Johnny found them before they found him.

  The dolphin descended from the grey sky in a spiral, chattering excitedly, then transformed mid-air into his ridiculous muscular human form and landed with a dramatic pose—one knee on the ground, one arm raised, pompadour somehow intact.

  "You're back!" He bounded over to Maggie and grabbed her hands. "I missed you! It's been forever! Who's the new guy? Hi, new guy! I'm Johnny!"

  Martin took a step back, blinking. "Did you just—"

  "Transform from a dolphin? Yeah! Pretty cool, right?" Johnny flexed, biceps bulging absurdly. "I can also get really big! Like a whale! I tried it once! Mark got mad because I accidentally crushed a building! Did you know buildings are crunchy? They're SO crunchy!"

  "He's..." Martin looked at Maggie for help.

  "A lot," she said. "You get used to it."

  "You never get used to it," Mark muttered.

  Johnny spun to face him, expression shifting to wounded betrayal. "Speaking of which—you left without me! Again! I was looking everywhere! I couldn't find you for days!"

  Mark started walking.

  "Hey! Mark! Are you ignoring me? Mark!" Johnny jogged after him. "This is exactly what I'm talking about! You do this every time! I thought we were a team!"

  Mark kept walking.

  "I'm sorry," Maggie said, catching up. "There were some circumstances. We had to move fast, and—"

  "Oh! Hey! We should go to the Sky Gardens!" Johnny's face lit up instantly, betrayal forgotten. "Have you been? You haven't been! I promised I'd take you! Remember? This is perfect! You're going to love it!"

  Maggie blinked at the whiplash. "I was trying to apologize."

  "For what?" Johnny was already walking ahead, practically bouncing. "Come on! The Gardens are incredible! There's this one part where—actually, no, I won't spoil it. But you're going to love it!"

  Martin fell into step beside Maggie. His expression was carefully neutral, the kind of face perfected over decades of dealing with strange situations.

  "So," he said quietly. "Where exactly are we going? And how do we get there?"

  "Good question." Maggie looked at Mark's back. "Hey, Mark. Martin wants to know how we're getting to the Sky Gardens."

  "Trailer," Mark said without turning around.

  "Trailer?"

  "I have a trailer. We drive."

  Maggie stopped walking. "Hold on. You have a trailer?"

  "Yes."

  "Like a—" She gestured vaguely. "A trailer. On wheels. That you drive."

  "That's generally how trailers work."

  "That doesn't fit your image at all." Maggie caught up to him, grinning. "I was expecting something like a cool motorcycle. Or a horse. Or honestly, you walking everywhere because you're too brooding for vehicles." She lowered her voice conspiratorially. "Do you cook dubious substances in there?"

  Mark's pace didn't slow. "I do, actually. But not the ones you're thinking of."

  "Wait, what?"

  "Mostly soups. Sometimes bread."

  "You cook bread."

  "Baking is cooking."

  "That's..." Maggie searched for words. "Somehow the most surprising thing you've ever told me."

  "I've been here twenty years. A man needs hobbies."

  Martin cleared his throat. "How far is it? To the Sky Gardens."

  Mark glanced back at him. "Don't worry about it. It's far, but we'll arrive in an instant."

  Maggie frowned. "Is that another one of your tricks?"

  "Not really a trick." Mark turned a corner, leading them down a side street. "Distance in the Dreamscape is flexible. You imagine yourself somewhere, and you can get there. Travel is more about intention than physical movement."

  "So we just... think about being there?"

  "If you know what you're doing." He stopped at a fence gate, opening it. "Which you don't. You'd end up somewhere random. Split up. Stuck in a building. Or worse." He gestured for them to follow. "That's why we take the trailer. It's easier to imagine arriving somewhere if you're traveling. Your brain accepts it better."

  "Huh." Maggie ducked through the gate. "So the trailer is like a... mental cheat code?"

  "Something like that." Mark led them around the back of an abandoned house. "One more thing—don't look outside while we're moving."

  "Why not?"

  "Because what's outside won't make sense. And things that don't make sense tend to cause problems."

  Johnny had already found the trailer and was circling it excitedly. "I love this thing! It's so big!"

  Mark whistled—a sharp, clear note. A moment later, the eagle descended from the grey sky, landing on his outstretched arm.

  "She's coming with us?" Maggie asked.

  "She goes where I go." Mark opened the trailer door, and the eagle swooped inside.

  "Doesn't she get lonely? Always up there by herself?"

  Mark gave her an odd look. "She doesn't feel anything. She's not like Locke—no independent thought. I can program her to scout, or control her directly. She's an extension of my senses, nothing more." He gestured at Locke, who was sniffing around the trailer's wheels. "He's different. Has his own personality, his own instincts. She's just... me, spread thin."

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  Maggie looked at where the eagle had been. It was sad—a creature that existed only to watch.

  "That's depressing," she said.

  "It's practical." Mark walked to the trailer door.

  Maggie looked at the vehicle properly for the first time. It was... a trailer. A normal, somewhat weathered RV hooked to what looked like a truck from the 1980s. Beige walls. Small windows. Nothing remarkable.

  "It looks normal," she said.

  "Looks can be deceiving." He opened the door.

  Inside was not normal.

  The trailer opened into a space that couldn't exist—a vast living room with vaulted ceilings, a kitchen bigger than some apartments, hallways stretching off in directions that shouldn't fit. The lighting came from somewhere overhead, warm and even. Furniture was scattered throughout, comfortable and eclectic.

  "Holy shit." Maggie stepped inside, then back out, then inside again. "It's bigger on the inside."

  "No, I mean—" She ducked back outside. The trailer was the same small, battered RV. She stepped back in. Mansion. "It's—this is—"

  Johnny appeared beside her and started doing the same thing, stepping in and out with wide-eyed delight, not saying anything for once.

  "Just like my pocket," Mark said, settling into a chair near the door. "Same principle. Thought becomes reality."

  They kept at it for another minute, moving through the doorway like kids discovering a magic trick.

  "Stay inside," Mark called. "And don't look out the windows."

  "Where are you going?"

  "To drive. I'll be back when we arrive."

  The door closed behind him. A moment later, Maggie felt the floor shift slightly—not a lurch, more like a settling. Then stillness.

  "Are we moving?" Martin had taken a seat in an armchair, looking around the impossible space with something between fascination and wariness.

  "I think so." Maggie moved away from the windows, just in case. "He said we'd arrive in an instant."

  It wasn't quite an instant. Maybe five minutes passed—long enough for Johnny to give them an enthusiastic tour of the space, pointing out his favorite spots ("This couch is perfect for naps! And this one time I found a room that was all trampolines!"), before the motion stopped.

  The door opened. Mark stood in the frame.

  "We're here."

  Maggie blinked. No flash of light. No sense of motion. No vertigo, no tunnel of colors, nothing. She'd braced herself for something—anything—and got five minutes of Johnny talking about trampolines.

  Mark noticed her expression.

  "What were you expecting? Fireworks?"

  "Maybe."

  "The Dreamscape doesn't always give you drama. Sometimes you just... arrive."

  Maggie stepped outside.

  And stopped breathing.

  Green. That was the first thing—an overwhelming wall of green stretching in every direction. But it wasn't grass. It wasn't a forest. It was—

  Beanstalks.

  Giant beanstalks, thicker than houses, spiraling up into the sky. A forest of them, leaves the size of cars creating a canopy that filtered the grey light into something almost golden. Their stalks were twisted and organic, covered in nodules and curling tendrils, disappearing into the clouds overhead.

  And in the center of everything, one beanstalk that dwarfed all the others. Massive. Impossible. Its trunk could have been a city block, its leaves disappearing into what looked like actual sky above the clouds.

  "Holy shit." Maggie's voice came out as a whisper.

  She took three steps forward.

  "Holy shit."

  She looked up, craning her neck until it hurt.

  "HOLY SHIT!"

  Johnny was right beside her, equally animated. "RIGHT?! I told you! I TOLD you it was amazing!"

  They both stood there, heads tilted back, mouths open, looking up at something that couldn't be real.

  Martin had stepped out more slowly. His reaction was quieter—a long exhale, a slight widening of his eyes. He took in the impossible garden with the measured assessment of someone who had seen strange things but was still impressed.

  "That's something," he said finally.

  Maggie spun to face Mark. "Is this Jack and the Beanstalk? I thought it was the Sky Gardens!"

  "It is." Mark gestured at the massive central stalk. "Jack and the Beanstalk. Sky Gardens is what Johnny calls it."

  "I named it!" Johnny said proudly. "Because it's in the sky! And there's gardens! Up there!"

  Martin walked closer to the central stalk, examining its base. The trunk was smooth in places, rough in others—covered in a tangle of vines and leaves, but nothing like a convenient ladder.

  "How are we supposed to climb this?" Martin asked. His tone was practical, but there was something underneath it. Doubt, maybe. Concern. "I'm too old for this."

  Johnny bounded over, shifting into dolphin form and then back to human. "You can ride on me! I'll carry you! It'll be fun!"

  Martin looked at the muscular dolphin-man with an expression that suggested he was reconsidering every life choice that had led to this moment. "That's... generous."

  Maggie was already at the base, testing her grip on a thick vine. "I'll go up on my own."

  Mark glanced at her. "You could ride with Johnny. It's faster."

  "I'll air-walk."

  "All the way up?" He looked at the clouds far above. "That's a lot of concentration."

  "I can handle it."

  He didn't argue.

  They started together—Mark climbing with practiced efficiency, Johnny carrying Martin on his back, Maggie stepping onto invisible platforms in the air. Locke found his own path, somehow, leaping between leaves with an ease that shouldn't have been possible for a husky.

  The first stretch wasn't bad. Maggie focused on creating solid ground beneath her feet, one step at a time. It was working. She was actually doing it.

  Then the beanstalk got higher.

  Then her concentration started to slip.

  Then her foot found nothing.

  · · ·

  Maggie fell.

  Wind rushed past her face. The leaves blurred. She opened her mouth to scream—

  —and grabbed a vine, arresting her fall with a jolt that nearly dislocated her shoulder. She swung there, gasping, heart pounding so hard she could hear it in her ears.

  Above her, Mark had stopped climbing. He looked down at her, expression unreadable.

  "WE'LL BE WAITING FOR YOU AT THE TOP!" he called.

  And kept climbing.

  She hung there for a moment, catching her breath, anger mixing with exhaustion. Something warm brushed against her dangling legs—Locke, perched on a massive leaf below, looking up at her.

  "At least you stayed," she muttered.

  The husky's tail swayed once.

  She watched the others disappear into the clouds above. Then she pulled herself back onto the stalk.

  And kept going.

  She couldn't maintain air-walking anymore—not consistently. Her concentration was shot. So she climbed instead, grabbing vines, pulling herself up, using air-steps only when there was nothing else to hold onto.

  The ground fell away below her. The clouds crept closer above. Sweat dripped down her face despite the cool air. Her arms shook. Her legs burned. Every few minutes she slipped, caught herself, kept going.

  Halfway up—or what felt like halfway—she made the mistake of looking down.

  The beanstalk stretched endlessly in both directions. The ground was so far below it didn't look real anymore. The others had long since disappeared into the clouds.

  "This was a mistake," she gasped, pressing her forehead against the cool green surface. "This was a huge mistake."

  She reached for the next vine. Pulled. Her grip held—barely—and she hauled herself up another few feet.

  Then her arms gave out completely.

  She slid down, caught herself with an air-step, and realized she wasn't going to make it. Not like this. Not without rest.

  She found a relatively flat section of leaf and collapsed onto it, lying on her back, staring up at the endless green above.

  "Great," she muttered. "This is fine. I'll live here now. On a leaf."

  Something warm pressed against her side.

  Locke had caught up to her again, lying next to her on the leaf, chin resting on his paws.

  "Still here, huh?" She reached out, scratching behind his ears. "Good boy."

  The husky's tail swayed.

  They lay there together on the impossible leaf, hundreds of feet in the air, while Maggie's muscles recovered enough to continue.

  Eventually, she did.

  The last stretch was brutal. Every handhold felt like lifting a mountain. Every pull upward took everything she had. But Locke stayed with her, climbing alongside, occasionally nudging her when she paused too long.

  When she finally pulled herself over the edge of the clouds—through them, actually, like breaking the surface of water—she collapsed onto solid ground and lay there, breathing hard, victory mixing with exhaustion.

  Then she opened her eyes.

  And saw the town.

  Giant houses stretched out before her—buildings sized for beings three times human height, with doors tall enough to drive trucks through and windows like warehouse loading bays. Streets paved with something that looked like compacted cloud. Gardens full of flowers as big as trees. A whole community built in the sky, impossibly present, waiting to be explored.

  Maggie sat up slowly, taking it all in.

  "Worth it," she whispered.

  Mark was sitting on a bench nearby, watching her with something that might have been approval.

  "Welcome to the Sky Gardens," he said.