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“Hey, so, are there spaceships and aliens and like ray guns and stuff in Dream?” Ash glanced at Nic for a moment before turning her attention back to the road.
“Yes.”
“Whoa,” I said. “Wait, really?”
“Anything humans have ever dreamed exists in the dream realm. It’s merely a matter of how common and strong the dreams are as to how prominently and frequently they occur. Aliens, like cryptids and the prettier types of vampires and whatnot, live within the boundaries. Nightmares and more pleasurable dreams support them. Though, are they truly alien if they’re created by human thoughts?”
Ash opened her mouth to argue, tilted her head, then snapped her mouth shut again. “That’s a deeper question of philosophy than I care to think about the day before I help commit a crime.”
“Is it really a crime if we’re retrieving an object that belongs to someone else?” Nic’s lips twitched up into a smile.
“I suppose if we want to go with that argument, the museums should start returning a lot of things to their former owners.” Ash shook her head.
The prince nodded. “Likely.”
“I would very much like to go for a ride in a spaceship, even if it’s an imaginary one,” Ash mused.
“You would become dreambound if you entered Dream,” Nic cautioned.
“Yeah, I know.” Ash sighed. “Still—”
“I can influence your dreams if you would like a particularly vivid one tonight,” Nic said.
“Can you do it without it turning into a nightmare?” Ash glanced at the prince. “You know, since nightmares are your thing and all?”
“Ahh, point. I can ask Robby. I believe jesters have that power as well.”
“I still can’t believe you assholes kept this from us,” Ash grumbled and sent a mock glare at Geraint.
He didn’t rise to the bait, shrugging instead. “Like I said, if I could have told you, I would have.”
“I know.” Ash pushed out her lip in a fake pout. “So, what other interesting things can we talk about?”
“How do dreams end up in the conscious realm other than going through arches? We’ve got to figure out how to get back. Maybe talking about that will spark an idea.” This part of our plan had me more worried than anything else at the moment. Dio needed to get home, and we had no idea how to accomplish it. Robby had managed to get out the traditional way, but unless we found Bloody Mary, we weren’t going to get back through a mirror.
“There are places where the boundaries between the conscious realm and Dream are weaker. Places where a great deal of disturbance has happened in the past, for example, haunted locations.”
“Wait, ghosts aren’t real?” Ash interrupted.
Nic shrugged. “I’m not sure I’m the best authority on what is real and what isn’t. My entire world is formed from imagination, after all. However, some ghosts are formed from people’s dream energy. Not all.”
“Okay,” Ash said.
“Yes, so, as I was saying—”
“Sorry,” Ash mumbled.
Nic chuckled. “I’m not mad. In any case, the power of enough belief can draw dream energy through to the conscious realm and form it. Sometimes it pulls creatures through, sometimes it simply takes energy that has already leaked through and gives it shape. As I told Ember, there’s a fair chance the clown and the vampires we faced had never even been to Dream.
“We usually recruit more powerful and loyal dreams to help keep these rogue dreams in check. That is normally the entire purpose of the guards and royalty, if you want to call us that, in the Dream realm. Keeping rogue dreams from getting too disruptive or powerful in the conscious realm. Things are out of balance since we haven’t been able to perform our duties in the last ten years or so.”
We fell silent, contemplating Nic’s words. Ash finally turned the radio up a little, and I stared out the window, one hand in Nic’s. We weren’t far from the main part of Pittsburg, and the suburbs had crowded out the cornfields.
The school van that Robby drove was right in front of us. So far, the trip had gone without incident. Hopefully that continued, but I wasn’t going to hold my breath.
I let my mind wander while Ash drove, considering what Nic had said. Weakness in the boundaries.
“Is there a way to tell where the weaknesses are?” I asked after a lengthy silence. “And is it something we can get through?”
