Proto headed to his room, expecting to hear the wistful strains of Longing for the Past. It had become a routine recently. But instead, Dream of the Shore Bordering Another World was playing on loop.

  He paused and stared. Huh. He must’ve left his music on this morning.

  Well, whatever. It was a good song from a much-overlooked gem of the PSX era. Perfect to fall asleep to—which was convenient, because he was feeling ready.

  Within minutes, Proto had stripped down to his underclothes and was lying on his bed with his eyes shut. Visions of his past and future at Somnus’ Palace drifted through his mind.

  But, as his consciousness slipped from the breathing world toward the realm of dreams, those visions changed, altering strangely, reforming themselves toward a new and unfamiliar future. The same people were there, but they were all doing different things.

  He tried to remember them back into place. But he found, after a moment, that he no longer was sure what that place was—and, indeed, whether it ever had existed. Had he just been dreaming?

  Lost in such elliptical musings, Proto eventually realized that he was walking through a barren plain full of drifting mists. His body was moving of its own accord, navigating the starlit wastes. This was odd but no longer as disconcerting as the first time.

  In what felt like no time at all, he was sprinting toward that mist wall and leaping through it, toward the vague figure of a red-haired girl on the other side. He heard her singing: “In every petal, You are there. In every vein of every leaf, in seeming chaos . . . ”

  He struck the wispy whiteness, and abruptly, full consciousness returned. With it came the terrific and terrible burden of memories forgotten—memories of his possible futures with Astrid, Lilac, and Dahlia, each mutually exclusive, yet somehow all remembered. He winced beneath that weight, which was more than any mortal was meant to carry.

  “You . . . ” The red-haired girl leveled a green gaze upon him.

  Then, she smiled blithely. “Hello there.”

  Gritting his teeth, Proto forced himself into the moment. “Finally! I was afraid I’d be lost forever out here! Where’s the nearest road? I can barely see ten yards with these mists.”

  She tilted her head at him. “Why would you say that? We both know I’m just dreaming.”

  He blinked in feigned surprise.

  “But it’s impressive that you got this far,” she went on.

  And so the dream continued. It’d become so familiar that Proto could play his part without even thinking about it.

  As he did so, he seemed to hear Dream of the Shore Bordering Another World playing in the background. Perhaps a part of him was still awake and hearing it.

  Eventually, though, he’d have to make his tweak. He’d have to try something new and see what happened. This was A/B testing, after all.

  And now the time had come.

  “Hey! I’ll have you know, Gramps says I have a talent for physics!” Mercune wheezed the last part out in an elder’s warbling voice. “But no. My interests lie elsewhere.” She waved with queenly dismissiveness.

  “How do you help him then?” he asked.

  “I do all sorts of things! Like this.” She waved a radiant red hand, and the mists parted like the Red Sea. “Also, I taught Gramps what the Fossil was. Which I knew because Flua-Sahng told me.”

  “So you’re a bit of a seer and a bit of a doer,” observed Proto.

  Mercune blinked twice and stared at him. She had the look that dreamers usually had when mists started rising rapidly. “ . . . have we met?”

  “In real life, you mean? I don’t think so,” he replied, struggling to be honest without giving anything away. She seemed to see through lies.

  Mercune peered at him, lips quirked with thought.

  Then, she shrugged blithely. “Maybe! Maybe part-seer, part-doer,” she finally said. “But I think I have to pick one or the other. And if so, I’m pretty sure I’m a doer! Actions speak louder than words, right?”

  “Do they?” he asked.

  She pondered a moment. Then, she clapped her hands in front of her face.

  Moving in tandem with her, two giant hands made of mists clapped in his face. He stumbled backward and fell.

  The teen threw back her red head and laughed. “I don’t know, Mister Visitor, you tell me!” She waltzed along, and—grumbling and rising—he followed.

  They made their way further through the mists. Proto had lots of topics to cover with Mercune and little time to do so. But he couldn’t stop dwelling on their exchange a moment ago, and he couldn’t think of any good questions about anything else.

  “Why do you think you have to pick one or the other?” he finally asked, as they approached the mist wall concealing Flua-Sahng. “Seer or doer, I mean?”

  She halted and glanced at him. “Still on that, are we! One giant clap in your face wasn’t enough?” She raised her hands into a pre-clap.

  Her lips curved up as, wide-eyed, he took a step back. “Just kidding!” She lowered her hands.

  “So, it’s complicated,” she went on. “But imagine that, hypothetically, as a little girl, you passed out one day and had a vision of weird things happening in a thousand years. When you woke up, you were far from your house. And when you got back, you found it had burnt down and your parents had died.”

  “Then, going forward, you started passing out randomly and having visions like this. Visions about battles and massacres. Men being born and dying. Kingdoms being founded and ruined. And monsters too! Soulless things. The kind that grown-ups would be scared of, let alone a little kid like you!”

  “But then, one day, you figured out a way to resist having those visions. It was hard, but you could do it. The key was, focus on doing, not seeing.”

  “Of course, you could still foresee things. Sometimes, it was handy! The problem was, each time you had a vision, it became a little harder to resist the next one. Eventually, it’d become too hard to resist.”

  “So, you had a choice: Accept the visions forever or give them up forever. If you gave them up, then you could live the life you wanted to live, doing what you wanted to do. If you kept having the visions—well, who knows what would happen?”

  “What would you do?” Her green gaze widened upon him, blazing with the sheen of starlight.

  Faced with the zeal in her eyes, Proto felt like a bug pinned to a board—and he was about as speechless as one too.

  After a moment, Mercune smiled and turned back toward the mists. “Hypothetically!” She flicked her hand forth, and the wall of wisps blew backward into nothing.

  Beyond them stood Flua-Sahng, her long red hair falling and curling about her, radiant in her raiment of star-shaped leaves.

  For once, Proto barely noticed her. He still was struggling to wrap his mind around what he’d just heard, like he were wrapping a gift but he’d cut too little wrapping paper.

  He’d thought he understood some things, but now felt he needed to start over.

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  Who is she? he wondered, peering at the lithe teen strolling toward the Queen of Heaven. What is she?

  “Helllloooo!” Mercune called cheerily. “Sorry I’m late. I brought a friend and he was slow.”

  “What, taking his time getting dressed? It doesn’t look like it,” mused Flua-Sahng, gesturing toward his tracksuit.

  “Nope!” sighed Mercune. “He’s just yappy as a teen girl on the phone after a first date. Believe me, I know! ‘Chit chat chat, where did the time go’?”

  Flua-Sahng tittered and eyed Proto, who nodded grimly. And all is back to normal.

  “It’s alright, Proto. I wouldn’t have you any other way,” the Queen of Heaven consoled him.

  “Me neither,” agreed Mercune. “But I might call you Protea, okay? And invite you to my ice-cream-and-Disney nights.”

  Proto eyed Flua-Sahng, as though to say, Must we let this continue? But the radiant woman just suppressed a laugh and shrugged.

  “You’ll like my friends, you’ll fit right in!” Mercune bantered on. “Well, almost.” She narrowed her eyes at him and snapped her fingers.

  And, just like that, Proto was wearing a starry nightgown, complete with the planet Saturn on his left breast.

  “Perfect!” cried Mercune. “Now you’ll fit right in.”

  This time, Flua-Sahng’s laughter couldn’t be suppressed. “Oh, Proto. You poor thing.”

  “It’s Protea!” the teen corrected. “Speaking of which, it’s sad, what am I gonna do when I’m in Dubai? Disney-night Zoom calls? Just doesn’t feel the same!”

  Flua-Sahng’s lips quirked up. “Somehow, I get the sense it wasn’t Protea doing all the talking.”

  “True, it takes two! And I admit I’m one. Probably one-and-a-half,” replied Mercune. “By the way, how do you know Proto? You said his name before I did.”

  “Mm. No time to cover that, this time.” Flua-Sahng gestured toward the far horizon. It had flushed to crimson, and comet-like lights were streaking across it. “In fact, it’s time you bade farewell to our nightgowned visitor, yes?”

  “‘This time’?” frowned Mercune. “Anyway, yes, I guess I’d better.” She turned to him sadly. “It’s been fun, Protea! Good talk, deep talk. Next time, we’ll sing Let It Go and eat cookie dough, and you can meet my friends, okay? But make it soon, or I’ll be at Wraithing Research Center in Dubai.”

  “Can I wear this?” Proto gestured at his starry nightgown.

  She giggled. “Oh, Protea, you have to wear that! It’s my gift to you.”

  Gift? He blinked, wondering if he’d just inadvertently changed the dream’s ending.

  But then, Mercune reached into her pocket. “Well, one of my gifts.” She lifted a dull red rock. “Here’s my other gift. Might not look like much, but it’s very special! I lost it a long time ago—someone stole it from me!—and then I found it again, somewhere far away. The world’s a magical place!”

  “I’m honored to receive this special gift.” Proto accepted the rock and bowed slightly, as Mercune tittered.

  He thought about giving a gift in return and seeing what happened, but decided he’d done enough new things today. Adding more would make it hard to tell what mattered and ruin the A/B test.

  But . . . maybe just a question is okay.

  “There’s something else special about this rock, right?” he said. “Something about the rock itself, not just losing it and finding it?”

  “Yes, in fact! I’m glad you ask,” Mercune answered. “It’s weird, but when it’s near the Fossil, I can feel it absorbing energy. Like a battery! Problem is, it’s so slow, it’d take a few hundred years to charge. And I’d be dusty bones by then.”

  “Oh, Mercune, you’ll never just be dust!” chastised Flua-Sahng.

  “Dusty bones!” cried Mercune. “Okay, fine, I’ll be roving the Mists. All drifty drifty over there!” She waved toward the mistscape. “Is that better?”

  The Queen of Heaven smiled. “And . . . we’re good.” She waved a radiant red hand at Heaven, and Mercune melted into evanescing mists. The crimson glow on the horizon faded back to starlight.

  “Sad. I feel like I’m getting know her,” mused Proto. “But she won’t remember any of this.”

  “I know the feeling,” Flua-Sahng noted.

  He looked at her face, and for an instant, he seemed to see her eying him wistfully.

  Then, her expression went smooth and light. “After all,” she continued, “when you spend all day seeing possible futures, you end up full of memories no one else will share. It’s quite a treat having even one friend to share them with!”

  This reminded him that his entire time at Somnus’ Palace was one such possible future, which existed only in his memory—all those times with Astrid, Lilac, Dahlia, even Somnus.

  Proto shook away the thought. He didn’t want to dwell on that.

  “Speaking of possible futures,” he said, “how’d I do? I felt like it went well!”

  “Yes, it felt that way, didn’t it? Maybe even better than last time,” Flua-Sahng replied amiably. “Unfortunately, I can’t tell.”

  Proto frowned. “What do you mean? Can’t you foresee how things would play out after this? Isn’t that what you’ve been doing?”

  “Oh, certainly. I see it clearly—the world ends in a few hundred years. Life is gone. Void,” Flua-Sahng replied. “The orkish hordes sweep from the Sveitfyl Hills across the continent, without House Lofthungrian to hold them in check, and so the Children of the Mist will fall before the Children of the Dust, and—”

  “Wait, orkish hordes? What?” asked Proto. “And what do you mean you can’t tell? That sounds pretty awful to me!”

  “Long story. Do you have a few decades?” she sighed. “No. No, what I mean is, all possible futures I explore now—even the best ones, like the one I showed you—end in a void in a few hundred years. And it seems to be a result of some choice you made today.”

  Proto stared. “ . . . you mean, something I did in that dream just now?”

  “No, Proto,” she answered sadly. “Something you did up there in the breathing world. And I’m afraid I can’t say what it was. Can you?”

  He just continued staring blankly.

  “Probably something you said, or did, that drew on your knowledge of the future. Something you’d never have done otherwise,” she went on. “You have to be careful doing that! It’s the nuclear option, as they say, using future knowledge. Powerful, but prone to make a mess of things.”

  Proto felt numb. “Does this mean everything I’ve done was for nothing? We’re doomed no matter what?”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t go that far,” she replied. “The choices we can make are infinite. I can’t explore them all. It’s possible that some set of choices leads to a Fate Road that avoids this. But . . . I haven’t found it. Which means it’s awfully hard to find.”

  Proto struggled to make sense of all this. “You know, it would help if I knew what happened in these doomed futures that you’re seeing.”

  “Well. I can safely share a few key points, I think,” said Flua-Sahng slowly. “So. Step one. Fyrir’s crew of scientists misuses my Fossil and ends up prodding my fellow Elements into a fury that wrecks civilization worldwide.”

  “Step two. In Version A, your original visit to Mercune’s dream, my Fossil is handed down along Fyrir’s male line for a millennium. Same in Version C, when Mercune told you Ausrine was her babysitter,” she explained. “The Fossil being handed down is important, for complicated reasons that I probably shouldn’t explain.”

  “Today’s dream visit seemed to end similarly to Versions A and C. Let’s call today Version A-2,” said Flua-Sahng. “Today, Mercune gave you her red rock as a gift. One would expect the same outcome as A and C—things go nicely for a millennium, followed by the void.”

  “But instead, here in Version A-2, the world ends in a few hundred years. And that’s because, earlier today, you steered the world onto a new Fate Road,” she explained. “And that road seems to hit a dead end in a few hundred years no matter what you do in Mercune’s dream!”

  Proto shook his head. “I don’t get it though. All I did today was go on a date with Red. It’s not like I spoke with Mercune or something. Why would my actions today affect all this?”

  “Because—hm. I’d best not say too much.” Flua-Sahng smiled apologetically. “You made a mess of things by bringing future knowledge into the present. I could easily make it worse by sharing too much with you. Let me ask you instead—what did you do on that date today?”

  Well, you saw it all, right? mused Proto, resisting the urge to roll his eyes.

  “In short,” he said, “I went to a whisky tasting with Red, and we ate birds and drank whisky, and the presenter said sinister things, and Red and Ausrine made fun of me in Japanese, and—oh. Oh.”

  Proto recalled what he’d pieced together about Yemos’ future: He’d be going on that trip to the hollow tree—the “World Rood,” Dahlia had called it while shadowcasting—and he’d survive the Elements’ fiery destruction inside. Yemos had invited Proto to join him on that trip. And Mannus and Ausrine.

  “This is something about Ausrine, isn’t it?” Proto asked excitedly.

  The Queen of Heaven beamed. “Good. It’s best for you to figure these things out. Much less risk of messing things up that way!”

  “So, Ausrine was going to survive the world ending inside that hollow tree,” reasoned Proto slowly. “And I guess she was going to do something important afterward. But now, that ‘something’ isn’t going to happen. And I have to figure out how to make it happen again. Am I on the right track?”

  “There’s my Proto!” She squeezed his hand warmly. “I knew I picked you for a reason.”

  “Ain’t it the truth!” Proto waved flippantly, resting a hand on his hip.

  “Proto, did you steal that line and pose from Astrid?” chided Flua-Sahng.

  “No comment,” he replied.

  “It’s okay. I won’t tell on you.” She tittered. “Alright. You have lots to think about, and I have lots to do. But, as always, it’s been a delight.”

  “Wait, one more question.” Proto had been meaning to ask this since this evening.

  Her brow raised. “Oh? Well, let’s hear it.”

  “So, Red and I just happened to run into Ausrine today,” recalled Proto. “I mean, I know unlikely things happen sometimes. But doesn’t that seem . . . really unlikely? Or really lucky?”

  “Yes. Yes, it does seem that way, doesn’t it? It must be Lady Luck, mustn’t it?” Flua-Sahng shrugged lightly. “Who else would be working behind the scenes to ensure that dramatically implausible events play out in the necessary way for the future to be saved?”

  Proto stared. Was she referring to herself? Or just being playfully mysterious? Neither felt quite right.

  “ . . . how many others like me do you have working to save the future?” he finally asked.

  She smiled warmly. “Others? More than you could count. Like you? None in a thousand years.” She squeezed his hand again.

  Well, that was nice. He’d let it go. Her explanation made sense. . . . And yet it feels like I’m missing something.

  “Aren’t you always?” she observed. “Till next time, Protea.” She curled her hand at him a couple times. “Do wear that again sometime!”

  And, by the time he’d glanced down at his starry nightgown, twin streams of mist already had swirled about him and were bearing him away into the mirk, tumbling topsy-turvy through a grey obscurity shot through with starlight.