Once she asked her mother about some things she had seen in her dreams, and her mother's face grew a little sad, and she kissed her daughter on the forehead and said nothing. From this, Lucia knew not to mention them again; but she also knew that these were no ordinary dreams, and that what she was witnessing was real.

Through her dreams she learned about the world outside, without ever leaving her room. And yet still she was confounded by the perimeter of the Keep, unable to roam beyond it. The city of Axekami, that surrounded the Imperial Keep, was simply too far outside her experience. She could not dream it. She had only widened the walls of her pen.

It had been a little over a year since she had first begun dream-walking; and not long after that the dream lady had appeared. But a fortnight ago, she had suddenly discovered that there was a new stranger who visited her in the dark. Now she woke sweating and shaking, her body taut with fear at the nameless presence that stalked her through the corridors of nightmare, prowling inexorably behind.

She did not know what it was, but she knew what it meant. Something bad had found her; perhaps the very thing her mother had tried to hide her from. Change was coming. She did not know whether to feel joyous or afraid.

On the far side of the roof garden, something stirred. The gardeners had been working here of late, digging up the dying winter blooms to replace them with summer flowers. A wheelbarrow sat idle by the path, forks and spades laid askew within it. Beneath the thick screen of trees, newly turned earth lay moist and black and fertile in the sun, waiting for the seeds it could impart its life to.