Proto stared at his CRT T.V. and tapped buttons on his old grey controller. Upon getting home, he’d realized he hadn’t played Illusion of Gaia in a few days. He felt like he’d earned some time to decompress.

  Like many games from its era, it left a little mental space free to ponder other things. And currently, Red was filling that space.

  For the most part, pleasant memories of wooded trails, rump, and nose-hickeys were echoing through that empty part of him, like favorite strains of a familiar song. But beneath all that were some troubling undertones.

  All this would be ending soon. He’d be hit by a car. His days here in the breathing world, working as a seer for Flua-Sahng, would come to an end. He’d become a provisional visitor at Somnus’ Palace. He’d once again be in a world of dream visits, misty blue corridors, Breath Tokens, absinthe and armagnac, wild rummy and Euchre—and, of course, Astrid, Lilac, Dahlia, Mayger, Jet, Jag, and their eccentric bohemian boss. And as Proto ranged and dallied with them, safe and secure, fiery pandaemonium would consume the world he’d left behind.

  He had no idea what would happen to the people he knew here. Including Red.

  Worst of all, he couldn’t do anything to protect them. Intervening would risk changing the broader future, sending the world swerving onto some Fate Road even worse than the one he’d already put it on.

  It was good that Illusion of Gaia only left a little mental space for brooding. Because otherwise, Proto might be feeling depressed right now.

  He found that he’d just paused his game and was gazing blankly at the screen. Shaking his head, he stood and approached the window, shoving his hands into his tracksuit pockets.

  He half-expected to find that dull red rock inside the pocket again—Mercune’s “special rock.” Random complications like that always came when things were getting too complicated already. But no, no special rock was inside. Just emptiness.

  “It’s weird, but when it’s near the Fossil, I can feel it absorbing energy,” Mercune had mentioned once about her rock. “Like a battery! Problem is, it’s so slow, it’d take a few hundred years to charge. And I’d be dusty bones by then. Dusty bones!”

  This whole idea—that fallen Elements, like Flua-Sahng, left behind Fossils that charged things with their fey powers—sounded much more “high fantasy” than the world Proto knew. He had a feeling that, whatever the world was like after the Elements wrought their ruinous firestorm, it wouldn’t be a world where motley crews in tracksuits, French waitress outfits and chitons saved the world at cosplay conventions. Not for long, anyway.

  It made Proto feel prematurely old and outmoded, all this musing on the vicissitudes of things. “I’m only twenty-seven, you know,” he crossly pointed out to no one in particular.

  Oh, just twenty-seven? Then why are all your references from the era of cassette tapes and fake wooden paneling? the combined voice of Astrid, Lilac and Dahlia calmly questioned.

  Ah, he hadn’t heard that voice in a while. “Welcome back!” he called aloud.

  They say age is just a number, the voice went on, ignoring him. The corollary is, even if you’re twenty-seven, you still can be an old man, Proto.

  “Nonsense!” he declared. “Prematurely and fatalistically musing on time and mortality has been the province of troubled young men since . . . since Pink Floyd wrote Dark Side of the Moon! Since Hamlet!”

  You’re just making it worse, you know, the voice evenly noted. We’ve gone from 1989 to 1973 to 1600.

  Proto smiled and collapsed back onto his couch. Life had its ups and downs, and it couldn’t have the one without the other. Now, he didn’t feel weighed down by melancholy; just sleepiness. It had been quite a day. With quite a lot of mezcal.

  When he shut his eyes at this point, he had every intention of opening them in a minute or two. Yes. I’ll go take a nice evening walk around the block. Plan how to save the future. Savor the cool breeze! Admire the stars!

  That didn’t happen. Instead, he found himself lulled by the dreamy and wistful strains of Longing for the Past to a place both farther away and nearer.

  It made him feel—well, not that all was right in the world. But like he were in a world where things could be right. If enough people worked to make the world a fairer place, one dream at a time.

  Such were Proto’s thoughts as the star-spangled wastes misted into being before him. As usual, he found himself traversing the red-brown starkness without any conscious direction—roving here, dashing there, but ultimately reaching the thin mist wall concealing Mercune.

  There, like last time, rather than jumping through the mists, he found himself pausing to admire the music’s wistful transcendency. He was so rapt that it took him a while to realize the songs had switched, and what he heard now was Mercune’s singing: “In every vein of every leaf, in seeming chaos, You are there.”

  Last time he’d halted before the mist wall like this, he’d suspected he was doing so because his subconscious had paused to listen to the music. Now, he felt sure this was right. Whenever he kept focusing on the music of the waking world long enough for it to mingle with Mercune’s song, he would stop here to listen, rather than leaping through the mist wall.

  Excitement tingled through Proto. Maybe by starting the dream this way, he could get Mercune to play Truth or Dare again. Last time, playing that had made it easier to ask her bizarre but useful questions. If he could get her to play whenever he wanted, that would be a gamechanger.

  Indeed, the dream proceeded toward Truth or Dare as he expected. Soon enough, Mercune was strolling casually at his side and inviting him to play, a few minutes after shredding up his clothes into small pieces. But let’s back up a minute.

  “I’ll have to put off college while I’m in Dubai,” Mercune had been saying to him. “But that’s fine. I don’t feel ready to pick a school or a major anyway. Something about ancient civilizations maybe?”

  “Good choice,” Proto wanted to say. “That may be useful after modern civilization collapses in a couple years.” But he wasn’t supposed to know about that yet.

  Instead, he replied, “Makes sense. I don’t like to make irreversible decisions before I have to. Comes of playing too many video games, I think.”

  “That’s sensible,” nodded Mercune. “Gotta keep your past close enough that you can get back to it, right?”

  Proto blinked and faced her. “ . . . what did you say?”

  “Hm?” Her young face was all innocence. “Basically what you said, I thought.”

  “Ah.” He shook his head slightly to clear it. He wasn’t sure why those words had triggered such a reaction inside him.

  “You’ve done very well at it though,” she murmured, smiling slightly.

  “Very well at what?” he asked.

  She smoothed her look of wry amusement into artless teenage cheer. “At being sensible!”

  Well, whatever. If she wanted to be Mysterious Mercune today, he could be Play-Along-With-It Proto.

  “Well, we can’t have that!” he declared.

  “What? Being sensible? That was a compliment!” she replied.

  “‘The only value in this valueless world is what you share with someone when you’re insensible,’” quoted Proto.

  “Hm. I can’t tell if that’s an ode to silliness or something much more dire!” said the teenage redhead.

  He shrugged and waved. “Must we choose?”

  “Well, that’s definitely dire!” she observed. “Much more dire than a guy in a tracksuit has any right to be.”

  “And what are you going to do about it!” questioned Proto in his best theatrical villain voice.

  She narrowed her eyes and pointed at him.

  Suddenly, little polygons of red were flashing into being and slashing through his clothing. Within two seconds, his beloved tracksuit was scraps of polyester, wafting lightly toward the dirt.

  “What have you done!” he exclaimed over her giggles, catching a swath that had the Saturn emblem on it and studying it sadly. He would’ve been busy covering himself up, but fortunately, he was wearing a tanktop and boxers.

  “You really care about that tracksuit, huh?” she tittered. Then, half-audibly: “Glad you care about something!”

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  There was that Mysterious Mercune again.

  “Sentimental value,” waved Play-Along-With-It Proto. “My special tracksuit. I take it with me everywhere I go! Almost. You must have something like it.”

  “Something unremarkable but inexplicably precious to me?” She giggled. “Sure, I guess there’s this.” Mercune retrieved her dark red rock from her pocket. The palm-sized stone was so dull it seemed to absorb the light from all around it. “I carry this stone with me everywhere I go. Aren’t I exciting?”

  “Ah, a pet rock.” Proto hadn’t meant for the dream to go in this direction, but was pleasantly surprised that it had. This stone kept coming back for some reason, and he felt it must be significant.

  He made a show of studying the bold red rock. “I think it matches you, but I can’t figure out why.”

  The freckled redhead stuck out her red tongue at him. “Anyway, I cheated a little. This rock is special. It absorbs a lot more power from Flua-Sahng’s Fossil than most things do. But Gramps’ scientist friends have dozens more like it, and this is the only one I care about.”

  “Any reason why?” asked Proto.

  “Besides the fact that I just do?” she replied. “Well, I lost it for a long time, then found it later in a faraway place. I can’t think of any explanation, except that someone out there went to crazy lengths to make sure I had it. And if whoever that is cares about it so much, I probably should too!”

  “So.” She tossed the rock up, then caught it. “That’s how I know we’re meant to be together.”

  Proto blinked, then saw her rubbing the rock lovingly. He shook his head clear. “How romantic.”

  “Isn’t it?” Mercune giggled. “Yes, I’m certainly taking this guy to Dubai when I move there.” She patted the rock lovingly.

  “Oh?” This piqued Proto’s interest, though he wasn’t quite sure why.

  “Yep! I’d like to take Flua-Sahng’s Fossil too,” she explained. “But I guess that’s against the law. They don’t want us flying off with precious relics powerful enough to charge a whole country’s electric grid, for some reason.” She shrugged. “So, this is the best I can do to keep her with me. A rock imbued with her presence. My special rock!”

  Proto absently pondered the implications of that. “If you and your rock are that far away from the Fossil, does that mean it’ll stop absorbing her power?”

  Mercune shrugged. “Sure. But like I said, Gramps’ team has dozens of rocks that absorb her power. So no one cares if I take this one. And I need it. It’s the only way I can sense Flua-Sahng, besides when I’m dreaming here.” She waved at the starry wastes.

  “Oh?” An idea rushed warmly into Proto like a long-awaited breath. “What about when you’re having visions? When you’re a seer? Can you sense her then?”

  Mercune blinked, then narrowed her green gaze. “Yes. That’s another way.” After a long moment, she beamed. “Fortunately, when I have this rock, that’s not necessary. With this, I can sense her presence even if I’m suppressing the visions. You can have it all! Like that Facebook lady said.”

  Well, that was interesting. He felt like he was on the verge of stumbling onto something big—something involving the red rock, Flua-Sahng, her connection to Mercune, and her being a “seer rather than a doer.” But, like a blind man in an unfamiliar room, he wasn’t sure what direction to go in next.

  Before he could even begin to explore that, Mercune spoke up. “Anyway, enough about that. Let’s do something fun. We don’t have long here.”

  “Oh? We don’t?” he absently replied, still pondering the rock.

  “We don’t,” she confirmed. “But you already knew that. Didn’t you, Mister Visitor?”

  Proto wasn’t sure how she knew what he knew. But he’d gotten used to that by now.

  “Alright, have it your way, Mysterious Mercune!” he declaimed. “How will we be having fun today?”

  “Mysterious, huh?” She batted her lashes and touched her lip enigmatically. “I suggest Truth or Dare. Sound good?”

  Yes! It seemed Proto’s speculation earlier had been correct. Pausing in front of the mist wall led to Mercune proposing a game of Truth or Dare.

  Now, he could do that whenever he wanted. He could get her to truthfully answer bizarre questions, without having to spend a whole night tediously setting up each question.

  This would change Mercune’s dream fundamentally. He’d thought he’d learnt the rules of this game. But this whole pause-before-entering-and-get-Truth-or-Dare thing veered wildly outside those rules.

  He felt like he’d played a game to 99% completion, only to discover that the last 1% was a whole game-within-the-game that he hadn’t started yet. This was awesome!

  . . . whatever, you nerd.

  “I said, Truth or Dare!” Mercune smiled sweetly. “You know how to play, Old Man? Or is this too newfangled for you?”

  I watched old movies about kids playing Truth or Dare when you weren’t born yet, Proto mused.

  “Sounds good,” he replied. “Dare.”

  “Alright, Mister!” She squinted at him, lips quirked in thought. “I dare you to . . . wear a star-leaf outfit like Flua-Sahng’s! For the rest of this dream!”

  Proto stared, then sighed, as Mercune fell into a laughing fit. He’d really hoped a tanktop and boxers would be his weirdest outfit today.

  “Come on, Visitor! I know you know how to do this,” she urged. “Let’s see what you can magick up!”

  Proto sighed again and waved. Mists swirled about him, following his frame, solidifying and sharpening, taking on a jade hue. A few seconds later, he was clad from neck to knees in star-shaped leaves.

  “Hail, King of Heaven!” cried Mercune. “Or is it not King . . . ? Is that a skirt, Proto?” Her eyes widened with delight.

  “A kilt,” he grumbled. He’d had trouble picturing star-leaf pants.

  “As I thought, a skirt,” she confirmed cheerily. “That’s my favorite thing about dreams. We can be the selves we were meant to be.”

  Proto nodded grimly, as Mercune continued cracking herself up. “Good enough?” he asked grumpily.

  “Almost. You’re not quite radiant enough.” She pointed, and Proto promptly began emanating light. “There we go. Like a King of Heaven!”

  “Like a King of the Glow Worms,” he grumbled. “Like Rainbow Bright.”

  “I assume those were references,” noted Mercune. “But they flew over my head. Or my age, or my nerdiness level.”

  “Yeah, probably a mix,” confirmed Proto sadly. “Alright! Truth or dare?” He was feeling eager for this part because, unlike last night, he had a question ready.

  Last time they’d played, Proto had asked Mercune where she’d be in two years. She’d tried to determine the answer by using her foresight as a seer. This had sent her into a strange trance in which she revealed potential futures—specifically, all the ways she might die in the coming years.

  Proto believed he understood why this had happened. When Mercune was asked about future events that could play out in multiple ways, she did her best to tell the truth—she foresaw all the ways those events could play out.

  He’d decided to take advantage of that fact, if she ever played Truth or Dare again with him. He knew exactly what he was going to ask—a question that would fit nicely in a playful game, but also get him exactly what he needed to know. He was so excited, he had to hold back a smile.

  “Hm.” She quirked her lips and studied his face. “Dare.” She beamed and shivered her arms with anticipation, turning away. “Time to be a doer!” she murmured.

  What . . . ? A dare?

  They were close to Flua-Sahng already. He could see the mist wall concealing her, a short walk away. There wouldn’t be time for another round of Truth or Dare after this.

  This is not fair. I swear, every time . . . !

  “Proto, why are you staring at me with a stricken look? Were you hoping I’d say truth?” questioned Mercune. “If you were hoping to ask me what color underwear I’m wearing, I’m afraid it’s not your lucky day!” she chided. “Red. Hm? What? Did someone say something?”

  He blinked, as she giggled. Yeah, Helen and Himari would be rolling on the floor right now. And probably contacting the authorities.

  “Nah, I wouldn’t waste a guess on that,” he replied. “I would’ve assumed red or green until proven otherwise.”

  “Hmph. I’ll have you know, Proto, I do wear other colors!” she noted primly, smoothing her green tunic.

  “You’re like a Christmas tree,” he said. “Red, green, and prone to burning.”

  Mercune’s freckled face reddened, and her lips quirked up. “So, that’s what you were thinking up while you were gawking. Well, very clever. And yes, I do wear lots of sun screen, and I am Christmas-colored, and I’m proud of it! Now, my dare, please?”

  Proto held back a sigh. He’d tried to come up with something while bantering, but nothing came. “I dare you to . . . climb that tree.” He conjured up an oak tree nearby.

  Maybe he could come up with some other way to ask her his question while she was busy with this. Or at least salvage something from this wasted dream.

  The teenage redhead raised an eyebrow. “Really, Proto? You have me at your beck and call. Your wish is my command. And you literally tell me to go climb a tree?”

  She tittered as he sighed. “You could’ve at least made it the World Rood or something! You know, that huge hollow tree they were talking about on T.V. a while back. That would be an okay dare.”

  “Speaking of which,” he noted absently, “some friends and I are planning to visit that tree.”

  Mercune glanced at him—then, tilting her head, peered more closely. “Well, they’re going to visit it, right? You’re not.”

  It took Proto a second to parse her reaction. Ah. She must’ve foreseen my accident. She must know I won’t be going on that trip. “Sneaking peeks into my future, Miss Seer?”

  “Sure. It’s not peeking. I could close my eyes and I’d still see it,” Mercune replied, still staring at him oddly. “For example, I can see clearly that your friends will be safe within the World Rood. You won’t be with them, but you’ll be safe too, yes?”

  He shrugged. “Yep, I’ll be riding out the falling fires elsewhere.”

  Triumph flashed in Mercune’s eyes. “You didn’t ask me, ‘Safe from what?’ You knew! ‘Falling fires.’”

  Proto struggled to figure out what she was getting at. She must be wondering how he knew the Elements were coming to wreck the world with fire and storm. After all, when he’d originally visited Mercune’s dream, he hadn’t known that was coming.

  “Somnus’ visitors know a thing or two about the future too,” he blustered, managing to keep his voice calm and light. “You ever heard of the Shadowcaster?”

  “Ah. Good explanation, Mister Visitor.” A strange zeal lit her green gaze. “Here’s the problem, Mister Visitor: ‘Some friends and I are planning to visit that tree.’ Think about it, Mister Visitor. What’s wrong with what you said there?”

  Proto stared blankly. What was she so hung up about? The fact that he’d said he’d be visiting the tree, when in reality he knew a car accident would prevent him from doing so? “Think about it, Mister Visitor.”

  The realization stole upon him so suddenly that he drew a startled breath. He looked at her.

  Mercune’s lips crinkled into a smile. “Yes, you understand now. You messed up, Proto! ‘Some friends and I are planning to visit that tree.’ Who, pray tell? Your fellow visitors at Somnus’ Palace? Going on a nice camping trip up in the breathing world?”

  The confusing timelines had finally gotten him. He’d referred to his trip with Yemos, Mannus and Ausrine like they were all still planning to go together. But this visit to Mercune’s dream would be occurring after his accident. It made no sense for Provisional Visitor Proto to say he was planning to visit a real-life tree.

  “This is all very strange.” Mercune spoke in a faraway voice and regarded the reddening horizon. “One of Somnus’ visitors, forgetting he’s stuck only in the dream realm? Knowing things about the future that he shouldn’t know? It’s all bizarre and hard to reconcile. And I can think of only one interpretation that makes sense.”

  She abruptly turned to face him, waving at their surroundings. “This is not real.”

  Proto tried to muster a lighthearted reply. “Well, that’s obvious, right? This is a dream.”

  “Maybe. But I don’t think it’s a real dream. Certainly not my dream,” mused the fey girl. “Maybe it’s a vision of my dream. But if so, it’s not my vision.”

  “In fact”—she turned straight toward the mist wall concealing Flua-Sahng—“I’m not real, am I? You made a fake me, didn’t you? Since I won’t be a seer, you made another me who might? Well, let’s see how that goes. Here’s a seer for you!”

  Mercune thrust her arms high as though to invoke Heaven’s aid—or, perhaps, to challenge Heaven. Her green gaze rolled skyward.