"I just imagined and a neon sign turned into a puddle of strawberry milkshake."
"You never know when that 'imagining' gift of yours could be the thing that saves the entire world," Lyse said, putting her hand on Niamh's arm and gently guiding them both out into the night.
Niamh snorted-but she didn't argue.
• • •
They'd been walking in the desert for what felt like forever.
After they'd left the diner, they'd headed out onto the highway, following the road signs that pointed them toward Los Angeles. It was an empty stretch of road. No cars, no bikes, no buses, no airplanes . . . no other travelers. The dreamlands must be such a vast place that you could walk forever and never run into another person.
It was also an incredibly changeable landscape. You blinked and things were different-which was how they'd found themselves not on a highway at night anymore, but on a flat plain of bloodred desert in the middle of the afternoon, their shoes sinking into the sand. Lyse missed the firm asphalt of the road under her feet, and she hated missing something as important as watching night being instantly swapped for day.
We could spend forever wandering the dreamlands, Lyse thought, and never reach a real destination.
She knew they needed to get back to the real world-and soon. Things were already a mess in their reality, and the four of them being gone so long was a bad idea. The only problem was that since she had no experience with venturing in and out of the dreamlands, she wasn't really sure where they'd end up if she did manage to get them out. Would they be right back where they started-with the white pickup truck barreling toward them? Did where you were in the dreamlands correspond with where you were in reality, or was it all arbitrary?
Lyse didn't want to do something that might endanger them all.
Her uncertainty made her unwilling to act. She recognized that logic was unhelpful because it didn't really work that way in the dreamlands . . . a place where Niamh could turn cars into skulls and neon signs into milkshakes. And the only time she'd ever seen someone moving in and out of the dreamlands was watching Lizbeth do it in Elysian Park. Her physical form had remained behind while her spirit traveled here-but their situation was totally different. Lyse and the others hadn't left their bodies behind. They'd been awake when they'd entered the dreamlands.
I wonder if this was what Weir experienced when he died? This untethering from the world? Lyse thought-and then his face appeared in her mind, the charming smile and mercurial eyes. She wished with all her heart that he were with them here in the dreamlands. He'd help her make the right decisions, make sure they all got back to the real world in one piece.
"What's wrong? Why are you crying?" Arrabelle asked, her voice soft.
They were walking side by side, and Lyse hadn't even realized there were tears on her face until she reached up and felt the wetness on her cheeks.
Evan and Niamh were ahead of them, lost in their own conversation.
"Weir," she said, her voice cracking-and she knew she could no longer keep the poisonous knowledge to herself. It was eating her alive, dogging her every step and making it hard for her to think straight. She needed all of her faculties about her if they were going to get back home, and maybe telling someone else about Weir's death would help.
"Lyse?" Arrabelle asked, deep concern in her voice.
She encircled both of Lyse's wrists with her hands, stopping them both where they stood.
"What is going on?"
Lyse just shook her head, unable to speak.
"Did something happen? Did you get in a fight?"
Lyse continued to shake her head, fighting back the tears she knew were coming. Her throat burned from the effort, a lump lodged there so hard it was like a stone.
"Lyse, please," Arrabelle said, and pulled Lyse into her chest, hugging her tight. "Tell me what's going on?"
Lyse pressed her face against Arrabelle's collarbone, her bangs in her eyes. I'm not going to cry. I'm not going to cry. I'm not going to cry . . . But that was exactly what she was doing, the tears coursing down her face. Arrabelle's long fingers stroked Lyse's hair as she made calming noises low in her throat.
"Hush, hush . . . it's okay, baby . . ."
Lyse could hear Evan asking what was wrong-and Arrabelle shooing him and Niamh away, giving her and Lyse some privacy. She remembered that Arrabelle had taken care of her once before, when Eleanora had died. She'd collected Lyse from the police station and made sure she'd gotten home in one piece. Something Lyse had not had the presence of mind to do for herself.