound was the screaming, which grew louder.

In the room before the stairwell, he found the people gathered. There were maybe two dozen of them—all nude, all gaunt and terrified—huddling together against the wall. The upstairs people. The ones who, for whatever reason, August had sentenced to suffer in the white rooms above, as opposed to his orgy down below. They looked at Benno as he slowed to a stop at the front of the room, their wide eyes trembling. Their skin appeared dry—nearly cracked—from what Benno assumed was vicious dehydration, despite the humidity.

From the room beyond, the roar—screaming indeed—pitched higher.

“It’s okay,” Benno said, looking from person to person. He recognized the man whose crotch was shredded and bloodied, now intact. He recognized the man and woman—the father and mother—who had tortured their own son, who stood together, hugging one another, their eyes unfocused with fatigue and trauma. There was no sign of their son. Dead, perhaps. Or an illusion conjured by August. It didn’t matter.

“Gemma, bottles of water. Thirty of them.”

Plastic water bottles rained down from thin air. Benno picked up a few and held them out, kicking a few others forward. A collective hesitation stilled the room, and then the people were grasping for the water, tearing off the caps, and drinking desperately. Relieved grunts and whines of satiation filled the tiled room, momentarily drowning out the screaming.

Benno waited until most of them had finished. “I can get you out of here,” he said. “Back to your Realms of origin—if you know what they are. If not, I have a place you can stay until we figure it out. Gemma, blankets.” He tossed the blankets to the huddled people. “Wait here,” he said, starting toward the doorway to the room with the stairwell.

“Wait.” A man, sixties, tall and lanky, stood up. “You can’t help them. We tried to talk to them but they attacked us. They’re… They’re all insane.”

Benno paused in the doorway. “I can help them,” he said, continuing on.

The upstairs people had barricaded the entrance to the stairwell with glass doors and tile benches. Benno read the scrawled writing over the entrance—

PAIN ITSELF

—then set about tearing down the barricade. The stench of shit and blood rushed up to meet him, and the screaming intensified. He squinted down into the dark.

“I want you to know,” he said toward the dark doorway, “that all life is valuable. But that doesn’t mean that all life is salvageable.”

The hair on the back of his head was perfectly still.

“What I’m about to do,” he went on, “brings me no joy. But sometimes there is no easy solution to a problem. Sometimes the best option is still hard. It’s important to know this.” He pulled his father’s Smith & Wesson revolver from the waistband of his pants and fingered the surplus of rounds in his pocket.

“These are things my father never taught me. I promise I will do better.”

He descended the stairs.

#

Onus wasn’t thrilled.

“I closed my eyes for three hours,” he said, standing at the end of a hallway with Benno watching the new residents file into their rooms. “And when I wake up, there are thirty strangers living here.”

“Sixteen,” Benno corrected. “Including Mara.”

Onus huffed and rubbed his face. “Edda would be so displeased.”

Benno looked up at the Lonely Son. “Is that supposed to vex me?”

One by one, the doors to the room’s closed behind their new occupants, until the hallway was quiet.

“Well I suppose it will matter little very soon.” Onus turned and started away, and Benno walked with him. “We should leave for Albeddon in the morning. And whether we fail or succeed there, it’s unlikely either of us return.”

Benno fingered the length of his beard. “Have you noticed,” he asked, “that no one’s come for us?”

Onus took long strides.

Benno kept up. “The Everson Family, the Twins—no one. And they know where we are. I mean they knew seven years ago, so why wouldn’t they now? But here we are, and no one’s showed up.”

“Perhaps they’re waiting for us to come to them,” Onus said, turning down another hallway. “Or perhaps they are afraid of you. Perhaps they have not figured out how to deal with a Warden-killing Permanent. After all, it’s not exactly obvious.”

Onus’ statement—and the sneer in his voice—gave Benno pause. He continued alongside the Lonely Son in silence until they reached Edda’s room—now Onus’, for all intents and purposes—at which point Onus entered, leaving Benno alone.

It’s not exactly obvious.

#

Benno found Mara on the the beach near the graves—now eight of them, including Zev’s—and looking out at the water.

“There are dolphins sometimes,” he said, standing next to her. “Or things that look like dolphins.”

She glanced at him, a strand of her hair caught in the crook of her mouth, and smiled faintly. Then she turned back to the water, and for a long moment the only sound was the breaking of the waves.

“This is where we should have gone in the first place,” she said finally. “Me and Zev. We should have gone to a beach like this. It’s what he wanted.”

“You can’t blame yourself,” Benno said. “What happened is no one’s fault but Kerr’s.”

Mara hugged herself, the sleeves of her oversized coat concealing her hands. “And Sul’s,” she said.

Benno nodded.

Mara hung her head. “Zev was so worried about money,” she said. “He had a bad couple years. Day trading. I told him it would all come back, that’s just how the market worked. But I think he felt defeated. I think he was embarrassed. He wanted to provide for me, even though I made more than him. Stupid old fashioned machismo. I offered to pay for a nicer rental, but he wouldn’t have it. That’s why we ended up at that cheap fucking place…” She looked back up at the water. “He meant well.”

“What did you do?” Benno asked. “For work?”

“Corporate law.” Mara shrugged. “Got hired by a big firm right out of law school. I wanted to do environmental law. Litigation. I’m nasty in front of a judge. But you take what you can get.”

“Sure,” Benno said.

The waves lapped softly.

“I had a dream once,” Mara said, wistfully. “That I was lost at sea. I was on a raft, drifting alone through the waves, without any land in sight. The sun was always overhead, never moving. My skin blistered. I was so thirsty. I knew I was going to die.” She shrugged. “I had that dream when I was still just a child. But I’ve never forgotten it. I’ve never forgotten the feeling of the hot sun, the pain, the rocking of the waves. The smell of the salt. The despair. It’s like it really happened to me. Sometimes, even now, I wonder if that is real, if I’m really out there, and my whole life, everything else, is the dream. Or a thought before death.”

Benno looked from Mara out at the water, dappled with late day sun.

Mara turned to him. “What can I do?” she asked. “To help you kill Sul.”

“That’s not the plan anymore,” Benno said, then glanced at the Inn’s solitary door, which cast a long shadow across the sand. “But you can still help.” He gestured for her to follow him, and together they walked down the beach, away from the Inn.