THE SANDMAN ☞ TRAVIS STOLL

TWENTY

FOUR MONTHS LATER

    THE GODDESS OF DREAMS sits in the back of a taxi, shadows curling and writhing around her fingers like rings of murky stone.

    In the four months she's spent in the Underworld, the seasons have changed. It had been summer when she left, a scorching one at that. She'd seen the rest of the season by creeping in on dreams—her younger sisters starting another year of school, dozens of campers returning to their hometowns after the summer session ended, June bleeding into July and August and September and, eventually, October.

    The leaves on the trees that line the deserted road between Manhattan and the Long Island Sound have changed colors, and the singular farmhouse on this road has put jack-o-lanterns on their porch.

    Even the weather has changed. When she'd surfaced in Manhattan after four months away, she'd needed to duck into a store to buy a jacket.

    The goddess of dreams sits in the back of a taxi, her unnatural features blurred by the Mist, donned in black cargo pants, her favorite steel-toed boots, and a leather jacket that covers her Judas Priest t-shirt. The driver sings along to whatever pop song is playing on the radio, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel to the beat.

    The power within her builds as the tall pine tree grows closer, the distance between her and half of her heart shrinking with each second.

    Her happiness dims, however, when she sees Chiron standing at the top of the hill, arms crossed in something like disappointment.

    The cab stops at the foot of the hill, and she hands a crisp hundred dollar bill to the driver. "Keep the change," she mutters, climbing out and hefting her bag onto her shoulder.

    The walk of shame up the hill would have been worse if she was still mortal.

    "Valerie." Chiron says through clenched teeth. "My office. Now."

    Annoyance crackles behind her ribs. She's spent the past four months in the Underworld, and all she has wanted those four months is to see Travis and Alyssa again. Four months without rock music, without her bed, without her best friend and boyfriend and sisters, and Chiron is interrupting the reunion.

    "No. As much as I love getting yelled at, I think I'll pass." She steps around him and pats him on the shoulder with enough force to knock him backwards a bit. He balks at her newfound strength, shocked by the unnaturalness of it, and she bites back a grin. "I'll see you around, Chiron."

    Gods, it feels good. To finally stand up for herself, admitedly not as spitefully and angrily as she once would have liked to. The Valerie that existed before godhood would have torn him to pieces if she'd had the power she has now. There's something about having your humanity and mortality ripped from you that makes you see things in a different light, though.

    Her boots leave imprints in the grass as she crosses the clearing between the cabins. At the far end of the clearing is Cabin 21, no lights shining out from the stained glass windows.

    She wonders, briefly, if anyone has been in there since she left in a rush four and a half months ago—maybe Alyssa, to have a space to think, sleep, or simply be? Or has Travis stayed in her cabin in her absence?

    She shakes that thought from her head and pivots, walking towards the Athena cabin. It's hard to think about people missing her, wanting to be in her room to help fill the spaces she left. Even after Hypnos had her work on her confidence, her self-worth, it's hard.