On black-feathered wings I sailed, lifted by the wind of my will. Having found Avery once already, finding her again did not take long, and soon I alighted, having fallen like a comet from the sky, to land in her dream once more.

She stood as before, at the bottom of the steps, at the beginning of her nightmare loop. When I reached for her this time, though, and set my hand upon her arm, she startled and turned to look at me; for this time, I controlled the dream.

"Hello, Avery," I said.

"Fenn?" She asked uncertainly. "What are you doing here? Where—?"

Taking stock of her surroundings, she covered her mouth in horror.

"Oh, no," she whispered. "Oh, no. Not again."

"It is a dream, Avery," I said gently. "An echo of a memory. We may leave, now, and you need never visit this place again, if you choose."

"Really?"

I nodded. "Will you trust me?"

Slowly, she nodded in return, and took my outstretched hand.

"Good. Come then—let us change this dream."

I led her up the stairs, and down the short stretch of hall to the door of her sister's room.

"Go ahead," I said. "Open it."

"But..." Her voice trembled.

"It's alright. I will guide you, now. I promise."

She met my eyes, and I saw fear in hers, and let her see the confidence in mine.

Reassured, she took a breath, turned back to the door, and opened it.

Together, we stepped through, and I shut it at our backs; and rather than whatever scene of horror had once awaited there, we arrived at my high green hills and azure skies once more.

"Doors are portals," I explained gently, as Avery gazed about in wonder. "In dreams, as in the waking world, they are used to pass between one place and another. Only, in dreams, you can change what's on the other side. You can use them to travel anywhere, as long as you know where you are going."

"Where...are we?" she asked, sounding a bit lost.

"A place in my mind. A safe place," I said. "A place where, when the rest of the world seemed too monstrous to bear, I could surround myself with beautiful things."

As if called forth by this thought, an exquisite blue butterfly, like a winged jewel, appeared and landed on my outstretched hand. It rested there a moment before taking flight again.

"You really like butterflies," Avery stated, and laughed with tearful relief as she watched its meandering flight.

I sank to sit on the soft grass and invited her to sit with me.

We needed to awaken and return to Dennis and Gray, but a moment or two here would do Avery good, I thought.

"Do you know the myth of Psyche?" I asked as she settled at my side.

She shook her head.

"In Greek, psyche is the name for 'soul' or 'spirit,' and also for 'butterfly.' In the myth, Psyche was a beautiful girl—so beautiful she made Aphrodite jealous. Aphrodite cursed her, but in the end—after long and terrible struggles and strife—she was raised up by her lover, Eros, and became one among the gods."

I picked at the little dew-drop flowers scattered among the tender grass.

"The myth is an allegory for the journey of the soul. In some old philosophies, it was believed that through suffering and struggle the soul became its highest, truest self—like a butterfly emerging from a cocoon. Psyche is often shown as a girl with butterfly wings."

Avery sniffed and looked up at the expanse of sky.

"Juno was like that," she whispered. "She said that's how it felt—to come out and live as her true self: like transforming from a caterpillar into a butterfly. And then some cruel idiots had to go and tear off her wings." She added bitterly, wiping at her eyes. "I guess butterflies don't live very long, do they?"

"No," I agreed sadly, "they don't. And there's no going back—no returning to being a caterpillar, if you happen not to like what you've become. I suppose I am lucky I am not a butterfly, after all."

"No," Avery agreed, looking over at me with a tremulous smile, "you're not."

Then she leaned close and kissed my cheek.

"You're an angel."

I lowered my gaze, made unaccountably shy by this. I had once mistaken a vampire for an angel myself; but angel or devil, had he not saved me, in the end? Perhaps one's nature did not matter so much as the sum of one's deeds; perhaps devils could be kind, and angels cruel.

I looked back at Avery and smiled, and reached to take her hands in mine, pulling her up with me as I stood.

"Come," I said, "it is time we awoke. Dennis and Gray are waiting, and we will need your help. Are you ready?"

She took a breath and looked out over the wild dark sea.

"Yeah," she said. "I think I am."

"Good. There is but one last thing I must do."

I turned and strode to the edge of the cliffs, and my raven wheeled down from the sky and landed on my outstretched arm. Quickly, I imparted my message, and then it launched into the wind again, and flew away over the open waves.

"What was that?" Avery asked, watching it until it vanished against the brightness of a dreamed sun.

"A messenger," I said. "Sometimes, from here, I can speak into the minds of others, even when they do not dream. It helps if we share a bond, as I do with my dear Ari. He saved my life, once, with magic, and some threads of our souls ended up tangled with the other. I can't impart much this way—a brief message, an image, a flash of meaning—as much as one might write on a postcard, or in a telegram, or in..." I tried to imagine a more modern example.

"A Tweet?" Avery suggested.

"Yes!" I agreed, remembering when my friends had demonstrated this distressing technology. "Just enough warning, I hope, to tell him what has become of us, and to give an advantage against Benoit."

I turned towards her and smiled.

"Time to wake up."

~ ❀ ~

I blinked and found myself lying half in Dennis' lap. He had his arms around me, and sat leaning against the wall with his head tilted back and his eyes shut, mumbling a song to himself beneath his breath.

"Dennis," I whispered, finding my voice a bit parched and dry.

He startled to alertness at once.

"Fenn! Oh wow—thank God!" he exclaimed, helping me to sit up and hugging me. "I thought you'd never wake up!"

His voice sounded as dry and raspy as mine, and his thick brown hair was a mess.

"How long have we slept?" I asked, as Avery roused herself as well, groaning softly and rubbing at her temples. "And where is Gray?"

"I don't know how long it's been," Dennis said, shaking his head "but long enough I'm hella thirsty and have to pee so bad it hurts. The vamps took Gray," he added.

"Took him! Where?"

"Don't know. But the captain guy said something about Gray's dad, and a trade."

"We must escape and rescue him," I announced, getting to my feet.

"Yeah, but how? I spent at least an hour banging on the door and yelling my lungs out. No one's even out there to tell me to shut up. And none of this cursed junk is useful."

He gestured, and I saw with some alarm that the contents of several storage boxes were emptied on the floor.

"Don't worry, I didn't touch anything," Dennis said, seeing where I looked. "I'm not stupid."

I made no comment. If he'd released anything malevolent, we'd probably know by now.

"What about Avery's shadows?" Dennis suggested. "Could they help us?"

I shook my head. "Even if they could reach her through the Stronghold's barrier, she probably can't control them that well. They'd likely just kill us all."

I sank back to sit against the wall.

"No, we must wait for help. If my message was received, we will know soon enough."

"Message?" Dennis asked, shifting uncomfortably at my side.

I explained as best I could what had happened in the dream realms, and about sending a call for help along the bond I shared with Ari.

"Well, I hope somebody lets us out soon," he said, "'cause if they don't, we're gonna have to designate a potty corner. I don't know how much longer I can hold it."

"They have to come eventually," Avery said, clasping her hands around her knees. "They can't just let us starve in here."

"We'll die of thirst before we starve," Dennis commented. "Well, Fenn won't, but—"

"Dennis, shh!" I hissed, having heard a faint sound in the hall, and tilted my head to listen more carefully.

"What is it?" Dennis whispered. "The vamps?"

"No. Something else, I think." I got up again and crossed to the door, listening with my ear pressed against it.

The sound came again, louder and closer, this time, and drawing nearer, so that soon Dennis and Avery heard it as well: a rustling, and then the tap of little claws, and a strange, soft clicking noise.

"What is that?" Dennis asked, listening at my side. "Is it a haunted doll? Or a magic rat? Can we train it to open the door?"

"It is not a doll or a rat," I said, smiling. "It is better, and he does not need to be trained."

Proving me right, there was a rustle of feathers, a scraping of metal, and then the door unlocked with a click and swung inward, pushed by a small, clawed foot.

On the other side stood a crow, who looked up at us with a bright beady eye and puffed out all his feathers with great pride, clacking his beak in satisfaction.

"It is Al," I told my friends, almost laughing with relief and holding out my hand for the bird. He hopped up to perch on my shoulder, and nibbled at my hair. "He is Ari's familiar—one of them. This must mean Ari got my message, and is near!"

I examined the lock, and saw that a key had been stuck in it, but it wasn't a house key. It was one of the charmed ones which had gone missing from the collection some time ago, and which supposedly opened any door.

"So that's how you keep getting in to steal things," I said to the bird, knowing it must have been an awful sacrifice for him to give it up. "Thank you, Aleister."

He made his soft clicking sound, and nipped my ear.

I turned to my friends.

"This will be dangerous," I warned. "Are you ready?"

"As ever," Dennis said.

Avery nodded.

"Good," I answered, smiling at my friends and their bravery. "Let us go then, for Gray."

And so I led the way out into the hall, and we began our escape.