Andraeon wandered without knowing—or caring—where he went, just walking endlessly with his head down. Sometimes there was snow underfoot, soaking into the tops of his shoes, and sometimes there was grass, or dirt, or sand. Once he walked across an expanse of black volcanic rock, absently brushing bits of ash out of his face, and then something inside him twisted and instead he was on a rocky beach with the waves crashing hard beside him. He glanced at them briefly and thought about walking out into the rough water, but when he blinked he was somewhere else entirely.
He first realized he was no longer alone as he walked through a thick forest dappled with green light. The trees were huge and ancient, easily ten times as wide as he was, and the undergrowth had obviously never been touched by people. It was very quiet beneath the trees, even with the noise of bugs flying by and the occasional chirp from the brightly coloured birds that swooped back and forth up near the tops of the trees. He had paused a moment to watch them, admiring the way the sunlight brought out the deep rich colours of their feathers, when he sensed someone behind him.
He turned and lashed out even as he did, channelling the power as easily as he took a breath. It was met and turned back by a power equal to his, and he struggled against it for a few moments before pulling the power back and turning it into a shield. He did it all without thinking, as though he’d been doing it all his life; it felt completely natural.
“It’s time to go home, Andraeon,” The Collector said. “You’ve been gone long enough.”
“I’m not going back.”
“What do you have left here? Jones is dead. No one will really want you with him gone.” She offered him a hand and her soft voice as so convincing that he found himself reaching for it against his will. He snatched his hand back instead, glaring at her and shoving down another sharp wave of grief.
“I’m not going back to sit pretty in a cage. I don’t care if no one else wants me. It doesn’t matter.” He took a step away from her, and then another. “Leave me alone.”
He turned to bolt but she was there in front of him again, her head tilted slightly to the side. “But you don’t belong here. Come home.”
“It’s not my home!” he yelled, his control beginning to slip. One of the nearby trees exploded into a shower of splinters and sawdust, and high above the birds screeched and took off in a flurry of beating wings. He thought of Emily sending him away and squeezed his eyes shut, wishing with everything he had that the same would happen to The Collector.
Silence settled over the forest again and he opened one eye to look around. The Collector was gone and didn’t reappear, even when he started walking again, glancing suspiciously over his shoulder every few steps. After a little while he stopped checking and went back to walking without really paying attention to where he was going, passing from the forest to a snowy field to a field full of thigh-high grass.
He settled down there for the night, suddenly so exhausted he could barely keep his eyes open. He sluggishly created a nest out of the long grass and curled up in it, using his arms as a pillow. He could hear crickets chirping nearby, and the occasional bass belch of a frog, but otherwise it was very quiet and very dark. The sky was clouded over and he couldn’t even see the stars and moon. He curled up further, as tight as he could, and closed his eyes to try and sleep. Now that he was no longer moving in a shocked daze, the pain and grief of losing Jones crashed down on him and he buried his head in his arms, hot tears sliding down his cheeks.
It didn’t last long; he was too tired to cry for more than a few minutes.
Eventually he drifted into an uneasy sleep and dreamed of following Jones down an endless corridor. No matter how much he called, Jones never turned around. Up ahead of them Andraeon saw Aloria step out of a side passage, catching Jones by the jaw and forcing him to his knees. Flames sprang up around them, licking at Jones’s clothes, until he was little more than a human-shaped outline of fire. Andraeon felt himself being dragged backwards and screamed Jones’s name—his real name, the one he only gave willingly to a few people. The flames snuffed out instantly but something threw Andraeon tumbling end over end into deep fog, and the hallway disappeared.
“So this is where you disappeared to.” Aloria stepped out of the fog and looked him over critically. “It hasn’t done you any favours.”
“Are you going to tell me to come home too?” he asked, picking himself up and facing her warily.
“We’d make a great team.” She flashed him the same charming smile she’d always shown him; the same smile Shasta had.
“Yeah, we probably would.” He took a step closer. “Unstoppable, right? Nothing could stand in our way.”
Her smile slipped slightly and she looked puzzled and suspicious for a moment. “That’s true.”
“And it’s not like I have much left to live for.”
“Not with Jones dead.”
“Aloria?” he said gently, watching the suspicion in her eyes sharpen. “Go fuck yourself.”
He shoved her away from him and sent her somewhere at the same time, though he didn’t know where. He thought with a little more practice he would be able to send anyone to any specific place but he was so tired now, and it was too much effort to try. Instead he sat down in the fog and let it wash over him, breathing in its cool dampness. After a little while he closed his eyes again and went away.
He woke huddled up in his grass nest, damp with morning dew and stiff from spending the night on the hard ground. Gingerly he sat up and stretched, jumping when he saw Elle sitting on a hillock a few feet away. She raised a hand in greeting.
“Morning, Drae. You are a pain in the ass to find, you know that?”
“You’re the third one to find me in the past few hours. The Collector and Aloria found me too. What do you want?”
“Yeah, we’re the Bitches of Dreamwalker Past, Present, and Future. And you’re not going to have a future if you don’t smarten up.” She pushed herself up from the hillock and dusted off her backside.
“I don’t care.” He got to his feet, grimacing a bit at the feel of his damp clothes against his skin. “It doesn’t matter anymore anyway.”
She rolled her eyes. “Teenagers. You’re all so dramatic. That’s so... human of you.”
“Go away.” He tried to flick his power at her and send her somewhere else like he’d done to The Collector and Aloria, but she slapped it down with a casual ease that made him feel like he’d been slapped across the face instead. He stared at her with wide eyes, tempted to see what would happen if he called on everything he had and sent it against her.
“Don’t even think about it, you little brat. I know you’re convinced that your heart is broken because of Jones, boo-hoo, cry me a river.”
As though she’d commanded it, Andraeon felt his eyes fill with tears, and blinked rapidly in an attempt to keep them away. “It’s not like he just broke up with me or something. He’s dead and I couldn’t do anything about it. I was there to watch his back and keep him safe, but instead...” He swallowed hard against the lump in his throat and wiped at his eyes, looking away from her. “But what do you care, right?”
“Did you see his body?”
“What? What does that have to do with anything?”
“Someone should introduce you to the wonders of television. If there was no body, how do you know he’s dead?”
Andraeon stared at her. “Because... the building exploded... there was fire everywhere. It wasn’t supposed to go up yet. He didn’t come out.”
“How would you know? You threw a tantrum and went walkabout.”
“I didn’t...” His chest hitched and he tried to take a calming breath, wiping angrily at his wet cheeks with the heel of one hand. “I was just...”
“Hurting. Angry. Human.” She smiled a little. “More human than anyone gives you credit for.”
“You’re making no sense,” Andraeon said tiredly. “Stop talking in riddles.”
“But I like riddles.” She came forward and tucked a lock of hair back behind his ear, touching his flushed cheek. “I have to admit, you’re not quite what I had expected but I think it’s turning out better than I could ever have hoped.” She dropped her hand again. “Now stop crying and go find him.”
“Who?” he asked, thrown off by her odd affection and still completely lost as to what she had been talking about.
“Jones, you idiot.” She leaned in to whisper in his ear. “He’s still alive.”
For a minute he thought he hadn’t heard her right, or that she was screwing around with him. “Where?” he managed after a tongue-tied moment. “Where is he?”
“I don’t actually know, and since I don’t know, I’m going to assume he’s out wandering the between places somewhere.” He heard her laugh even as he spun on his heel and ran, and she called after him, “Tell him I’ll see him soon.”
He moved through one place after the next in seconds, barely in one place long enough to see what sort of ground he ran over, what sort of air surrounded him. The headlong race built up the power inside him like static electricity, and when he finally reached the between places he landed so hard the fog billowed away from him in a circle nearly ten feet wide. He could feel the hairs all over his body standing on end but it felt good; he felt like he could do anything. He saw a huge black shape in the distance and headed towards it, pulling power into his mental hand as he went.
He hit the Kingsblack from the side, rocking its head away from Jones and Shasta, who stood facing it down. The creature made a surprised noise of pain and swung towards him, baring its sharp teeth. He hit it again, knowing he couldn’t kill it—not yet anyway, though he had a feeling that maybe one day he could—and it backed away, ducking its head almost submissively. Andraeon followed it, wielding the power inside him with reckless abandon, until he heard Shasta screaming for him to stop.
Glancing back, he saw Shasta down on his knees, cradling Jones and hunched over him protectively. Jones’s limbs trembled and jerked spastically and even from here Andraeon could see the blood running from his nose, ears, and mouth. He hesitated, torn between sudden fear—Jones, he’d come here to save Jones—and the pure joy of the power coursing through him. For an instant he almost didn’t care how much damage he did.
He saw movement out of the corner of his eye and turned sharply, expecting an attack; but he saw just the end of the Kingsblack’s tail as it disappeared into the fog. As though that were a signal the fierce joy that had been running through him vanished and he only felt sick and weak and scared. Stumbling he made his way over to Jones and Shasta, falling onto his knees more than kneeling down, and took Jones’s face in his hands. Jones’s eyes were open but unseeing and Andraeon couldn’t see him breathing. Desperately hoping that he wouldn’t just cause more damage, Andraeon called up the last little bit of his power and turned it to healing Jones.
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