Chapter 24: Kai

At low tide, Kai and Baz return to Dovermere’s caves but find the tunnel to the Belly of the Beast sealed by solid rock. The usual hum of Dovermere’s magic is gone, and neither Kai nor Baz can sense the Hourglass or the door. Fearing they might be stranded in the past, Kai urges action while Baz, rattled, refuses to risk reshaping time with his power.

Baz admits he may have caused their displacement and proposes seeking knowledge—perhaps another Timespinner’s research—to learn how to return safely. Both agree they must act cautiously to avoid altering the future and retreat before the tide can trap them underground.

That night, Kai’s recurring nightmare cycles through the printing press, Dovermere, and the sleepscape. Expecting the crowned umbra to appear as before, he instead faces a vision of Baz accusing him, deepening Kai’s guilt over those lost. The absence of the crowned umbra makes Kai suspect it fully inhabits Keiran now.

Fleeing his own nightmare, Kai slips into another—drawn by a familiar tug—and finds a boy sobbing over a bloodied body. A second boy with half-moon glasses confronts Kai, says he shouldn’t be there, and forcibly ejects him from the dream. Kai wakes certain the interloper’s magic wasn’t a Dreamer’s, but that of another Nightmare Weaver.