The scream was everything.

It filled me. The sound that passed between my straining, aching jaws was only a small release of pressure; it was just enough to keep me from exploding with the force of the real scream. There was nothing else inside me. No blood or marrow, no soul, no mind. For moments or eternities, I was the scream.

The death-shriek of an entire world cannot be fathomed, and the knowledge that the world that had given birth to the Red Rose was truly dead almost killed me. It is one thing to be aware of something—it is quite another to know it, to truly know it, because in many ways we own what we know. It becomes part of us. If we are very honest with ourselves, the list of things we truly know is a short one. And that, to my mind, is a blessing.

When I came back to myself at last, the first sane thing I grasped was that I was no longer in my own dream. The Red Rose was showing me a glimpse of the world—Avo above, not only Albion but the entire world!—as it existed beyond her Spire, the last bastion of safety in her universe. She could never leave it, and the only reason I was able to walk through her world was because I did so as a shadow in a corner of her mind so dark and deep that even she could never plumb it. There were things lurking there that were too terrible for her to face.

Maybe too terrible for you, too, Rose, I thought. Tread lightly.

There was no color because there was no light. But there was no mercy, either, and so, against all natural law, I could see. Darkness had swallowed the world whole, just as the Crawler had promised it would, and all light and all life had been annihilated. What remained was a mockery of existence: meaningless shapes and textures with no purpose. My mind tried to make sense of them anyway, because that was its job, but I only found myself surrounded by things for which there were no words. The Void tends to conjure thoughts of cold and blackness, but those things did not exist here. There was only dead neutrality, the complete lack of sensation, and it was far worse than anything I had ever imagined.

If undeath was loss of life but not animation, then it was unlife that I was seeing now. Undeath was common enough where I came from. Hollow men and ghosts, banshees and their children, and the abominations of "Witchraft Mary" Godwin had met me on the battlefield many times. I had seen unlife with my own eyes only twice: once in the deep well where the Dark Seer held court, and again in Theresa's more benevolent presence. Two sides of the same coin, they were; tragic perversions of a single undying consciousness bent on changing the world for good or ill.

This world stank of unlife. It stank of the Void. The Crawler had won. I had never dared imagine what might happen should I have failed my people in the Battle for Albion. It was unthinkable and there had been no room for it in my mind. But I was seeing it now. Here were the rotted fruits of defeat, and I was sampling their poison alone.

The pain was beyond comprehension. Gone. They were all gone. This world was dead and there was nothing I could do about it. I had been such a bloody fool. Lofty words, high ideals…small wonder the Red Queen hated me for refusing to wield the power that had been given me and denied her. If noninterference meant that worlds could come to this, what did that make me? Could I live, owning such knowledge?

I had been wrong. Some things were beyond saving. Sometimes it was too late. Words could not change that. Only actions. And I had the power. Too much power. I could use it and risk becoming corrupted by the idea that I knew what was best for a thousand worlds...or do nothing and hear the cries of the innocent for the rest of my days, as the Red Rose had promised. This was a great crossroads and I knew it. But which way was the right way? Theresa had guided me along the Road to Rule. But the Road to Ruin was wide, and you couldn't see it until you were already walking the path. I wanted to believe that good intentions would protect me, but good intentions had turned my brother into a tyrant.

I realized belatedly that I had fallen on my side, arms and legs drawn against my body in a fetal position. I thirsted for the comfort of reference points, both physical and moral. For the first time in my life, I understood what it was to be lost.

Lost…alone…dead…they mean the same thing. I don't want this. Avo forgive me, but I don't want this responsibility. It is murdering me.

Perhaps my god heard me. I did not know how long I lay there in the shadow of the dead world. I had forgotten the Red Rose, and I was forgetting myself quickly, as well. I was fading, melting into my surroundings, and I did not care. I was forgetting how to care. I was forgetting how to think, that I had ever thought, that I had ever been anyone, at all. I might have disappeared forever, wrapped inside the memories of a woman who lived in my dreams, had it not been for the voice.

"…up, Rose. Rose. Open your eyes and look at me! Rose!"

It was not of this world, and that freed it from the rules of this world. I could hear it, and in hearing it, I very suddenly realized that I existed, and gasped. Pins and needles filled my body as I began to breathe again, circulating blood and oxygen, feeding the little guttering flame of life that was Rose White. I remembered with a sharp jerk that I was not of this world, either, and shuddered. How close had I come to binding myself to it? If it had been cold here, I reflected, I would have been safe. But numbness is insidious, and it can be sweeter than the ripest fruits. The neutrality of this world was deadly poison. The vividness of the Red Rose's dream—the dream she was sharing with me—made me wonder how she had kept her sanity. She may not have set foot beyond the Spire since the Darkness consumed her land, but she was a Seer, and knew things she did not want to know. The proof was all around me.

I pulled myself to my feet. Gravity… Yes, there was a ground. I looked at it, frowning hard. It was colorless and unstable, hard here, soft there, rippling in places and pockmarked with strange holes in others. I thought I was beginning to understand what she had meant when she had urged me to discard logic. Here, at least, there was no place for it. Nothing here made sense because nothing here was recognizable.

But I could feel things in a way that seemed impossible. Not physical things—even the ground had felt of nothing—but emotional ones. The scream that heralded my arrival was still hanging in the air, not as a sound, but as a feeling, one conceived in my mind within the interminable space of the moment of bald knowledge during which I had owned the dead world.

So start there.

I began to walk, following the scream.

There was one landmark I knew I could find, but I would not find it with my eyes. I did not dare trust my eyes here in her mind, in her world. I would have to find the Spire some other way…some less conventional way.

The energy of the scream was raw and wild, out of place in this dead zone. It was pure Will, and it was being drawn from the air by something that fed on Will. I followed its trail, doggedly ignoring what I saw around me—but memorizing it, all the same, for later. It would be safe to think about it later. I felt the terrain shift as I moved. For a moment, I almost understood what I saw—a human leg twisted bonelessly around a signpost, the foot dangling like an empty sock—and felt the inviting caress of madness. I drew a hand across my eyes and breathed deeply, forcing the image and the insanity it offered away.

Not real, I thought, my teeth gritted. Not real. Not. Real.

The leg was gone when I opened my eyes. I let out a long breath and kept walking. I wondered where the Crawler and its children were, now that the world had fallen. What did victory mean for such creatures?

Nothing at all, probably, and don't you dare try to understand it, fool girl. It was Logan's voice, and Reaver's. It was the voice of harsh realism. How I relied on them both! So much that I turned to them even when they were not there.

That's right, I thought. Introspection is the safest kind of thought right now. Examine your mind if you want to keep your skin, Rose White. Look inward. And follow your Will to the hungry Spire. Follow that scream.

I did not know how else to get out. The Red Rose brought me here, and unless I found a way out, only she could release me. I tried not to ask myself why she had not done so already. That question had no place here, where everything hinged on my self-containment. If I could get to her…if I could get to the Spire…I could ask her simulacrum whatever I wished.

I walked for a long time.

Whispers from my own world drifted through the air now and then, and I clutched at them, trying to follow them back to their source.

But I couldn't. No matter how hard I concentrated, the voices slipped away. I might as well have been trying to grab fistfuls of water. During the long silence that followed, I felt despair welling up inside me, threatening to drag me down into the dark. I reminded myself sternly that I had come here willingly. I had come here for truth, and truth was sometimes as desolate and fatal as a long desert.

But this is not the desert, I thought bleakly. This is not Aurora, and there is no Ben Finn to rescue you, nor a Kalin jho Kaor to give you sanctuary. You are on your own, and you can't rely on voices from another world to bring you back to yourself every time you start to drift. You have to make your own safety net. Think on that while you walk.

I nodded to myself. It was sound advice. I believed that I knew myself better than most, but I was finding out new things all the time as I searched my soul, and that was because I was still—and would, I hoped, always continue—growing and changing, adjusting as I learned and experienced life. This hellish place could be useful. In my world, there was too much to do to spend hours "ruminating", as my husband so mockingly put it. But here, where insanity lurked around every corner, it was a survival tool. If I could get out, I would do so armed with new knowledge. The thought lent strength to my stride.

The sky was beneath my feet, now. I balked a little, hissing in a small burst of air. Then, slowly, I put my foot back where it had been and forced its mate to move in front of it. I went on like this for some time, step by step, and after a while, I was able to see the beauty in this particular manifestation. It wasn't every day one walked on water and made no ripples. I knew that was not what I was actually doing, but if I made myself think it was, the walking became easier.

I am beginning to understand you, my Red sister. I truly am. Avo help us both.

The current of the scream seemed to speed up, and I felt the presence of the greedy thing that was feasting on it loom larger and larger as I walked. The color was bleeding out of me, now, running into the air, blurring, elongating the tips of my fingers and the hem of my dress. Part of me was getting ahead, rushing toward the Spire. It had tasted my Will in my scream, and now it wanted the rest of me.

Good, I thought fiercely. Come and get me.

Of course it was ridiculous to believe that the Spire could want or need, let alone move, but I thought I might be getting the measure of this place, at last.

And that was when my footing slipped.

I fell into a shallow pool of viscous liquid and struck my head on something hard. I blinked the stars from my eyes and realized two things: first, that the hard thing was the pool's surface. It would part for my body, but not for my head. The second thing I realized nearly made me retch. I had slipped on someone's face.

The pool was full of severed human heads so fresh that the muscles around their mouths and eyes still twitched and blood still dripped from the ragged stumps of their necks. I scrambled to find the edge of the pool, but the liquid began to suck hideously at my legs. It was growing deeper, and I could no longer lift my feet.

I stretched, reaching as far as I could. Not real! It's not…bloody…REAL!

Despite this thought, I felt the numbness of panic bolting up and down my limbs, and I thrashed against the steady tug of the pool, sinking among the heads. I was hip-deep in them, now, and the liquid was climbing higher still. It slid up my stomach in thick, slimy fingers, deadening every nerve it touched. I made a sound that was half moan, half gasp, and strained away from it, away from the heads. They were crowding around me now, their sightless eyes staring, their open mouths shrieking silently.

They were all looking at me.

I writhed in the pool, numb to the shoulders, and still the liquid rose and the heads closed in. I felt a nose brush my ear and I jerked away. Eyelashes caked with blood brushed my cheek, and there was an awful nudging at the back of my head. A sea of faces surrounded me as the liquid touched my chin. I tried to move, but there was no body to hear my mind's frenzied commands. Everything beneath the surface was gone. I was helpless. The heads bumped and nudged me, offering lips like raw liver and wide eyes that seemed more angry than frightened now. And they saw me. There was no question of that. They saw me, and they were going to hurt me.

Rotting teeth scraped my left temple and closed over my earlobe. I closed my left eye reflexively, then both eyes, crying now, screaming my mind's desperate mantra: It's not real! IT'S NOT REAL!

But the world had teeth, and it could bite. I felt my flesh first stretching, pinched between half a dozen jaws, and then ripping as those jaws closed tightly and dragged. Tongues probed the wounds the teeth left behind, strong and cold and sinewy, heaping pain upon pain. Somehow, in the throes of my mindless horror, I thought of the leeches Walter and I had carefully picked off each other in Mourningwood. Blood-drinkers. Painless, but vaguely repulsive all the same. These leeches were not painless, and there was nothing vague about their foulness.

A set of dead teeth found my tongue, and all rational thought died. The world turned red.

It might have ended there. I might have spent the rest of my days in a coma, or else permanently insane, but for the man in blue who parted that red sea with his impossible presence.

My scalp felt as if it had suddenly burst into flames, and I began to rise. There was a hand snarled in my hair, and it was pulling me out of the quagmire, away from the severed heads, away from madness. I was dragged higher and higher, and when my feet popped out of the murder pool I fell upon the ground, sobbing and bleeding. When I dared look at the pool again, there was nothing to see. My hands flew to my face and felt no wounds.

Not…real…

Oh but it was, it was, and it almost had me.

"What are you doing here?"

I lifted my gaze in response to the rasping voice. It was very quiet and reminded me of dry scraps of paper rubbing together, but it was as jarring as gunfire in this silent world. A man in ragged blue clothes and golden armor so ancient it had gone brownish stood over me. A cowl concealed most of his face, but his hands were withered beyond anything I had ever seen—they were desiccated, as if all the blood in his body had dried up long ago.

"Wh-who—" I swallowed. It was rude to answer a question with a question, and he had saved my life. I gathered my courage and got to my feet. "I am Queen Rose White of Albion. Not this one. Another Albion. A living Albion. I came here through…through psychic contact with the Queen of this realm. She has visited me in two dreams. I'm asleep in my own world, and this is a dream within a dream, I think. But…but I believe that had you not saved me, I would never have woken again. I am in your debt, though I do not know what I can do to settle it."

The figure nodded slowly. "You know many things for one so young," he rasped. "For that I pity you. You owe me nothing, child, but I would appreciate a few moments of your time and you could do far worse than to bide a while with me. As you can see, the Darkness has ravaged this world, and it is like a starving child, now. It is hungry for light and life. I possess neither, so it scarcely notices my existence. You, on the other hand, have all of that and more. I am frankly astonished that you have come this far. Tell me, how have you managed?"

"By telling myself that none of this is real. By reminding myself of the facts, turning my thoughts inward, and…sometimes…hearing the voices of the people in my world."

He cocked his head to one side. "And yet, moments ago you were overcome."

"Yes. It was not enough to tell myself it wasn't real."

"Why not?"

I paused, considering the question carefully. It was not an experience I wished to repeat, after all. "My mind believed…but my heart did not."

"Mmm. You seem a very rational, level-headed girl." He pointed a shaky finger at me. "But you are reckless. You should not have come here."

"I believe you. I came for truth, but I don't know how to leave."

"Truth comes with a price. Did no one ever tell you that? Of course they did. You probably also heard that curiosity kills. Let me tell you something you have not heard." He tapped a bony finger against the top of my head. "You cannot cope with this place. No mantra can save you. Your lower brain—your animal self—has already sensed that the world has your scent, and it is reacting in the only way it knows how. You can put a rein on your instincts, girl, but only a master can ride them when they go wild. They override the intellect often enough in a sane world. But in this one, I wager you've learned that nothing makes sense, and you cannot trust in logic to see you through."

I nodded.

"Yes," he continued, "you are reasonable enough. But it damn near got you killed, didn't it? You are playing with fire out of necessity. By now, though, you must realize that you cannot survive here, no matter what you do. This place means to have you. You're too bright, too tempting, particularly in your condition. You must go back to your own world."

"What condition is that? Theresa the Seer told me that I am sustained by Light. Unendingly. Is that what you mean?"

He looked at me for a long time. The world changed around us, but it seemed unwilling or unable to encroach upon our place. The man in blue and gold was an island of safety. "That could account for it, I suppose," he said at last. "I know life and death more intimately than anyone ever has. But there are still so many mysteries to unravel. I feel three distinct forces inside your pretty shell, girl. Three lives, you have. It could be that one is yours and two are not. The question then is this: who are you carrying around with you? You will know the answer in time, even if I will not. I do rather wish I could. Nothing about your three lives is natural." He sighed almost wistfully. "It makes me feel less lonely, truth be told. Nothing about me is natural, either."

"You're neither living nor dead, and that's why the world won't take you," I said, awestruck. "That's what keeps you safe."

He laughed wheezily, a sound like dead leaves blowing in the wind. "Safe. Yes, I suppose I am. That is part of my curse. I was like you, once. More power than I knew what to do with. I put it to use, of course—built an empire of sorts, a benevolent one, and plumbed both it and myself for every scrap of knowledge I could find to better the world. I went into the Void." His hands trembled a little. "A hard fight, that was. I learned terrible things. I gave my soul for my people. My first step into the art of necromancy. It wasn't enough. I never could resist a little more knowledge. But there was nothing little about it. I learned how to cheat death, girl. But once you do…there's no going back."

"You're the one called Scythe," I whispered. "And you gave your soul to save your people. You gave it to the Sword of Aeons, didn't you? To stop the Court. You are William Black, my forebear."

"That is a name I've not heard in a very long time. It was mine once, yes."

Slowly, I raised a hand to his face. When he did not stop me, I lowered his hood. His eyed were sunken deeply in his skull, the brown skin stretched paper-thin over bone and cartilage. His teeth were bared in a permanent grimace; his lips had wasted away to thin scraps of chapped flesh. Sparse white hairs grew on his head and chin, and strips of blue cloth covered the stump of his nose and a sunken brow. Still, there was something kingly in the way he carried himself. He was tall and strong despite his decaying body, and his eyes were clever. A wave of mingled awe and love rolled over me, warm and heavy. My knees weakened. I felt very, very small. I was speaking with the First Archon, the man who had started the scattered dynasty that ended with me. In a way, it was a little like having my father back.

Father… That had always been a foreign idea to me, a distant dream. Prince Liam never loved me, and although Walter did, he never claimed me, his bastard child. Walter as a mentor was real. Walter as a father felt…like this. I shivered, brushing a bit of thread from William Black's withered cheek in wonder. It was not nearly as fragile as it looked. The corners of his mouth pulled up in a frightful grin.

"Not afraid to touch me," he observed. "That's kind of you. I've not been touched by human hands in centuries. And you're not trying to reach into my mind, either, little Seer. That's a kindness you do yourself. There are things you ought not to see. Not if you don't want to end up like me."

"Let me help you," I said. "Please, tell me how. The Queen is in the Spire. She has been able to reach out to me. Surely there is a way to end your solitude."

He pulled away and shook his head. "No, no, I am quite accustomed to solitude, and someone must stand watch over this land. One of the most important things I've learned through the long ages is that nothing about the world is constant except for change. There may come a day when the world turns and the Darkness lifts. The world has been born anew before. I saw it with my own eyes."

"The wish that destroyed the Old Kingdom. You must have suffered greatly." The words felt pathetic in my mouth. No words could describe the pain. I knew that, myself. My scream still rushed wildly around us.

"It was as you say. But we must speak of you, and how we might return you to your world. Tell me, what was your plan before you fell into the jaws of the Dark?"

I blushed, ashamed. Plan, indeed. Scythe was right; I was reckless in my pursuit of the truth."I sent out a violent burst of Will quite by accident," I admitted. "The Spire is feeding on it. I'm following the trail. If I find the Spire, I should find the Queen within." Though nothing here seems to abide by the laws of "Should"…

"And what has she been telling you in your dreams, this woman? She is dangerous. All of my children have been, I suppose, but this one is treacherous."

I told him everything. And as I did, his grin faded into a grimace of horror.

"Knowledge is a dangerous thing, Rose. It can be twisted and bent to resemble truth." He placed both hands on my shoulders and shook me gently. His golden armor rattled as though it held nothing but bones as he moved. "I tell you, this Queen is as treacherous as a snake. She speaks truths, yes, but her motives are bound to be impure. She has shown her true colors. She sold herself to the Shadow Court for immortality, she enslaved her people, and she led them to slaughter and worse. Look around you, child!"

"That may be," I allowed, "but if she does speak the truth, I can hardly turn a deaf ear simply because the words come from tainted lips. And I have seen redemption and repentance in a man who spent centuries sacrificing innocents to the Shadow Court. Reaver has a true name and a new life in the world I come from. He helped me to destroy those he once served and he survived. It was not too late for him, and it may not be too late for her."

"So Reaver has a soul, after all. That must be quite a thing to see." He sighed deeply. "You remind me frighteningly of myself as a youth, and I'm afraid that is not much of a compliment. I made many mistakes for the sake of the good. And yet here I am, alone in a dead world."

I took his hand. "Not alone. I know now that myriad worlds exist. I haven't the right to interfere with the lives of those who live in them, I know. But she reached out to me. She asked me for help. I have decided to answer the call."

"That is your prerogative. But be mindful that you do not neglect your own world. I—"

The ground shuddered. Scythe wrapped a protective arm around my waist and raised his other hand. Energy crackled at his fingertips.

"What's happening?" I asked, breathless.

"Someone in your world threw you a lifeline, I think. I feel old magic at work. Old and strong. You must go now, or there may never be another chance, Rose. I urge you for the sake of your world to seek me out, wherever I may be. I will give you my council if you will have it. Speak my true name and tell me what you saw here, and I assure you, I will believe you."

I felt the pull of the foreign force, now. It thrummed beneath my feet at regular intervals like the beat of a song. I felt it drawing me away, and like a child, I gripped Scythe's hand even tighter, as if I could bring him with me that way. "I will," I promised. The deep chiming of the invading pulse was growing louder, and I had to shout to be heard. "I will find you. I swear it."

He was fading before my eyes, and he gave my hand a final squeeze before letting go and giving me a good push. "I believe you will," he whispered.

Scythe and his world vanished as the veil that separated dream from reality fell between us.

I woke with tears in my eyes and something dark and damp covering my hands. For half a heartbeat, I thought it was blood, and I drew a breath to cry out—then stopped. My skin was stained purple from fingertips to elbows, and I lay on a white sheet on the floor in a corner of my bedroom. More sheets had been tacked up on the walls, and I stared uncomprehendingly up at them.

Words were scrawled in violent purple streaks over every inch of the sheets.

There were people in the room with me, but no one was speaking. All I could hear was the song of the Music Box, the relic from the Old Kingdom. I looked slowly over my shoulder. Logan held it in his hands, white-faced and shaking. Its siren song had stirred my blood enough to draw me home again. I could only imagine what it was doing to him, and to all the Heroes who now felt the call to awaken.

Their course, like mine, was set. Change was coming for all of us.