Taking the scenic route to the tower of sleepers, I fill in any details Pom doesn’t know and reassure him that I don’t magically have the answers to his million questions—and that I’d like to know the why and how of Phobetor and my twin as much as he does.
“Ah,” Pom says sagely when he spots Valerian sleeping on his bed. “You’re here looking for a distraction.”
I brush my fingers over Valerian’s dimpled chin without willing myself to go in yet. “I guess you could say that.”
Pom’s triangular ears take on a light orange hue. “And how are things going between the two of you?”
“What?”
The pupils in his lavender eyes morph into red hearts. “Are you in love?”
I jerk my hand away from Valerian’s face. “Are you crazy? I don’t even know what that would feel like. We barely know each other. Plus—”
“You might be overthinking it.” Pom perches on my shoulder. “Is it because you’ve never had a boyfriend?”
I shoo him off. “I’m thinking just the right amount. You should give that a try someday.”
He lands on the edge of Valerian’s bed. “Just don’t go looking for reasons not to love him. We both know you want to.”
It’s official. I’m getting love-life advice from a looft, a creature that reproduces by asexual budding.
Shaking my head, I dive into Valerian’s dream.
Chapter Two
Valerian is sitting on the floor in a dingy room with paint peeling off the walls. There are folding chairs and a strong aroma of stale coffee. One of the windows is black, but I don’t go for it yet. This dream is a memory, and I’m curious to learn about Valerian’s past.
Making myself invisible, I let the dream progress.
All the chairs except one are occupied by teenagers, and everyone is unaware of Valerian, which means he’s making himself invisible with his illusionist powers. The only adult in the room is a person I’ve met—Princess Peach, Felix and Ariel’s roommate.
Speaking of Felix, his girlfriend, Maya, is here too, sitting next to Princess Peach.
Then another familiar person shows up, someone I never wanted to see again.
Hekima, the illusionist murderer who nearly cost me my life, walks in.
He doesn’t notice Valerian either, so an illusionist can fool another illusionist. Good to know.
“Today we continue the subject of the Otherlands,” Hekima says as a way of introduction. “Let’s begin with a quick review of last week.”
He then goes over what everyone should already know—that there’s such a thing as Otherlands and that they are what Earth humans would call “universes.” He explains that these worlds have different stars and galaxies, and even the flow of time can vary among them. There’s an infinite number of them as far as anyone knows, but the gates Cognizant use lead to only an insignificant subset.
This must be Orientation, a kind of school where Earth Cognizant teens learn about secret Cognizant stuff. On Gomorrah, we just call that school, but I can see why they’d need a special class on Earth, what with the Mandate and all.
“I alluded to the dangers of the Otherlands the last time we met,” Hekima says when he’s finished with the basics. “Today I really want to drive home that point.”
He raises his arms, and pulsing red energy streams from his fingers into everyone’s heads—including Valerian’s.
The room goes away, replaced with what looks like a radioactive wasteland.
Everyone except me starts gasping for nonexistent air. Hekima snaps his fingers once again, causing the world to change to that of a lush forest.
“There are Otherlands where the environment itself will kill you,” he says. “But even seemingly friendly ones like this world can have creatures so dangerous no Cognizant would dare to live or even travel within it.”
A cute deer-like creature runs out of the forest, followed by one of the worst monsters in existence.
“That’s a drekavac,” Hekima explains, but what he says next is lost on everyone because the drekavac catches up with the deer and touches it with one of its pustule-infested limbs.
The deer screams and collapses to the ground.
The drekavac looms over its victim, but Hekima snaps his fingers again, and the classroom comes back.
Why show these children such horror? And why is Valerian here?
“Getting killed by a drekavac is the worst fate that can befall anyone,” Hekima says. “Their mere touch brings about such debilitating pain that weaker victims die from it.” He looks over the horrified faces. “The environment, the flora, and the fauna are just a few of the many ways you can perish in the Otherlands. Some gates are one way only—so no one knows what happens there—and other gates lead to worlds that we, the Cognizant, turned into deathtraps.”
He snaps his fingers again. The classroom morphs into a deserted landscape, where two scary-looking men are chasing someone.
“This is what’s left of the world where Tartarus last ruled,” Hekima says just as the two men catch their prey.