"We're flying. We're flying. WE'RE FLYING!"

  Maggie's fingers dug into Johnny's dorsal fin, knuckles bone-white. The wind tore past her ears as they shot through the grey sky, buildings blurring into streaks below.

  "Want me to do a barrel roll?" Johnny asked cheerfully.

  "No. Absolutely not." Her grip tightened even more. "No tricks. No spins. Just straight flying."

  Mark glanced over from his impossible run through empty air, Locke trotting beside him like gravity was optional. "You're not flying. Johnny is."

  "SEMANTICS!"

  "Important semantics." He looked ahead at the dolphin. "Johnny, where exactly did you find this person? Were they being attacked?"

  Johnny's clicks and whistles came rapid-fire, nearly drowned out by the rushing wind. "Cat territory! Eastern district, near the old plaza. Didn't look like he was being attacked—but there were definitely cats around."

  Mark's jaw tightened.

  "Cat territory?" Maggie called over. "What does that mean?"

  "Cats claimed a section of the Dreamscape. Show up when they sleep, like other mammals." He adjusted his glasses, still running through air. "They're possessive. Don't like visitors who aren't there to worship them."

  "And this kid ended up there?"

  "Apparently." Mark shrugged. "Could be worse places to land. Just don't hold back on the chin scratches if you want to stay on their good side."

  Before Maggie could ask more, Johnny's form flickered. Just for a second—his outline going translucent, the grey sky visible through his body.

  "Johnny?" Maggie's grip tightened. "What was that?"

  "Hmm? Oh, nothing! Probably nothing." He flickered again, longer this time. "Actually, uh, might be something. I'm feeling kinda... floaty? In a bad way?"

  Mark's eyes narrowed. "How long do you have?"

  "Dunno! Maybe five minutes? Maybe less?" Johnny banked around a building, his movements slightly less fluid than before. "We're close though! I can see the plaza!"

  The buildings opened up ahead, revealing a wide courtyard surrounded by empty storefronts. Grey flagstones stretched out below, and—

  "Oh hey, I gotta go!" Johnny said brightly.

  "Wait—now?!" Maggie's stomach dropped. "You said five minutes!"

  "Waking up! See ya!"

  Johnny vanished.

  One moment Maggie was straddling a dolphin thirty feet in the air. The next, she was straddling nothing.

  She dropped.

  "JOHNNY!" The scream ripped out of her throat as the ground rushed up. Wind roared in her ears. Her stomach lurched into her throat. "MARK!"

  "Maggie, focus!" Mark's voice came from somewhere above. "Remember your training! Superhero landing!"

  Landing training. Right. Superhero landing. Enhance her body, distribute the impact, she could do this, she'd trained for—

  The plaza came up fast. Too fast. She started the enhancement—legs, arms, brace for impact—but the ground was right there and she couldn't remember which muscles to tense first and—

  She hit the flagstones face-first.

  Pain exploded through her skull. The impact jarred every bone in her body, driving the air from her lungs. She lay there, stunned, the grey stones cold against her cheek.

  "Ow," she wheezed.

  Footsteps approached—Mark, landing beside her with infuriating grace. "You alright?"

  Maggie pushed herself up on shaky arms, spitting out what she hoped wasn't a tooth. "Define alright."

  "Can you stand?"

  "Probably."

  "Then you're fine." Mark offered a hand, pulling her upright. His expression shifted to something almost smug. "See? Told you that you weren't ready."

  Maggie's face burned. She opened her mouth to snap back, but movement caught her eye.

  The plaza wasn't empty.

  Five cats prowled around something in the center of the courtyard. House cats, but scaled up—each one the size of a large dog, their proportions slightly off in that uncanny way. They moved with fluid precision, circling their target with tails lashing.

  And in the middle of their circle, something writhed.

  Maggie's brain took a moment to process what she was seeing. The creature stood maybe twelve feet tall, a grotesque mass of twisted flesh and too many mouths. Tentacles sprouted from its body at odd angles, each one lined with teeth. Its main maw gaped wide, revealing rows of serrated fangs dripping with something that hissed when it hit the stones.

  But the worst part was the smell. Rot and ammonia and something sweetly chemical underneath—the kind of stench that coated the back of her throat and made her eyes water. Like a corpse left to ferment in a swimming pool.

  "What the hell is that?" she breathed.

  "Nightmare manifestation." Mark's voice was clinical, assessing. "Someone's fear made real."

  One of the cats lunged, claws raking across the monster's flank. The creature roared—a wet, bubbling sound—and swung a tentacle. The cat didn't even flinch. It sidestepped with the casual grace of something that had done this a thousand times, then yawned. Another cat pounced from behind, batting at a different tentacle like it was a particularly boring toy. A third sat at the edge of the fight, grooming its paw, occasionally glancing up as if checking whether the monster was still there.

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  They weren't fighting. They were babysitting.

  That's when Maggie saw him.

  A kid—maybe fourteen, fifteen at most—curled up against the base of a fountain. Short, round-faced, wearing an oversized hoodie and jeans. His hands covered his head, body shaking with sobs that Maggie could hear even over the monster's roars.

  He manifested that thing. His fear made it real. And the cats were keeping it contained while he fell apart.

  "We need to help him," Maggie said.

  "We will." Mark's eyes tracked the monster's movements. "Let me assess the situation first—"

  Maggie was already running.

  "Maggie, STOP!"

  She ignored him. The kid needed help. The cats were keeping the monster busy, but they couldn't kill it—not if it was his nightmare. Only he could make it stop, and he was too panicked to do anything but cry.

  She had to get through to him. Calm him down. That's what Mark had taught her, right? Control the fear, control what you manifest.

  Maggie sprinted toward the fountain—but the monster stood between her and the kid. One of the cats hissed a warning as she approached, but she ignored it.

  Fine. She'd go through the damn thing.

  She channeled everything Mark had taught her. Enhanced her legs, her arms, her whole body. The yellow silk of her dress streamed behind her as she closed the distance.

  The monster's back was to her. Perfect.

  She leaped, pulled back her fist, and drove it into the creature's spine with everything she had.

  The impact was wrong. Instead of the satisfying crunch she expected, her fist sank into something soft and yielding. Like punching rotten fruit. The flesh gave way with a wet squelch, and suddenly she was elbow-deep in the thing's body.

  "Oh—"

  The monster's head swiveled on an impossible angle. All those mouths opened at once.

  Yellow-green gas erupted point-blank into her face.

  She tried to dodge. Too slow. The gas wrapped around her, sinking into her skin, burning through her clothes. Fire traced along her arms, her face, her throat. She tried to scream but the gas flooded her lungs, turning the sound into a choked wheeze.

  Her vision whited out with pain. She couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. Pure agony, like someone had replaced her blood with molten metal.

  Hands grabbed her, yanking her backward.

  Mark hauled her away from the gas cloud, one arm around her waist. His other hand moved in a sharp gesture—barely a flick of his wrist, but Maggie caught it through the haze of pain. A signal.

  Locke understood immediately.

  The husky's form began to shift. His body expanded, bones creaking, fur rippling as he grew. In seconds, he stood as tall as the monster itself—a massive husky, easily twelve feet at the shoulder, still recognizably the same dog but scaled to impossible size.

  He barked once. The sound was enormous, echoing across the plaza.

  The monster's attention snapped to him.

  Locke lunged, teeth bared, and the creature followed. They crashed away from the group, the giant husky leading it toward the far end of the plaza with snapping jaws and powerful bounds.

  Mark lowered Maggie to the ground, supporting her weight as she gasped and shuddered. "Breathe. Focus on breathing."

  "Burns," she managed. Her voice came out raw, scraped. "Everything burns."

  "I know. Remember the keychain." His hands gripped her shoulders, steadying her. "Remember what I taught you. Your body is something you can control here. Focus on that."

  The keychain. Right. She'd fixed herself before—forced her flesh to regenerate around the metal that had fused to her wrist.

  Maggie closed her eyes, trying to block out the pain. Visualize. Her skin, healthy and whole. Her lungs, clear and working. Cell by cell, piece by piece, knitting back together.

  It took forever. Or maybe seconds—time felt slippery through the agony. But gradually, the burning eased. Her breathing came smoother. The pain faded from excruciating to merely terrible.

  When she opened her eyes, Mark was studying her face. "Better?"

  "Getting there."

  "Good." He stood, already moving. "Stay here. I'll handle it."

  "But the kid—"

  "I said stay."

  Mark broke into a run—not toward the monster, but toward the fountain where the kid was still curled up. He crouched beside him, said something Maggie couldn't hear. The kid's head lifted slightly, eyes wide and wet with tears.

  Then Mark stood and ran again—upward this time, feet finding purchase on empty air, carrying him higher with each stride.

  Maggie pushed herself to standing, ignoring the lingering ache in her muscles. Her dress was torn in places, singed at the edges, but mostly intact. She felt like she'd been put through a blender.

  The kid was still by the fountain, trembling, but his eyes were tracking Mark now. Following him up into the sky.

  Maggie limped over to him.

  "Hey." She crouched beside the fountain, trying to keep her voice steady despite her raw throat. "Hey, look at me."

  The kid's gaze flickered to her, then back to Mark ascending through the air.

  "I know you're scared," Maggie continued. "That thing—you made it, right? With your fear?"

  A strangled sob. His whole body was shaking.

  "It's okay. I did the same thing when I first got here." Not entirely true, but close enough. "The trick is—you have to control what you're feeling. Focus on something else. Something that grounds you."

  The kid wasn't listening. His eyes were locked on Mark, who had stopped about fifty feet up, directly above the monster.

  Mark reached into his coat pocket.

  And pulled out a spear.

  No—two spears. Massive things, easily fifteen feet long, with wicked barbed points. He drew them out of his pocket like they'd been waiting there the whole time, one in each hand.

  For a moment, he stood there in the sky, spears crossed above his head.

  Then he threw. One, then the other.

  The weapons screamed through the air, twin meteors of steel. They punched through the monster's body from above, driving it into the ground with the force of the impact. The creature's roar cut off mid-sound as the spears pinned it to the flagstones.

  But it wasn't dead—not yet.

  The monster thrashed, tentacles whipping wildly, trying to pull itself free. The spears held it down but the nightmare was still manifesting, still feeding off the kid's fear. Black ichor pooled around where the spears had pierced through.

  Maggie turned back to the kid. "Hey—hey, I need you to focus. You need to stop being afraid of that thing—"

  But the kid wasn't looking at her. Wasn't looking at the monster either.

  He was staring at Mark. The fear had drained from his face. His mouth hung slightly open, eyes tracking Mark's every movement.

  Mark reached into his coat again.

  This time, what he pulled out was different. Longer. The spear that emerged seemed to go on forever, easily twenty feet of gleaming red metal that shouldn't have fit in any pocket. Its point spiraled in a wicked drill pattern, and along the shaft ran glowing lines that pulsed with an inner light.

  Even from the ground, Maggie could feel the weight of it. The presence. This wasn't a weapon—it was the weapon.

  Mark held it overhead with both hands, perfectly still in the empty air.

  "Longinus," the kid whispered beside her. The word came out reverent, hungry.

  Mark threw.

  The spear didn't fall. It accelerated, spinning as it dropped, the drill point screaming through the air with a sound like tearing metal. It struck the monster dead center, punching through the mass of flesh and tentacles and wrong angles.

  The creature didn't dissolve. It exploded. Grey mist erupted outward in a shockwave that rattled the windows of nearby buildings. The two regular spears clattered to the flagstones, but the red one—Longinus—remained standing upright where it had struck, quivering slightly before it too dissolved into nothing.

  Silence settled over the plaza.

  Maggie stared at where the monster had been, then up at Mark descending through the air like it was nothing.

  Three spears. He'd pulled three spears out of his coat pocket and obliterated that thing like it was nothing. Meanwhile she'd charged in and nearly got herself killed trying to help.

  The frustration burned, but underneath it was something else. Awe, maybe. Or the uncomfortable realization of how far she had to go.

  Mark descended, walking down invisible stairs with Locke—now back to normal size—trotting beside him. The five cats had returned to their regular house cat proportions. One of them stretched lazily, another was already asleep, and a third had wandered over to sniff at where the monster had been before losing interest entirely.

  Mark's feet touched the ground. He dusted off his coat like he'd taken a casual stroll instead of summoning legendary weapons from the sky. Locke trotted up beside him, tail swaying slightly.

  The kid beside Maggie stood up.

  The trembling had stopped. He stood straighter now, shoulders back, chin lifted. His eyes were bright. Almost feverish.

  He took a step toward Mark. Then another. Then broke into a run.

  And dropped into a full dogeza at Mark's feet.

  "Shishou!"

  Mark stopped. Stared down at the kid prostrating himself on the flagstones. His expression went through several rapid shifts—confusion, recognition, and finally something that looked a lot like dread.

  He pinched the bridge of his nose.

  "Oh hell no," he muttered. "Fuck this."