Chapter 181

The estimated travel time that the guides provided was five days, and that would be at an expeditious pace aided by downing stamina potions every few hours. The trip could be made shorter if they didn’t have civilians along for the trip—Sabina, Adrienne, Aria—but Lucinda’s goal was to get Rosalie to safety, which meant out of Treyhull and under her protection. A delay in travel time wasn’t something she would refuse them, though neither did she seem happy by it. A full squad of wayfarers would have cut the trip length dramatically. Still, her goal was Rosalie’s safety, and that had been achieved.

There were, unfortunately, no shortcuts through the Fractures—not to Zoey’s knowledge, though maybe there were some—and so, the party simply needed to trek through the constantly shifting landscape of pocket dimensions, following their guides.

After the chaos of yesterday, Zoey appreciated the reprieve. Just trekking along. Low-stress and action-free. As was a risk with the Fractures, monsters popped up, but with four wayfarers—much less Lucinda—the creatures were dispatched with little effort. Their guides kept them in the safer areas anyway. While mapping the Fractures was an impossible task, with zones constantly linking and unlinking, the whole purpose of having guides was they were up to date on the local pocket realms. They kept everyone moving in the right direction and avoided the troublesome zones. Though with Lucinda’s request, they didn’t hesitate to head through some of the more dangerous places, if it meant speeding their trip up—since ‘some danger’ meant ‘no danger’ when accompanied by the higher-advancement wayfarer. Zoey still didn’t know what progression she was, but it had to be pretty high.

The trek was made more pleasant since Zoey had something productive to keep her occupied. Sabina. Of course, her quizzes weren’t quite as fun as the ones she normally held for Zoey in the privacy of her workshop, but being questioned and instructed on various parts of alchemy was better than being left alone with her thoughts for the many hours of trudging along through rough terrain—as came with finding and leaving shards.

Delta liked to hover in on the lessons, too, though Zoey doubted it was because she’d taken an interest in potion-making. Instead, Delta had seemed immediately taken in by the tall, stern antlered woman. Zoey didn’t blame her; she’d been drawn by those serious gray eyes too. Sabina, on the other hand, much disapproved of the distraction Delta provided to Zoey during her tutelage—or, at least outwardly, Sabina did. Her first stern scolding of the fox-girl had anything but the desired effect, though. Delta seemed to freeze up entirely when Sabina leveled that serious gaze at her and told her to stop ‘sidetracking her pupil’ in a firm, but chiding manner. After nodding mutely, Delta shared a wide-eyed look with Zoey, which Zoey could interpret easily: it seemed Zoey wasn’t the only one who was weak to the ‘serious older teacher’ thing that Sabina had going on.

So despite trying to fend off Delta as a distraction, Sabina only roped Delta into even more of her lessons—and the foxgirl constantly tried to get herself scolded by Sabina with silly remarks and ridiculous questions. Zoey honestly couldn’t tell whether Sabina was playing into the dynamic by chiding the foxgirl whenever she spoke up, or whether her disapproval was genuine. Maybe it was a bit of both. Either way, the two took to each other in an amusing way.

On the third night of their travels, as they were setting up camp and more than halfway to Mantle—and in Deepshunter territory rather than Striders, for the first time—Rosalie snuck Zoey a message in her notebook. It read:

‘We need to talk. The whole team, without Lucinda overhearing. Can you do that with a dream potion?’

Zoey, of course, was instantly perplexed by the request—since Lucinda seemed a very genuine ally of Rosalie’s, so what did she have to hide?—but that night, when she settled down, she did as Rosalie had requested.

As with many aspects of her class and the items they’d earned, Zoey hadn’t put the dream potions to great use: the downside of limited time and a frantic schedule. But, from what she knew, she suspected she could drag multiple people into the same dream, even if it hadn’t been part of her experiments.

When she was sure everyone had drifted off, she took a dose of the strange-tasting concoction, then tucked the vial away and closed her eyes, letting the effect seize her consciousness.

Soon, she was floating high above in that murky blackness. Except this time, there wasn’t an ocean of colorful orbs—each a person’s dream—beneath her, but rather, just a handful. Her traveling party. There were others sparsely spread in the distance, representing others making trips through the Fractures.

Zoey itched to take a peek at everyone’s respective dreams, but she wasn’t going to violate her allies’ privacy in that way. While she’d taken some liberties to do so with strangers back at Treyhull, she didn’t know Maddy, Sabina, Adrienne, or Lucinda well enough to invade on them, as she might Rosalie or Delta—if their orbs were pink. Though, her curiosity was piqued seeing the varying hues, the images in the swirling mist inside the dream orbs.

Instead, she experimented with how to merge dreams. Floating around in her shapeless body, she dragged Rosalie’s and Delta’s orbs together, using the binding ‘strings’ that emanated from her to them. Their relationship links. As she’d hoped, it was as easy as that. The two orbs squeezed against each other, then popped into a single larger one. Zoey grabbed Maddy last, then dove into the dreamscape.

She popped into existence in a cramped, run-down, dingy apartment. Her three teammates were there, all of them looking disoriented at having had their dreams commandeered. And also at the boost of lucidity that came with the dream turning ‘real’.