Talia stands in a sweeping field of golden grass, as endless as the ocean. Overhead, clouds sweep across a pink-and-purple tinged sky but the light is … wrong. Cooler than the sunrises she is used, the ones that catch the skyscrapers of the city on fire. She tilts her head back and blinks in shock at the sight of a blue sun peeking out from behind the clouds.

But…hasn’t the sun always been blue?

Wind sweeps across the field, making the grass ripple, and on its sigh she hears a voice she doesn’t recognize, breathing her name in a long exhale. “Taliaaaaa.”

It feels like something else is moving through the grass, creeping closer and closer. “Taliaaaaa. Taliaaaaaaaa.”

Talia spins in a frantic circle, trying to catch a glimpse of what could be here with her. The blue sun burns and the clouds deepen and she…

Wakes, chest heaving as she jolts upright in her bed.

She glances frantically around her room as her eyes adjust and everything seems normal but she feels...wrong. Like suddenly she doesn’t belong in this place that’s she called “home” for nearly a year.

Outside her window, wind rattles the leaves of the trees. It sounds like they’re whispering her name.

“Dreams are just dreams,” Polo tells her when she stops by on the way to the bus, in the middle of one of her carvings. Her knife glints, catching the sunlight. “You can’t put too much stock in them or you’ll end up chasing phantoms.”

“But it felt so real,” Talia insists.

“But thankfully it wasn’t,” Polo says with an amused smile that’s more infuriating than comforting. “The best thing you can do is let it go. And don’t forget our first lesson this afternoon.”

“I’ll be there,” Talia promises and trudges in the direction of the bus stop, taking a longer, more meandering route to avoid the King or any of his court, who still look for her occasionally, wanting revenge.

“Dreams always mean something,” Clara says at lunch, after Talia has relayed as many details to her as she can remember. “Warning or prophecy or something else hidden that you need to discover.” Her voice is full of conviction.

“Like what?” Talia asks, poking at what she thinks might have been chicken once upon a time but is now a formless lump of meat on her tray. “What could something like that mean?”

Clara frowns in thought. She’s started to sweep her bangs out her eyes with a series of colorful headbands and the sight of them always makes Talia proud. “Well, in the book I’m reading right now, the main character keeps dreaming of another world that she’s never encountered before, different from her own. And she keeps meeting a boy in that world, over and over again. I think she’s meant to find the boy in her own world and fall in love with him.”

That...doesn’t help at all.

“A boy?” Talia wrinkles her nose in disgust. “Why waste dreams about that?”

Clara huffs. “It’s very romantic.”

“But why dream of another world?” Talia asks.

“I don’t know,” Clara replies with a shrug. “I haven’t finished the book yet. But...maybe your dreams are about a secret. Or something you’ve forgotten. Or they’re warning you of something bad that’s going to happen in the future.”

Talia suppresses a cold shiver, trying to ignore the drip of it down her spine. She doesn’t know how to explain what she feels right after she wakes up. Like the creeping, terrible things that rise from the earth and crawl through the grass live beneath her skin. Like there is something that sleeps inside of her, deeper than the dragon. Something ancient. Something alive.

It sounds crazy. It probably is. This is the real world, not one of Clara’s books about monsters and dragons and heroic knights saving kingdoms with swords and magic. Polo’s right, she should just move on.

Still, Clara is looking at her with expectant eyes so she nods. “I will—”

Suddenly, a hand darts between them and snags Talia’s tray, tipping it onto her lap. She yelps as her bowl of noodles splashes all over her uniform and the might-be-meat hits her chest with a smear of sauce.

“Whoops,” a voice giggles and Talia whips her gaze to the group of girls standing next to their table, whispering amongst themselves. They’re not the same ones that pulled Clara’s hair two weeks ago, but Talia knows that story spread through the school like a wildfire, igniting all the other popular bullies that the original girls knew. She has a target on her back now, larger than it’s ever been before.

“H-hey,” Clara tries, but Talia lifts a hand to stop her.

The girls watch in open amusement, waiting for her reaction. Talia stands, willing the dragon to be quiet. Polo won’t train her if she keeps getting into fights.

“Let’s go, Clara,” she says, turning her attention from the girls. “It’s a nice day, we can sit outside.”

Clara scrambles to collect her things and the girls whisper some more. Probably about how stupid Talia looks with stains all over her clothes. How she’s ugly, anyway. Just a wild, feral thing.

“You should watch your back, orphan,” the leader calls as Talia hurries from the cafeteria.

Talia grits her teeth and pretends not to hear. Clara squeezes her hand.

“What happened to you?” Polo asks that afternoon, eyeing the now-dried sauce remnants on Talia’s shirt.

Talia got written up by a teacher for improper attire but at least there were no more suspensions.

“Nothing important,” she tells Polo.

“Hmm.” Polo looks disbelieving, but she doesn’t push. Just ushers Talia back out the gate and onto the sidewalk. “Come on, we’re going to a park. We need some space.”

Right. To fight. Immediately thoughts of school and the bullies vanish, pushed away by a surge of excitement.

Talia follows Polo down the street, darting to keep up with her long strides. They travel for several blocks, passing row houses and tall apartment complexes mixed with the city’s usual tangle of shops and offices. The air gets cooler as they near the river ,and Polo turns onto a small street that dead ends on a large green space, protected by carefully arranged trees and manicured hedges.

She leads the way through the old wrought iron gates, and Talia takes in a grassy, open expanse and the gray water beyond it—the opposite bank lined with more skyscrapers. A woman walks a little poodle that has nearly the same hairstyle as her and a group of elderly women stretch together on one side of the field, but the park is mostly quiet.

Polo finally stops in an empty corner, right up against the trees.

“Okay,” she says, turning piercing eyes to Talia. “Let’s begin.”