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Taly began to sob as it crawled back over her, pawing at her face. Every instinct screamed—run, fight,move—but she couldn’t.

“Don’t cry, don’t cry. Grimble don’t like the taste of tears. Grimble look inside, yes? Grimble find dream.Gooddream, and then you let grimble in. You say yes next time grimble knock.”

Taly stared numbly into the night sky, tears rolling down her cheeks as it scraped along the inside of her skull with surgical care, not looking for a way out—but a place to nest.

As it worked, it began to sing, “Time mage, time mage, my favoritest, tastiest snack. I’m so hungry, craving your flesh to…”It stopped singing. “Oh, I found something. Well, that’s interesting. That’s why you so smell so tasty.”

Its head slid back into her field of vision. Milky eyes blinked. “Kairó vuun’manii?”

The words hit bone. Taly flinched.

The grimble giggled softly.“You don’t know what it means,”it whispered.“But I do.”

Then—something pulsed inside her.

It didn’t belong to the dream. It came fromoutsideit.

A force that pulled her body up like there was a string attached to one of her ribs.

The grimble slapped her back down. Those fingers went back to digging. “It means you’re going to betasty. Meansshe’sgoing to be angry, but grimble quick. Grimble smart. Grimble knows how to hide from lady.”

Its head craned, swiveling to look her in the eye. “Knock, knock…”

Taly screamed through her teeth.

Monsters are real, Azura had said. And the grimble, the dream spinner, was the most monstrous of them all.

This place—it was just an antechamber, a place in her mind she’d carved out and tucked away.

Here, she was safe, but the grimble would keep digging, rooting through her memories. It would keep her here until it found the right words, the right dream, the perfect illusion that would trick her into believing in this reality.

And then when her mental shields finally fell—then it would feed.

Yet there was still a way out.

A horrible, terrible way.

A way that might still leave her fucked even if she did everything perfectly.

The grimble slapped her across the face. It was getting impatient. Greedy.

“Let me in!” it screeched.

“No,” Taly breathed. It was barely a wheeze of air between stiff vocal cords, but she finally found her voice.

The grimble reared back to slap her again, but she was ready this time.

It took every ounce of will, every shred of self—lifting a hand, she caught its wrist.

And because this was stillherdream—her mind—a single push sent it flying.

That something was still pulsing inside her, that string still tugging at her, frantic and desperate.

Taly lurched to her feet. She stumbled, then collapsed to her knees. Her body felt too heavy, too clumsy, still not quite her own.

The grimble snarled, crawling upright in a jerky, hunched motion. It’s eyes blazed with a hunger that bordered on madness.

It heaved in a breath, and the world rippled. It was re-weaving the dream, starting over—