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pretended that the lines of the house and sidewalks and driveway were irrelevant. Because they were.
    When the wind picked up, she knew the relative safety of her dream was nearing its end. The ground under her feet was beachy gold. A gale of darkness lashed her hair, and Sera squinted her eyes as she finally set foot on the vast, endless desert that was the Scrape.
    She could do this. Well, hopefully. The Scrape was where revelers got lost and died. She’d ventured out there before though, so she knew she could find her way… That is, if a nightmare didn’t find her first.
    Bending her head toward the storm, she trudged out into dark night. Her destination was Maze City, and as there was no real direction in the Scrap—no north in the burn and chafe of the dust storm—the secret to finding anything was to keep moving, goal in mind, and eventually the wind would taper.
    Whatever endurance test the Scrape required, she knew she was its equal. She’d done this before. The forward drive was brutal, but she kept at it. She’d never been one to give in—not now, not ever.
    Cold whispers on the air told her that nightmares could be near, could be following. Her heart thumped hard, blood screaming through her veins, but since Harlen did this all the time, she would not let herself be overcome.
    Finally, the city gleamed ahead. She gritted her teeth and pushed harder. She knew the secret of Maze City, knew that Maisie’s creation was the safest dreamscape out there. The sexy twist and slash of the skyline was a tribute to her brilliance. Maisie was smug about it, but since Sera occasionally had ego trips of her own, she’d bear the very deserved arrogance of Maze City’s architect. Somehow, of all the dreams that Maisie could’ve built, her intuition had told her to build a refuge.
    Icy air seemed to blow through Sera’s skin to create a frozen filigree in her veins. Now that had to be nightmare close-by.
    The city was near, looming higher and higher above her, so she ran for it and didn’t stop until she was pelting down a deserted street, the air going still and the coldness inside melting with her exertion.
    Breathlessly, she stopped to turn around—she’d yet to get a look at one, to know what to fear. Like a bad dream, her perspective lurched and stretched. For a second, Harlen’s mom stood there, five paces away at the boundary between Maze City and the Scrape, her hair blown by the high wind, an angry set to her expression. Sera knew she really had to have a talk with Eleanor and settle things between them. Get this out of her head.
    Sera blinked, and when she looked again, Eleanor was gone and a pitiful and starved creature—its flesh grayish, its mouth and nose more like slits than true features—but those eyes… She’d heard about the eyes. They were not human. They were all black, and it was as if they held all the horrors humankind could contemplate.
    Sera shuddered, felt a tendril of panic curl in her stomach. Though from where she stood, she was safe. This was the kind of the creature Harlen was fighting, what was finding its way into the waking world. And somewhere out there in the spinning sands was an entity even worse. Immortal. Powerful. The Sandman.
    Harlen was big and brave but he was going to need all the help he could get. With that in mind, she turned to deliver his message.
    Deep within the city was a building where they all convened. Their meeting room was cozy in a dingy kind of way, with fat moldings and overstuffed sofas and chairs. The route she needed to take wasn’t on a map, nor could it ever be. To find it required following a set of directions—blocks and turns counted, no matter where they seemed to lead—that could be initiated from anywhere to let the dreamer find the very room. It was literally the journey and not the destination that mattered.
    Sera started to count off the blocks to her first turn when she spotted a man down the street in front of her. She knew Maisie