In the first step you talked to them. Convinced them that it wasn’t right to leave their family and friends behind in their Day (and you explained to them the difference between both Night and Day worlds. He liked to make clear that both were entirely real, making said Dreamer very confused as to which they should pay homage to; but I make it abundantly clear. You wouldn’t want your wife/daughter/significant other leaving you for a world you couldn’t be a part of, would you?).

Next, you searched for their nightbeast (see the subcategory: Guardian of the Dreamers Nightworld in my paper titled, “The Demise: Giving up an Imperfect World for a Perfect One”). I should make it clear that I did not coin the name myself. It was created by my friend, Bira. But, I’m overstating myself. I’m just trying to take my mind off of my poor, poor, mistake.

Whenever one enters a Dreamers Night, one often enters a world of some sort. I had become accustomed to a slum in the heart of a bustling city (the trade hub of Mare, I assumed). But now, what I stood was desolate.

The sky was the color of storms. The grass was a somber hue, the color above dousing out the green. A flock of birds spread across the sky and simply froze there, like they had been hung there by a god too tired to breathe life into them.

And peppering the landscape were curved rocks that stretched toward the stormy sky. One such rock stared me down, a vibrant world of electricity booming in its colorful gaze.

I was not in Aeries Night. I did not know where I was.

But I could feel Him. Whenever something went awry with our experiments, it always had something to do with Him.

I looked around, not taking in the perilous landscape, but searching for those small ticks in the atmosphere that told me he was close; thick air, lightning in the sky, a shadow pulsing along the grass.

The skin on the back of my neck prickled as my gaze became glued to the scene within the rock.

“I know you’re here,” I called, not daring to look behind me. Because, if it wasn’t him then it would be our test subjects nightbeast; creatures that were always hostile to whatever threatened the thing it guarded: the occupants Dream. The thing that kept them from interacting with the world.

We called it the Demise. Outright slang, but it made the most sense. It pulled Dreamers down into false worlds and refused to let them up again. They slept their lives away, their families praying for their eyes to open until their last breath.

It was my job to cure this and I had steps. A plan.

And He was fucking it all up.

I took a step closer to the scene inside the rock. I let a fingertip slip through and instantly snatched it back. My fingertip came away blackened, the black clashing with my brown skin. I sucked it and looked around.

I know I must have looked stupid.

“Aerie!” I called out to the Dreamer, “Aerie, are you here?”

He was not.

My breath hitched in my throat.

But his nightbeast was definitely here.

It loomed on the horizon, a thing made completely of bones. Its head reaching up, passing the clouds. Its body turned toward me and I did my best not to run.

Step two, done. But step three couldn’t commence without the Dreamer in tow. It was my theory that a nightbeast couldn’t fall to an invader, a theory pieced together thanks to the books of dead men within the Circles library. I was not about to test my hypothesis, not with this hulking monstrosity on the horizon leering at me.

“You’re wrong.”

I jumped back from the portal. The heels of my hands bit into the sandy earth.

“You’re wrong to wake him up. To take him away.”

“And I thought you were hiding,” I snapped back, but my voice was hoarse. Terse. He towered above me, his horns sharp in the steely gray of the storm above. The bones of birds sang a death knell as wind picked them up and put them back down again.

He closed the distance between us in a snap. When he hovered over me, the landscape vanished into a pool of starry darkness. His black eyes glowed a harsh crimson.

“If he wanted to be in your world,” the divine hissed, “then he wouldn’t have went to sleep.”

A thunderous clap tore me away. For a moment, I was floating in a world washed in white. The next, I was staring into Aeries sleeping face, hands on his uniform. The prisoners gray dark with sweat that spread from his chest down to his thighs.

I stumbled backward, the world a noiseless void as Axelle glided from her perch far away, at the back of the room and flittered past me. Her ruby lips moved, but no sound registered. She began packing my utensils away, tossing the black stones into a black bag at the bottom of the trundle bed.

I shook my head as my back came into contact with a wall.

He had never done that before. Thrown me out of a Dream. I’ve been underestimating him.

“North,” Axelle said from the trundle bed, “if you don’t do something about Espens assistant, the justicar will.”

That brought me back. Biras cold voice could be heard from the waiting room that separated this room from the wide open hallway beyond. The high rafters above carried his voice up and across the room, practically flinging it at me. I nodded my thanks and rushed across the wide room to save him from himself, though my mind wasn’t really there. Fear had a good grip of my heart as I touched Biras armored shoulder and met his cat-like eyes. They widened slightly, asking me if I was alright. I gave him a shaky smile that said, “Not at all,” still, he moved aside. Huffing at the scarf that covered the lower part of his face as he did so.

A wide eyed sanguinarian girl, pale skin, long black hair with widows peak bangs, bowed stiffly to me and handed me a card. An invitation. Then, trounced off without a word into the open-air hallway. She disappeared behind the massive blades of ferns peeking through the corridors.

I brought my fingertips to my temples as I read it.

“Another dinner?” Axelle asked, her voice sharp and scathing as she wiggled past me with the black bag in tow, “How fantastic for you,” she said dryly. “Oh—! I mean,” halfway up the hallway, she smirked at me over her shoulder, “How dreadful.”