She hit the ground with a scream, cut off at impact. Vines wrapped themselves tightly around her feet. “Help me!” She shouted. “The vines are alive! They’re moving!”

  Cursing, The Shadow leapt down into the stairwell covered by overgrowth. “That’s new,” he murmured, and began ripping at the vines with his talons. Violet against green, flesh against plant. He shredded each tendril that came against her, only to find them replaced by more. Hawk did not passively accept his help; she fought back too, kicking, screaming, clawing, dodging. “Is this helping?” She shouted at one point.

  “Yes. Do not stop!” And he helped her to her feet, drew her back from the hungry vines. They followed her as she was drawn back. They seemed drawn to her flesh and warmth like to a lodestone. Shadow tilted his head back and shouted through the hole in the vine-carpet above, “Henry, we need fire!”

  “What?” his head appeared. “They’re moving up here too—” and he had to dodge back as a vine almost wrapped itself around his neck. “Holy fuck!” He said.

  “It’s a dream, Henry!” She shouted at him. As if she, too, weren’t backing up to avoid the growing fabric of reaching, starving plants. They wove together as they climbed across the golden cobblestones, and the bones that lay upon them. They moved with a dreadful crunching sound as those dry, old bones collapsed under the weight of vegetation. The flowers opened all around them, the hungry roses with glowing hearts.

  “Don’t look at the flowers,” Shadow said, and then, louder, to Henry, “She’s right! It’s a dream. It’s your dream. If you want, you can manifest fire.”

  There was a scuffling sound above them as Henry dodged another plant. “Those roses are opening up around me. What happens if I touch one?”

  “Don’t. Manifest fire, Henry. Think about fire. About heat. About a torch in your hand. Close your eyes and think of it.”

  “I’ll close my eyes and think of fucking England, it’s not going to work!” Henry shouted. “I’m not magic!”

  “Lucid dream, Henry!” She shouted. “You absolutely can control it!” And then she had to dodge again, as a vine covered in yellow trumpets and pale leaves made a go for her ankles. She jumped up, then down, crushing the verdant greenery underfoot. Quieter, she said, to Shadow, “Can’t you do it?”

  “Fire is a struggle for me. Argon has most of that ability,” He said this with an expression of hunger and yearning. But of course you’d yearn for the thing that could solve your current problem. He grabbed her and pulled her back from the vines, then went to work with his talons and claws.

  “I can’t do it!” Henry howled from overhead. “I can’t manage it! I’m not magic!”

  “Yes, you can, Henry. You just need to forget about us. Let your mind become enveloped by the idea of fire. Imagine a torch.”

  “I’m not going to imagine a fucking torch while my friends are dying!” He shouted.

  The scent of roses and jasmine was thickening, drawing tight across the throat. It made Hawk want to sleep. She wanted to touch the middles of those glowing roses. She wanted to lay down upon the tender vines. So what that they would wind through flesh, latch onto bone, drain her of life and leave her body on the ground as a silent scream? She would have rest, and suddenly every bone in her body wanted it.

  “He has to be consumed by the idea. He’s right. He can’t do it while he’s worrying about us.” Shadow said.

  “What do you mean, consumed by the idea?” Hawk said. God, she was so tired.

  “I mean just that. You can’t think of anything more or less than manifesting fire. I chose a torch because it seemed to be the easiest thing. But I suppose in your world, you don’t remember torches.”

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  She shook her head. “They mostly exist in…in movies.” And in a burst of inspiration, she whirled around and shouted up the hole, “Indiana Jones, Henry! Think about that scene in Indiana Jones!”

  “What scene?” he shouted. “The one where he’s shot out of a nuke or the one where he’s fucking eating eyeballs?”

  She and the Shadow were pressed together now, with no protection save for his claws and her ability to step around plants, which was getting surprisingly difficult. So she just shouted, “Indy, the torch is going out!”

  There were a few heartbeats of silence above. And then a flickering of light as Henry’s memory of one of the more famous scenes in cinema kicked on. “Oh,” She clearly heard Henry’s soft amazement.

  And then he leapt down the hole in the vines, torch in hand. He thrust it into the heart of the glowing rose-plant, which screamed. It actually screamed as it writhed in the shadows. Then he tossed the plant to Shadow. “Can you use that?”

  His smile was feral, his movements sure. “Oh, yes,” he nearly growled, and before Hawk could stop him or scream, put his hand into the flame. It did not burn him, but lept across skin like an obedient pet. Holding the fire, Shadow spun on heel and angled his hands with the flame between them. And suddenly that fire was a torrent, a gusting tornadic storm of flame, and it caught in the plants immediately. “Get her out of there, Henry.”

  Henry did not need to be told twice. He dragged her back up the hidden stairs, through the widening hole and out to the fresher air of the dream-world’s ziggurat. A considerable number of giant plants were one fire up here, too. The roses, Hawk noted, burned blue. As if she didn’t need any more evidence that these were not true roses.

  Of course they’re not true roses. They’re part of a dream.

  Moments later the Shadow emerged like a god emerging from the sea. And he promptly broke that impression by saying, “What the hell was that about, Hawk?”

  “You said he needed a memory. We only really see torches in movies, and that scene is the one nerds like us are guaranteed to see—and to remember pretty strongly. I don’t know a single person who, hearing that quote, isn’t immediately fixated on the image of Marion Ravenwood’s torch.” She paused. “Except maybe you.”

  There was a long pause. Then, in a very curt voice, the Shadow said, “It involved…snakes. Didn’t it?” Another pause. “And a question about the floor…why it moved.”

  Henry and Hawk both exchanged a look, then began to grin. “I didn’t tell him about Indy.” Henry said.

  “I haven’t mentioned movies at all.” Hawk said.

  Henry stood up and dusted fresh plant ash off his clothes. He stuck a hand up in the universal sign of the high five. “Put it there, my man. You’re starting to remember.”

  Shadow ignored the hand. “We ought to keep moving…but I don’t know where to. That path,” He jerked his head at the staircase. “It’s meant to lead down to the acolyte’s quarters. I did not see a way through. There is a wall where a door ought to be. Mattias created all this as a trap.”

  Hawk nodded thoughtfully. “Maybe Henry just…makes a way there? Manifest Mattias instead of a torch?”

  “Except I don’t know this Mattias.” Henry said. “I never got to meet him. No, Hawk. Hear me out. The real Henry knew him. The guy that’s dead on a slab. He knew Mattias. I never got a chance to meet him. I exist from a point in Henry’s life before all this. Before the Glass outbreaks, before whatever the fuck this is happened to Alex. And I’m not good at this. You had to shout movie quotes at me to get me to make a torch. I don’t think there’s a quip in the world that could help me manifest an entire person.”

  Hawk felt herself slump, and even the Shadow began to look…defeated.

  “No, you can’t be giving up.” Hawk said.

  “I should be proud,” Shadow said. “Mattias has managed to create a maze that confuses me. But I cannot find him. He has done something unpredictable.”

  Hawk, automatically, said, “No one is unpredictable. They’ve just thought around corners.” She paused. That was an Alex quote. It didn’t hurt, reciting it, and that did hurt, a little bit. Mentally, she took her romantic angst and shoved it off into a corner. She could deal with that later. Mattias was important now. She chased the Alex-thought down to the memory. “Or else…they’re the one who put the corner there. You said you taught Mattias how to build a mind-maze, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you told him to use the most unpleasant memories he could think of to hide behind?” She said.

  “Yes,” He sounded less sure now. “Where are you going with this?”

  “Mattias would know from the beginning that he was building this mind-maze against you. Why on earth would he follow your instructions?” She thought furiously for a moment, then got an idea. “What exactly did you tell him?”

  “You’ve already summarized it. Take the worst, most unpleasant memories you have—” And he stopped.

  “The ones you have. We’re chasing Mattias through his own memories, but I’ll bet good money he’s actually hiding in Henry’s.”

  And the Shadow’s confused look broke into a hungry, hunter’s smile.