Chapter 29: Emory

Emory enters the sleepscape, activates her Selenic Mark with salt water, and calls for Romie. Romie answers, appearing exactly as on initiation night, but feels insubstantial, as if separated by a film. They argue over secrets and blame, then reconcile enough to trade urgent information.

Romie explains she was swept through the Hourglass when it opened and has since been trapped in an in-between realm tied to the sleepscape while awake. She has cared for Jordyn, who was struck by an umbra, and resisted a song calling her to an elusive epilogue she believes is key. Travers and Lia, hearing a different voice calling them “home,” were each seized by a riptide of darkness and vanished. Emory warns Romie not to follow; Travers and Lia returned to their world only to die.

Jordyn then appears, dazed and injured, reaching toward a shadowed claw. Despite Romie’s sprint to stop him, an umbra’s tendrils pierce Jordyn, and darkness explodes around them, ejecting Emory from the sleepscape.

Emory wakes in the Belly of the Beast cavern with Baz—and the umbra has followed into waking. It lunges; Baz yanks Emory aside and shouts for them to run. The creature wounds Emory’s ankle before recoiling from Baz’s lantern light, which then shatters. Emory seizes the ember’s glow with Lightkeeper magic, but when she faces the umbra’s fathomless eyes, its power floods her. Terror lances through Emory as the nightmare bears down.