Later that night, Rose dreamed. But not of herself.

Rose was a man—a terrified man. She was with him, inside him, both herself and him all at once.

She…he…was blindfolded. Hands on her arms both supported and dragged her across a smooth floor, cool under her bare feet. Either blood or sweat ran down her back, soaking into her nightgown…jeans.

Pain, yes, there was pain. Dream or no dream, Rose felt every aching bruise, every scratch, every wrenched joint. She…he…had put up a hell of a fight, but the attackers had been too numerous.

Her head throbbed acutely. Even for a dream, her awareness was too murky. A concussion, probably.

Who were these people? What did they want? Where were they taking her? The man didn’t know, and therefore Rose didn’t know, but neither of them expected anything good.

This wasn’t the first time Rose had dreamed her way into someone, but it had never been this intense, this immediate. The fear, the pain—it overwhelmed Rose’s sense of self, made it hard for her to do anything but get dragged along with the vision.

Her captors let go, and Rose couldn’t find her feet fast enough to keep her balance. Her head and shoulders hit the marble floor with a blinding crack. Fluttery panic held her awake, but she couldn’t think, couldn’t focus. Couldn’t find her…her what? Magic? Yes, magic. This man she was living through—he was a voider.

Someone yanked the hood off her head and more pain sparked through her at the explosion of light. The man’s terror spiked, threatened to drag Rose along with him into gibbering madness.

Enough was enough. Rose dove deep, searching for herself. She found her name, her body, and the anchoring knowledge that she was in a dream.

A dream, yes, but real. This had happened. Or was happening. A shimmering echo of something so horrible it had burned its presence into the city’s bones.

Now she’d pulled herself free from the panicking man, Rose had a clearer sense of her surroundings. Echoing space broken by towering marble columns. Malachite and murals. Gold and stained glass. Above her, a dome rising up into darkness with a ring of gilded angels staring down at her. A church? It had to be. But more grandiose than any church she’d ever set foot in.

The only light came from an impossibility. Rose had ignored it this long, figuring it for the strange sort of symbolic nonsense that so often populated dreams. Except the man she inhabited also focused in on the creature, like he saw it too. Like it had been there when this happened for real.

A being. Glowing. Floating. Hovering in the air above her. Was this really what the man had seen, or was it an emotional echo, warped and twisted by his near-insane fright?

The figure spoke, but the words stretched and echoed in Rose’s mind, unrecognizable. She fought for clarity through the haze of sleep and fear and death. Pain dulled her senses, shredded her concentration, froze her limbs. Just a dream, Rose repeated in her mind as her clarity threatened to dissolve.

Someone pulled her left arm out straight. The shining figure leaned down and drew a flaming sword. An honest-to-god flaming sword. Now, his words were clear. “For your crimes.”

The sword came down and Rose screamed as burning agony shot through what was left of her arm. “Stop!” she yelled, and the dream froze.

Rose stood and pulled herself free of the dying man. The shadow of his pain stayed with her, would stay with her until she woke up. Maybe even after that. She was in deep.

More than ready to wake up, to leave this horror behind, Rose focused her attention on the glowing man. Around her, the church, the goons, the victim faded to darkness. Only the strange figure was left as Rose tried to see through the blinding radiance that surrounded him, tried to pick apart the emotional illusion to find the core of reality.

At that moment, she realized the shining man had turned his head, was watching her.

That’s not right, Rose thought as she stumbled back. Rose had taken charge of this vision. Nothing should be happening if she didn’t want it to.

“Little girl,” the man said. He spoke in Russian, but Rose understood the words. “Who are you, little girl? What are you doing here?”

Rose retained enough control to keep herself from answering, but she couldn’t break the contact. Wake up, dammit!

His hand reached out, floating towards her, but Rose couldn’t move. Time slowed and she had barely drawn a breath when his bony fingers locked around her throat. “Tell me your name! Are you with him? Are you one of them?”

Rose clutched at his wrist, but his grip was stone. Choking, she kicked at the figure, but despite the hand tight around her neck, the rest of him was too far away. “You cannot hide, little one. I see you. Yes…yes…come to me.”

Rose struggled as a gray haze grew at the edge of her vision. She couldn’t breathe. It shouldn’t matter. This was a dream, dammit! She shouldn’t be able to suffocate, but no question that was happening.

With a final, desperate burst of strength, Rose swung at him with a balled fist. Sudden, sharp pain radiated up her arm as her knuckles collided with something solid.

Rose opened her eyes, blinking against sudden, piercing cold. She couldn’t feel her feet. She was freezing. She wore nothing but the nightgown in which she’d gone to sleep, but she wasn’t in her room, wasn’t in her bed. In front of her was a massive door. Her knuckles were scraped and bleeding—the door was what she’d struck. She spun around, trying to get her bearings. Across the wide-open square, she spotted the warm, welcoming lights of the Astoria. Somehow, she’d sleepwalked over to the cathedral next door.