Arya was safe now, as safe as anyone could be, but she slept as lightly as she had back in those awful days in the Riverlands. Winterfell was the same, but also was not, and that made it frightening and strange. The old Winterfell had burned, and they had only had time to make the most basic of repairs before the snow set in. Rough furnishings and a drafty roof. She had her old quarters, the same three rooms she had lived in all her childhood, but all the servants were different. She still did not know most of their names, and a part of her did not want to learn.

The King had a daughter named Shireen. Arya had been forced to learn her name, and her awful mother's name as well. For some reason, Jon had demanded the girl be left at Winterfell with Arya and Sansa and Rickon. Perhaps because it was safer here, or perhaps because she was a hostage for Jon. Arya did not know.

Shireen had been given the other room on Arya's hall, the room that had belonged to Robb before. She cried at night. Arya could barely hear it from her chambers, but it was enough to keep her awake. What did she have to cry for? All her family was still alive and everyone was kind to her. They all ate dinner together and lived in the house together, but she always seemed in too low of spirits to talk any. She always looked half-dead with weariness, her blue eyes heavy and red.

"Everyone expects me to be friends with her," Arya complained to Sansa as they were walking in the Godswood. "Just because we're the same age and she's someone important."

"You make friends with everyone else."

"I make friends with people who are fun. Shireen is dull and sad and I don't like her. Her mother doesn't like me, either."

Sansa pursed her lips. "Jon depends on this alliance to keep the peace, Arya."

"I know that." Arya frowned. "But why can't I have gone with Jon? I heard Alys Karstark was riding with Jon's army."

"Alys is a lady in her own right. Someone needed to lead her levies. But Jon needs us here."

Arya felt her temper flare. "He needs you here." Sansa sighed, and Arya felt guilty immediately. "I am trying to do better," she promised. "I'm just tired all the time and I don't care for her."

"We all are," Sansa said, then paused suddenly. "I have been having the strangest dreams…"

Arya stopped. She had never told Sansa about her dreams, neither the wolf dreams nor the dreams about Robb. She could not say why. Sansa would not have laughed at her or said it was nothing. She was much kinder and more serious than she ever had been before. But Arya had kept quiet about the dreams anyway.

"I dreamed I was Jon last night, dreamed I saw him fighting the Others. He killed one, barely, but then had to flee." Sansa sighed. "How very like one of my songs. I suppose I haven't left such childish fancies behind me entirely."

Arya did not laugh. "Do you ever dream of Robb?"

"All the time, of late." Sansa smiled. "But those dreams are different."

"I've had them too."

Sansa turned to her in surprise.

"I've had them too," Arya repeated. "Dreams about Robb, by the fire?"

"My dreams are in the Great Hall-"

"But he is there, yes? And he feels alive, and he talks to you. He is just the same as he was only-"

"Older," Sansa said. "Older and more tired, though perhaps a bit wiser too. You have the same dream?"

Arya looked away and frowned. What could she say? She had suspected for a long time, she had even talked to Jon about it some, but still, it seemed too incredible. Too incredible? What could be too incredible now, after everything else that had happened? She closed her mouth. "It's nothing," she said almost automatically.

"It isn't nothing," Sansa said. "You've been having them too. The exact same dreams."

Arya grimaced and cursed under her breath, hating her weakness. There was a knot of fear in her heart, pushing up into her throat, and in the end, she could not stay silent. "You know what Jon said, about the myths of the skinchangers, and how that power flows in our blood as well? I think sometimes, Robb must have had that gift too. The wildlings say that sometimes when one dies, their spirit goes and lives within their second skin for a time, so-"

"Grey Wind!" Sansa's voice was quiet, almost disbelieving. "So that ghost I see in my dreams is really… part of him then?" Sansa's face pinched with emotion and she was silent for a moment. Arya knew what she must be feeling. When Robb had died that had been an ugly wound, a wound that had hurt even more than father's or mother's death. To hear that he might be alive… That was like ripping open the wound all over again.

Sansa looked up at Arya, "But why can I see him? Why can you?"

Arya scowled and crossed her arms. "Why should I know?" The Lone Wolf dies and the Pack survives. Father had said that. "Maybe he can still cross over. Change skins. Or maybe it's us that's crossing over to Grey Wind. I don't know."

Sansa frowned. "I'm no skinchanger, though."

"What makes you say that? Because you…" Arya bit her tongue. "Just because you've never had the wolf dreams doesn't mean you couldn't. Rickon's had them too, I asked him. He said both him and Bran had them."

Sansa looked away, and Arya pushed her shoulder, forcing her to look back at Arya. "Robb's own ghost is visiting you in your dreams," she snarled, "Don't you ever doubt that you're part of the pack."

Sansa's eyes registered surprise, and then for a brief moment, something passed between them, a kind of deep understanding. Arya felt she could feel her sister's heart as if it were her own like she had briefly felt back in that awful castle with Lord Baelish. The moment passed, as sharp and as intense as a knife, and then Sansa blinked a few tears from her eyes.

"I know," she said. "I know we've all made missteps, I know that doesn't matter anymore, but sometimes I need to be told what I already know." She breathed deeply and blinked a few more tears out. Her face had suddenly turned quite red. "Did you tell Jon about this, Arya?"

Arya deflated a little, "Not really," she said. "Talked some about the wolf dreams. Didn't think to ask about Robb until later, and by then he was gone." Gone North to fight the Others, and who knew if he would ever return. If Sansa's dreams were like the wolf dreams, they were true, and if the Others had forced them back, that was a bad sign indeed.

Sansa realized it at the same time. "You think my dream of Jon…"

Arya nodded. She pulled her cloak around herself more tightly and rubbed at her eyes. Cold wind, no sleep, and bad news. She wanted to go back to her bed and sleep again, but a part of her expected that she would not find any rest there. Sansa pulled her into a hug.

"We will get through this," she said. "We will get through this. Eight thousand years and the Starks still hold Winterfell, just as we always have. Jon's lost one battle but he's hurt them, Arya, and he lives still. I know that much. That means he can win."

Arya shut her eyes to stop the tears, grateful that Sansa could not see them.

Sansa kept talking. "We've lived through darker days than this, Arya, you know that. Rickon is alive, Jon is alive, Bran may be alive as well, and even Robb is with us in spirit. Even if the days feel dark, there's more light than we once thought there was."

"I hope Jon kills them all," Arya said. "I hope he ends them. The Others, that Fake Robb, the Lannisters. I hope he beats them all and makes them pay."

Sansa hugged her tighter. "I know Arya. I know. And he will, in time. We will." She gave Arya one last squeeze before pulling away and looking her in the eyes. For a moment Arya felt as though she was about to be lectured by father again. "But Arya, Jon and us have a lot of enemies, and it's a long work to set the world to rights. We have to do one thing at a time, do as much as we can while we can."

Arya sighed. "I'll talk to Shireen."

Finding the princess was not difficult. It never had been. Shireen kept to her quarters even in the middle of the day, attended to by only a few select companions. Usually only that awful fool and a few quiet maids. Perhaps no one else wanted to be with her. Perhaps everyone expected her to die before she became someone important. Arya thought of poor Robert Arryn, then, and shuddered.

Be kind. Like Sansa. Sansa had been able to be friends with Robert, and Shireen was not half so terrible as he had been. Perhaps the princess was short on companions because she preferred to be alone. Arya could understand that. Arya did not much care for the Queen's men herself.

"How old are these crypts?" Shireen said, her voice unsure. The idea of exploring the crypts together had been Arya's idea of how best to befriend the girl. She had invited her and her fool too and had been happy the girl had agreed to it. The crypts had always been a favorite among the serving girls Arya had played with in years past, and Arya knew almost all the names of all the statues. Shireen seemed to think little of it, and Arya had to fight not to resent her for that. These old faces aren't of her family, Arya reminded herself. It was only natural to be afraid of all the terrible Kings of Winter.

"These ones near the surface aren't so old," Arya explained. "Can't be any older than the hill itself, and that wasn't raised until just before the conquest. The older tombs are farther down, and not all of them are kept up so well."

"The dead don't lie so low, I know, I know," sang Patchface. "They lie atop the snow, I know, I know."

The hairs on Arya's neck prickled. The fool scared her, much as she wanted to deny it. What a thing to sing about. She had seen the Mountain's men and Bolton and a hundred other monsters, but something about Patchface made him worse than any of them. Perhaps because he was here in Winterfell, in the home that had always been safe before.

"They've carved the statue for Father in White Harbor," she said, pretending to not have heard Patchface. "It should arrive soon so we can bury him next to his brother and sister, who are down here as well, at his request." She thought of Robb, whose body was still running about down in the south. "We've talked of burying mother here too, even if we'd have to get her bones back from the Tullys."

Shireen's face turned even more sour than usual and Arya again felt the urge to hate her, but she repressed it. The girl could hardly like hearing of so many that had died, when her father was still away fighting the Others. Coming here had been a mistake. Years ago, death had been something quaint and far away and this had been her favorite haunt, but the place meant something different now.

"There are crypts like this in Dragonstone too," Shireen offered. "Though not so old. And they're all Targaryens so I always felt as though they must all hate me. Though I suppose they're my ancestors." She shrugged. "Father never paid them much mind."

Arya smiled, grateful to finally have gotten something out of her. "Did they have any skulls of the dragons there on the island? I saw Balerion's in King's Landing once."

Shireen nodded. "A few. There are five stone dragons for every bone one though. The whole castle is made of them."

Arya remembered Maester Luwin telling her of how Dragonstone had been made of twisted black stone, impossibly smooth and covered in dragons. She thought then that she would like Dragonstone well. "Do you miss home?"

"Sometimes," She paused. "I do not miss the dragons though. I had dreams about them. I have dreams about them still sometimes."

Arya stopped in her tracks, remembering her conversation with Sansa from the day before. But no. Everyone had dreams. Shireen was no Stark and many folk dreamed of dragons. Still, Arya could not help asking, "Bad dreams?"

"I always dreamed they were coming for me, coming to devour me. But now... Now I dream they are coming for Father." She looked almost sick just thinking about it. "I know you can hear me at night."

"We all have dreams. They don't mean anything. Come, look up at Cregan here, isn't he a terrible scary old man? Maybe you'll have dreams of him now instead of the dragons." The Old Man of the North, Lord Cregan had been called, and he had always been her favorite, with his great flowing beard and his fierce expression.

Shireen smiled weakly, and Arya felt like that was a triumph. "Maybe so," she said, "My cousin Edric, he always used to joke at the dragons like that. He would run up to them and roar at them, dare them to come alive and eat him. Then he'd come back to me and say 'see, they are too lazy to wake up!' He always made me feel better." She paused, and the frown reappeared. "That never worked against the dragons in my dreams though."

Arya did not know what to say to that. Her dreams had always been her refuge, her certainty in uncertain times. The wolf was strong above all else, strong and fearless, and every morning when Arya woke she had felt more of the wolf inside herself. She did not know if she would have survived without that source of power. But Shireen looked as though her dreams had gnawed her away from the inside and left only a husk.

"Sleep with one eye open, wake with three eyes wide," Patchface said, smiling stupidly.

Arya ignored him. Fear cut deeper than swords, and she had to know. "What happens in these dreams? There are dragons and they eat you? Or they eat the king?"

"I really don't know if I should say…"

"Nobody to hear you except me, Patchface, and all the statues. Your minders are up at the entrance but we're too far in now for them to hear us." Arya did not think they must care about their charge much if they left her alone like this, but she was not going to complain.

Shireen paused, still unsure, then said. "The dragons aren't the worst. They're not the worst part of my dreams. They only show up at the end, anyway. Before then it's…" She stopped and her face grew red with embarrassment. "You'll think me mad."

Arya felt a knot tighten in her chest. "Haven't you been paying attention? Half the world is mad these days."

Patchface laughed at that and began hopping in a circle about them, and Shireen shook her head and gave one of those rare smiles again. "Sorry. I am sorry that I am so miserable. It's only, I haven't told anyone in so long, and-." She drew in a breath. "Sorry."

Arya leaned in, her mind racing, even while she tried to keep her face calm. She tried to imagine how her mother might comfort Shireen if she were here. "It's alright," She said. "We have plenty of time."

"I hear voices," Shireen managed, "Before the dragons come in the dream, it's always voices. They tell me the most awful things. That I should kill myself, or that I should poison the food, or that my father will die, or that he will kill me. Some of the bad things they say come true, too. Not all, but some, and when they do, I-" She paused again, sobbing and wiping her face with her sleeve.

The knot in Arya's chest had become a black void. Shireen's dreams sounded like her dreams with Robb, but what could that mean? Had mad Aerys been a skinchanger? Was it his voice that Shireen heard?

"I think they're devils from the hells sometimes. Come to punish me for not being good enough, come to push me to Faith. But I pray and pray and the Seven never answer."

"Pray to the Seven, pray to the gods, pray to the crabs of the drowned one's halls," said Patchface.

"They're not devils," Arya said, suddenly certain. Shireen looked up sharply and Arya cursed her tongue. She should not have said that, not in the way she did. Jon would not like it if she told everyone about the skinchanging. She would have to come up with some other sort of explanation. "The old stories are full of sorcerers who visit people in their dreams," She said dismissively. "They say the Carons who serve your father could do that. If you're hearing voices it's like as not some sorcerer in service to one of your father's enemies, much as Lady Melisandre serves your father."

Shireen's eyes widened. "A-a sorcerer? But Maester Cressen always said…" she frowned. "I have had these dreams as long as I can remember, but father has always had enemies." She paused. "The bad dreams are more frequent these days though. Sometimes I feel like they're here, in the waking world, watching me and judging me. I don't know who I should tell, or what I can do, or why I cannot be free of them. I-" She burst into tears. Patchface started bawling too as if he knew what she was feeling.

For the first time, Arya found it in her heart to feel sorry for the girl. So many years, so many evil dreams, and starting at such a young age. Arya knew well enough the darkness that lay in her own heart, the thoughts she had nurtured at times. If there had been a force encouraging her, pushing her like Robb had, but pushing her to evil, would she have listened to them? She had done enough evil on her own.

"If I'm right, it's just some dumb wizard," Arya said, her voice more confident than her heart. "We can tell Melisandre about it when she gets back, but whoever is afflicting you isn't half as great as she is." Truthfully Arya hoped to find a solution before then. She would need to talk to Sansa, she would…

The leering, drooling face of Patchface loomed close. Too close. He had been circling them this whole time with his silly sideways shuffling, but now he had come directly to her. Arya stepped back.

Patchface stepped forward, faster than she could retreat, grabbed her by the neck, and slammed her against the stone floor. She saw stars and her breath came short. Shireen screamed.

"Come with me, Come with me," the fool sang as he gripped her by the neck. "Come with me to the Drowned One's Halls." She raked her nails across his face but he seemed not to notice and kept singing in that strange tuneless voice. Spots appeared in her vision. She kicked his chest, kicked his gut, kicked him between his legs, but to no effect. Shireen was trying to fight him. Arya could not reach his face anymore, so she reached, reached as if she could will her arm to become longer so she could claw out his eyes, his mad, mad eyes…

…and then all at once, she was cold. Lying on her back somewhere strange. The force around her neck was gone. There was something over her, a weird gauzy, insubstantial thing, like a shroud made of cobwebs. She clawed it away and threw it aside, and then she knew where she was.

She was at the campfire where she and Robb had spent so many nights together. The wolves were there now, and… and so was Robb, but he did not greet her with his weary smile. He was walking, coming over to her with concern on his face and a hand on the hilt of his sword.

"Are you alright?" he asked, "Arya, are you-"

"I don't know," she said. "I might be dead. I might be dying. How would I know otherwise? I-I must have passed out." She cursed. "Shireen! She was trying to help me but I hope she had the sense to run, or he'll get her too."

"Who was that?" Robb asked. "I can see some of what happens to you, but not all."

"I don't know," Arya sobbed, tears coming fast. Was she dead? "It was Patchface the fool, but there was something else behind his eyes. I don't know what it was, but it was trying to stop me from knowing, I think."

Robb looked to her side and picked up the strange shroud that had covered her when she first arrived. He turned it over in his hand. It was a mass of gauze, a light, and tortured mess dyed red and green. Robb shook his head and set it aside to pull Arya into a hug. "We can figure this out," he said. "Here in this… space, there are ways you can reach out to others."

He led her to his spot by the fire and said, "See, if you but look into the fire and imagine someone close to you, like Sansa or Nymeria, you will be able to see through their eyes."

"This is… You've been doing this all along?"

"Yes, yes, But there's no time to explain. Just be sure to not put too much of yourself into the flames, or it will hurt both of you."

Arya blinked tears out of her eyes. Too much, it was all too much. Robb was half-alive, and she was half-dead, and the smoke from the fire made it difficult to see through to the flames. She thought of Sansa first but discarded that idea. Sansa had been up at the top of the Great Keep, too far away to do anything even if she had wanted. Nymeria was closer, and Arya had walked in her skin before. Arya thought of the wolf dreams, of the feeling of power she had felt while running through the forest hunting and killing.

And then she could see it, suddenly. She was the wolf, she was Nymeria. Arya found her already running in the crypts themselves, chasing a scent, chasing Arya's scent. There were people behind them, chasing and stumbling and shouting, and Arya could easily guess why. No doubt they had heard the screaming, but they did not know the way, and Nymeria did. She had run in these crypts as a pup and she had not forgotten them. Arya dared to hope that perhaps Nymeria could stop Patchface from killing Shireen, at least.

But there was no need to hurry.

Three figures lay on the floor of the crypt in various states of incapacitation. Shireen sat in the corner, hugging her knees and crying. Patchface lay on the ground, eyes wide open and motionless, staring at the ceiling vacantly, and the Wolf could smell the scent of death upon him. As for Arya's body, it lay next to the Fool's and Nymeria could hear it breathing, if shallowly.

Nymeria came close and nudged the body with her nose, but the body did not respond. Arya tried to reach out to herself, as she had with the fire just before now, but she felt a cold sucking sensation, pulling her back. "Arya, Arya!" someone called her name, she could not tell who, but it was no one in the crypts.

She gave into the pressure to pull back, and suddenly she was with Robb by the campfire again. He looked afraid, now. "What is it?" she asked, but then she felt it too. Something was watching them. Something in the dark outside the campfire. She could feel the hairs on the back of her neck prickle as its cold gaze settled upon them. She felt dread and knew all too well where she had felt it before. This was the madness behind Patchface's eyes, the voice that had been whispering in Shireen's ears all her life. A creature with a power like her own but a thousand times more ancient and terrible.

"We know you're there!" she exclaimed. Fear cut deeper than swords. "And you can't hurt us, your little fool is dead and I killed him!"

Terror spiked within her against her will. She could feel the thing's hate, feel it like a crashing wave, but then all at once it was gone. Arya fell to her knees. She felt exhausted, like she had been crying for a month without stopping to sleep, but at least for the moment, she felt safe. The Thing in the Dark was still there, watching, waiting its time, but it had retreated at least a little and she could ignore it for now.

"I've felt the presence of that thing before, if only slightly," Robb said. "It's something like me, I suppose, a ghost walking between dreams." He laughed uneasily. "Well, perhaps not very like me."

"My body's alright," Arya said, her voice shaky. "I think I can return whenever I like, now that that Thing is gone. I must have touched it when Patchface attacked me. We need to-"

A shape appeared at the edge of the firelight, a small boy's form. Arya's voice died in her throat and she stared in amazement. "Bran?"

It was Bran, though he seemed to be a foot taller and ten years older than when she had left him. He was walking, too, and smiling shyly as he waved. "Hello," he said. "I've been looking for you all for some time now."