Angel didn’t look up from painting her fingernails licorice red. “Despite using their magic in opposite ways, Nightmares are still governed by the same magical laws we are.”
“But I’ve heard of Nightmares who can enter and exit a Mortal’s home by appearing and disappearing like lightning.” When Darius had invaded my bedroom back on Earth, he hadn’t gone through the window at all, but instead had appeared out of thin air.
Angel paused in painting her nails and Iris looked up from her pet potted geranium she’d been feeding spoonfuls of honey. “It’s undoubtedly faster than traveling to Weavings by cloud, but traveling that way requires advanced skill and quite a bit of dream dust that not many can afford.”
Muttering curses at the extent of that Nightmare Darius’s power, I finally found the invisible keyhole and shoved the key inside with more force than I intended. The key jammed, requiring us to wait for a locksmith to come and coax it out before we could resume my training.
When not practicing, I spent many dull hours restlessly studying thick volumes of magic until all the words blurred together. The books Stardust had smuggled from the Dream Library had behaved like ordinary books on Earth, but once within the Dream World they revealed their enchanted nature.
At first, I’d thought Basic Charms and Spells entirely ordinary, but after an unusually exhausting and long night, I fell asleep and drooled all over Chapter 19: Basic Spells for Everyday Use, after which the book had the annoying habit of shrinking itself to the size of a matchbook and hiding whenever I searched for it—taking cover in a dusty corner or beneath my bed—until one day it disappeared altogether, and Angel and Iris had to persuade the disgruntled librarian to let me borrow another copy from the Dream Library.
Another book, The Melody of Magic, habitually played music with each turn of its pages, and the soothing lullaby in Chapter 22 always lulled me to sleep. This occurred for several days until an exasperated Stardust finally had to read it herself and summarize the finer points.
After completing my first week in the Dream World, my informal tutors finally deemed I’d mastered enough of the basics to begin studying Dream Weaving, the subject I’d been most eager to learn.
“Every Dreamer has a weaving assignment, as weaving provides dream dust, the source of all our power.” Angel leaned over my shoulder to point to a chart in Weaving for Wusses that I’d propped open. “This chart outlines the value of dream dust as it’s used in our currency.”
“Why does magic need a source of power?” I asked. “I did magic long before I had dream dust.”
“Those who possess magic can always summon their powers, but dream dust is required to actually use them,” Angel said. “Dream dust enhances a Dreamer’s abilities and allows them to perform more advanced magic than they could otherwise.”
Now that she mentioned it, I’d only been able to view dreams before; I hadn’t been able to capture any portion of a dream until I’d taken some of Mother’s dream dust.
Weaving turned out to be based almost entirely on stitchery, an area in which I wasn’t completely without skill. Mother had taught me needlework since I was young, but while I knew the stitches, the weaving itself was far more complicated than I could have ever imagined—one didn’t just sew a dream together like one would a patchwork quilt. I needed to learn which ones were used to create specific dream effects, the uses of different types of thread, and how to combine all these techniques to weave quickly and efficiently. There were multiple layers of details used to create even the simplest of dreams.
Though the entire subject of dream construction was fascinating, despite my needlework background I found the entire process slightly overwhelming, and had a difficult time remembering all the various stitches and what each was used for. Even with all my cramming, I had a difficult time retaining all the information. It was enough to get rather discouraged, though I had no other choice but to persevere. I spent hours practicing on fabric—for the dream flowers were too delicate and precious to be used on mere practice—stitching until my fingers ached.
In addition to mastering the stitches, I needed to understand the variety of flowers used to construct dreams. Iris frequently took me along when cultivating in order to tutor me in the different types of dream plants. The fields were full of flowers of different shapes and colors, and as we wandered the rows, Iris animatedly explained how each was used and how to combine them to weave realistic dreams.
“Details make the dream more vivid, which creates powerful emotions for the Mortal experiencing it, which in turn yields more dream dust.” She walked through the fields, pointing to the various sections of flowers. “While the fields contain any detail you might need, layering smaller ones to build your own from scratch allows you to make each as precise or dreamlike as you need them to be, which creates more powerful dreams.”
Iris encouraged me to spend a portion of my study hours in the Cultivating Fields to familiarize myself with the types of details grown there, but I found it much more effective to spend this time on Earth. Despite my long nights, I always managed to rise early enough to dream-watch, immersing myself in each unique dream, studying each to see if I could discern how they’d been created.
Despite my busy schedule, I still found time to explore the wonders of my new home. I never tired of seeing all the fantastic places, seeming straight out of a dream themselves. My favorite excursion had been a few days after my arrival, when Angel and Iris took me to Mirror Mirror to find my own style.
The shop was built
