She found another set of stairs, this one broad, carpeted, and well-lit. As she climbed, she wound past more windows, all of them open, letting in a warm wind that smelled like orange peel and tobacco, unwashed bodies and frying meat, and other things she couldn’t identify. She was sweating in her jacket and nearly stopped to take it off, but fear, and a burning desire to see her mother, to understand, compelled her on and up.

Soon, the natural world began to intrude: thick moss grew on the stairs instead of carpet, and narrow vines stretched across the walls like gnarled fingers. Flowers grew in fissures of plaster. The windowsills were crowded with bluebells and honeysuckle, flowers that had always reminded her of her mother. Morning glory crept over the ceiling, and blossoms hung like newly formed raindrops, suspended briefly before they fell.

The higher she climbed—until the city was just a shimmering, undifferentiated mass of glass and wood and gold, a manmade patchwork—the stronger the impression was of her mother’s touch, until she was practically running, despite the heat and the shaking of her thighs.

At last, she reached a narrow wooden door at the top of the stairs. Locked. She began to pound with a fist. She wished she could cry but she couldn’t—her throat was dry, her eyes were burning, she felt hollow, as if all her feelings had been burned out.

“Let me in.” Her voice echoed back to her. It, too, was hollow—a stranger’s voice. Had her father lied? Tricked her? She kept banging, and kept calling. “Please. Please. Let me in.”

“Dea? Is that you?”

Dea stumbled backward, swallowing a sob. It was a trick. It must be. She was suddenly flooded with terror—she was more afraid than she had ever been, at any point since her mother had disappeared. She didn’t want the door to open, and she couldn’t stand the gummy seconds that stretched into an eternity while it did. She couldn’t breathe. She wanted to cry. She wanted to run.

Then the door was open and Dea’s mother was there and alive and real.

And yet Dea couldn’t move. She couldn’t go to her.

Miriam was different—so different that Dea felt shy and nauseous, all at once. Her hair was loose and she was wearing a long white dress, very plain, and very different from anything she would have worn in real life. Her feet were bare. She was wearing slender, braided vines around her wrists and arms like stacked bracelets. She looked better, much better, than she had the last time Dea had seen her. She had gained weight. Her eyes were bright. Dea understood that it was being here, in the dream city, that was feeding her. She felt a quick pulse of revulsion.

And in that moment, she knew that everything her father had told her was true.

“You found me,” Miriam said softly, and the moment of revulsion passed. Everything passed but the intensity of Dea’s relief, and she stumbled forward into her mother’s arms. Miriam still smelled the same—like soap and strawberries, like long summer days and shimmering asphalt and all the windows open. Like home. She let herself cry at last. She leaned into her mother’s hug and took huge, sucking sobs, even though everything was okay: her mom would make everything okay.

“I knew you’d come,” Miriam said, murmuring into Dea’s hair, and rocking her at the same time, the way she had whenever Dea was upset as a little girl. “I was afraid you would. Oh, Dea. I’ve been a terrible mother. I’m so sorry. Can you ever forgive me?”

“Yes,” Dea whispered. She knew she should demand answers and explanations. She knew she should be furious. But she had already forgiven her mother for everything. She was alive. She was real. That was more important than anything.

Miriam smiled. But her eyes were sad. “Come on,” she said, reaching for Dea’s hand. “Come inside.”

“Mom.” She withdrew her hand. She hadn’t realized what she’d come to ask until the words were out of her mouth: “Mom, please come home.”

“Honey.” Miriam looked at her with those wide gray eyes, a mixture of affection and exasperation. “This is my home.”

“No.” It was the same thing her father had said and yet Dea couldn’t, wouldn’t let it be true. “Your home is with me. In Fielding. Or wherever we decide to go. California or Santa Fe. St. Louis or New Orleans. You’ve always wanted to go to New Orleans, haven’t you?” She was babbling. She couldn’t help it.

Miriam looked tired, as if she’d had a long day of work at a new job and had just remembered there were no groceries in the house, an expression that was both familiar and seemed insanely out of place here, on a stone landing in a tower high above a dream-city. “Come, Dea,” she said again, and gestured for Dea to follow her.

The tower room was pretty but bare. It was encircled on three sides by large windows that looked out over the city and let in broad sweeps of golden sunlight. Creeper vines and pale white roses had begun to overspill the windowsills, climbing down into the room, cascading like water onto the stone floor. A chair was drawn close to the window. Other than that, the only furniture consisted of a faded rug, a narrow cot, and, to Dea’s surprise, a large and ornately carved mirror.

Miriam caught Dea staring at it.

“Oh, well,” she said. “It’s no danger to me now. Besides, I like to keep an eye on you.”

Dea let herself go to the pull of anger inside of her. “What are you?” she spat. She remembered that Connor had once spoken the same words to her, and this made her even angrier—that she was joined to this strangeness, chained to it. “No more lies,” she said quickly, when Miriam opened her mouth. “I want the truth. The whole truth.”

Miriam sighed. She crossed the room and put a hand on Dea’s cheek. Dea wanted to pull away, but her mother’s hand was cool and dry and familiar. “I’m a dream,” Miriam said softly. “And so are you.”

Then Dea did jerk away. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It means we come from here. It means we belong here, in the dream.” Miriam gestured, as though to encompass the room, the city, the sunlight lapping long and thick across the floor, like a golden tongue. Her eyes were unnaturally bright. “That’s why I had to leave you, Dea. To protect you. Don’t you understand?” She tried to approach Dea again but Dea stumbled backward, until she was pressed against the door. “The dream was always after us. You’ve seen your father now. You know how powerful he is. He wanted us back.”

“Why?” Dea willed herself not to cry. “Why won’t he leave us alone? Why won’t he just let us go?” Her mind was cutting back and forth between different images: Aeri saying the monsters want only what belongs to them; the erratic rhythm of her heart, beating out the tempo of a different world; the relief of walking, like sucking in air after a long time underwater. Then something occurred to her. “You could talk to him,” she said. “You could beg him.”

“It wouldn’t do any good,” Miriam said. “Look. I’ll show you.” Miriam moved to the chair and sat down. Instantly, the vines encircling her wrists began to move. They slithered around the arms of the chair and began to squeeze, digging deeply into her flesh until it began to pucker, until her hands turned white and Miriam gasped in pain. Of course. Her father had said that her mother was safe. But she was still a prisoner. Dea couldn’t believe she’d felt the urge, even for a second, to run to him.

“Punishment,” Miriam said simply. “For trying to run the first time.” When Dea moved toward her, Miriam shook her head. “It’s all right,” she said. The vines loosened all at once and withdrew, curling up around her mother’s wrists and falling still again. Miriam winced, rotating her wrists. “He knows I won’t try to escape again.”

Dea was dizzy. She didn’t trust her legs to carry her, so she sat. “Why did you do it?” she whispered. “And how?”