The Nightmare Factory: The Dream Engine, #2

ONE

Misperceptions

SPEAK INTO THE NUANCE, MISS Mew, the Liaison said. 

Cora, flustered, glanced at the tall man to her right before turning to face the brass horn mounted to the tabletop machine. The table was to her left. Speaking into the horn while answering the man to her right felt awkward and unnatural. She knew the machine heard just fine when either of them spoke in any direction; to occupy herself and soothe her nerves, she’d been watching the Nuance’s fabricators recreate every word they’d said on the long, vertical roll of paper winding at the table’s rear. She’d been here for two hours already, though, and was beginning to suspect that Liaison McDaniel had set up the room this way on purpose — because he wanted her uncomfortable. He wanted her doing whatever he told her, natural or not, just to demonstrate who was in charge. 

Cora rearranged her hands in her lap then turned to the funnel’s brass-and-black mouth. The roll, despite the transcription’s tiny text, was several feet wide and already many more feet long. Who would ever have the patience to read it all, Cora couldn’t imagine.

I don’t know, she said. 

A team of tiny fabricating arms that tapered into styluses rapidly scrawled, CM: I don’t know. Directly above the finely inked scratches, clear as day, was a repeat of the same thing she’d said a moment before. 

Yes, yes, you keep saying that. The Liaison paced before Cora, his brown shoes polished to a shine as they trod, hands knit behind his back. Yet up until Miss Doyle’s appearance, you were inseparable. So said both your mothers when I interviewed them. And your fathers, for that matter. 

Like I said, we’d had a few fights, she said. 

Cora was feeling increasingly uneasy. Despite all her time with the Liaison lately, this was the first time McDaniel had mentioned interrogating her or Eila’s parents. His tone — which the Nuance machine would be unable to capture — had turned his words into a threat. Cora already knew he’d spoken with her parents, of course, and had assumed the Liaison had conversed at length with Juliette and Atwell. But now she wondered what might have been said, and what she might now contradict. Cora’s parents were wealthy, but Eila’s were more: they were well known, well respected, and powerful. If the Liaison had the political muscle to drag the heads of two ministries in for questioning, she suspected he might have the power of persuasion to get them admitting things they shouldn’t … or wouldn’t want to. 

Tell me about the fights, Miss Mew, McDaniel said. 

I’ve already told you, she said. And she had. At least three times. In three separate questioning sessions before this one. 

McDaniel stopped pacing and faced Cora. He was wearing what might as well have been the official Constable Law uniform: a dark suit and a tie knotted high above a white shirt with a tall collar. He had dark, suspicious eyes and a mustache that dove from the ends of his lips before connecting to his sideburns. His chin was bare save a patch beneath his lower lip, and a scar across its end. 

"Let me rephrase that. Tell me about the fights, Miss Mew." 

They were nothing.

Again, Cora rearranged her hands in her lap. She’d worn a wide red dress that had entirely too many ruffles, and cursed herself for it. She hadn’t known McDaniel would call her in again today, but she almost should have, and dressed accordingly. The dress made her feel too young, too feminine, too foolish. She should have worn something more dire — something that might make the Liaison take her seriously instead of seeing her as a silly girl with too much in her tiny mind. 

Stupid things, she continued. "We normally went to see the ferry shaws arrive, but Eila didn’t want to go. She told me she just wasn’t interested and implied that I wouldn’t understand her reason. It made me angry because the way she said it made her seem superior, and like my idea — which had always been our idea, together — was ridiculous."

So what turned you around? What made you go to her on the day the clockwork dragon was errantly released and caused that bubble outside the city? 

Cora watched the Liaison. She’d gone back and forth on the so-called clockwork dragon. The morning in question, she’d been as terrified as anyone in Alterra, believing the dragon to be a real, organic being that shouldn’t have existed but somehow did. After Eila had sent Cora home on the trolley, feeling dazed and barely remembering her workman escort’s restraining presence, Cora had heavily dosed with Crumble. That had helped her believe the Ministry broadcasts that night when they’d claimed the dragon was something between a mistake and a hoax. She’d continued to believe it through the following week, watching programs that showed the machine’s gears in detail, thereby proving the farce. But after seeing Eila’s pirate broadcast on the unit in her family’s living room one night — and after Cora had sent her Crumble down the commode at her friend’s behest — she’d once again begun to believe the dragon was real. 

But being off Crumble wasn’t like being on Crumble. Cora wasn’t merely frightened by new and disturbing ideas. Instead, she found herself vacillating between normal thoughts and the odd ones, between believing the media’s stories about the dragon and believing what Eila would tell her if she were still here. It was unfair. If Cora had to see things in the shadows at night without the drug in her system, she should at least be able to count on feeling sure of her new uncertainties. 

She called me, Cora answered.

But you were fighting. 

Friends go when friends call, Cora said. No matter what. 

But she’d left you. Several times. And she’d trespassed in your private things. 

Cora watched the Liaison, trying to decide how much he might know versus how much he merely suspected. Cora still remembered how violently angry she’d been when Eila had first described Levi Meade. She’d been sure that her best friend was snooping in her journal and sketchbook, discovering the crush who’d been floating behind her eyes for weeks. 

But the alternative, Cora had thought back then, was actually far more of a trespass. If what Eila had said about the nature of the Blunderbuss was true — if it siphoned thoughts from the sleeping people of Waldron’s Gate and mined them for ideas to Build — then Eila, who worked at the Ministry of Manifestation, might actually have seen Levi in Cora’s dreams, stolen from the great engine itself. Cora hadn’t even known what dreams were back then … but a lot had changed since Eila’s disappearance and since Cora had secretly stopped taking Crumble. Dreams were only one of them. 

I forgave her. Cora tried to sit straighter. Because as I said, that’s what friends do. 

"You told me in an earlier conversation that you didn’t forgive her."

Of course I forgave her. 

McDaniel pulled a boxlike contraption from a counter at the room’s rear. Its cogs were visible, and Cora could see two paper rolls, like the one in the Nuance, at the box’s bottom and top. The Liaison depressed a few small keys at the box’s side then tugged a tiny lever. The rolls sped with a whining sound, advancing the paper from one to another. 

Looking down, McDaniel read: ‘TM: Why did you go to her, then? CW: I felt guilty. TM: So you’d forgiven her for snooping. CW: No, but she needed me, so I went, because she’s my friend.’ 

Cora flinched as McDaniel reached the transcription’s end, noting the way she’d used the present tense to describe her friendship with Eila. Officially, Cora hadn’t seen Eila in over a month. Technically, it was true. But what the Liaison didn’t know — what Cora desperately hoped he didn’t know — was that without Crumble in her system, Levi had easily been able to easily find Cora’s dreams. She hadn’t spoken directly to Eila since Eila had gone through the Fog and onto the Novan ship, but almost every night Eila spoke to Cora through Levi: a back-and-forth borne of dreams. 

Blinking, Cora focused on McDaniel’s almost-accusation.

It’s not that simple, she said.

Of course it is. Either you forgave her, or you did not. 

It wasn’t cut and dry. I didn’t like that she’d snooped, but then she …  

Cora stopped, catching herself. She was about to say that Eila had explained all about Pavilion, the Blunderbuss’s underside, Eila’s own reluctant mission, and the other things that had turned her anger into pity. She’d stopped in time, but now McDaniel, watching her, was almost smiling.

For the first time, Cora wondered how much of McDaniel’s questioning was about endurance and exhaustion. He’d called her here, urgently, even though their previous session had been last night. She’d barely slept, and now the session was about to tick into its third hour. Perhaps he wasn’t questioning her relentlessly because there was so much to decipher. Maybe the whole point was to tire her into making mistakes, like the one she’d just made.

"She what?" asked the Liaison. 

She reminded me that I’d shown her the sketchbook earlier, and that she’d seen the drawings of Levi then. 

Cora felt her heart beat in her throat. Was that what she’d said? Her eyes flicked toward the transcript box. The roll was much smaller than even this session’s, which was still sitting across the table. It must contain only their greatest hits, culled by the Liaison himself. 

Miss Mew, may I be frank? 

He hadn’t asked for permission to do anything before now. Cora looked up, saying nothing. 

I’d like to tell you what I believe. Would you like to hear it? 

Cora swallowed, knowing he’d see her do it but unable to help herself. Thus far, the cat-and-mouse games had made her lies difficult to remember and track but had also protected her from the worst of what she knew — that Liaison Tobias McDaniel might have known she knew. He’d been treating her like a silly little girl who’d got herself in trouble by helping a friend, but was that what he really thought? He worked in Constable Law, Parliament’s highest investigative division. He’d know about the dual-ended nature of the Blunderbuss, about Pavilion, about the Fog’s true nature. It was even possible that Parliament knew about Daw, about the Guile, about the tunnels that shifted as if being Built in real time by the great engine itself. It was possible Parliament had ways to get down to Pavilion, seeing as someone in Alterra’s past had built Pavilion before whatever it was had sealed the entrance broached by Eila. They might know where Eila was hiding and exactly how to reach her. Maybe all this — this dance between McDaniel and Cora — was only for show.

But was that all the Liaison knew? If he was about to be frank, would he reveal that he knew Cora was off Crumble, that she’d been working as a spy, receiving her orders through a man surfing her dreams? Did he know of the enormous Novan ship floating above the ocean beyond the Fog — something every Alterran had glimpsed around Eila during her famous pirate transmission but that Cora, in addition, had heard described in detail by Levi? Did McDaniel know about Admiral Warren Wellington and the plan in which Eila was an instrumental cog, about the Doon, the Fleet, and the colorful yet deadly characters Levi had described among the so-called Flock? Cora herself hadn’t believed there was a world beyond the Fog a month ago, let alone nations and nations of people living outside a clueless Alterra. But was that all old hat to McDaniel? And if he asked her about it now, could Cora repress her shock? 

I believe, said McDaniel, pulling out a chair opposite Cora and sitting for the first time during all their sessions, that you know more than you are saying. I believe you know where Eila Doyle is hiding and are refusing to tell me because you are, as you said, a loyal friend. But if I may be direct, Miss Mew, I also believe you are operating under false pretenses. 

Cora watched McDaniel, now closer than he’d come before, eyebrows sharp and severe, eyes almost black. 

What did she tell you about Pavilion? he asked.

Cora’s mouth came open. She snapped it closed. 

"Don’t act so shocked. We have extensive records of the lies Miss Doyle was spreading. Or let’s say: her misperceptions. If I could hazard a guess, I think she truly believes her stories. But that doesn’t make her hijacking the airwaves in an attempt to unsettle this nation’s sanity any less dangerous." 

Cora felt rocked — probably the Liaison’s intention. She hadn’t breathed a word about Pavilion, Levi, or anything else she wasn’t officially supposed to know. Cora had kept her story simple, admitting to a minor crime in order to mask something much larger. 

Officially, she’d helped Eila hide the day she’d caused that ruckus at the Ministry of Manifestation, telling her boss, Rabbit Brampton, exactly where he could stick his own accusations. Cora had known Eila was in trouble; she’d kept her away from the authorities and now knew she’d done wrong. But beyond that, Cora officially knew nothing: not where Eila had gone, not how she’d managed to interrupt Prime Minister Morrison’s speech with her video entreaty for everyone to stop taking Crumble, and certainly nothing about any hidden motives or secret cities beneath the Waldron’s Gate soil. 

McDaniel shrugged, almost casual, practically friendly. He looked up at Cora, his face fatigued as if exhausted by all these ridiculous games. 

What did she tell you about Pavilion, Cora? Not Miss Mew. Cora.

Again, Cora swallowed. If he knew, he knew — and if the Liaison knew about Pavilion, he probably knew that Cora knew about it, too. Had she told her mother? Her father? It should be simple to remember, but she couldn’t. She was exhausted, tired of being in this room, and finding it increasingly difficult to tell reality from unreality. She had odd thoughts off Crumble; she questioned her own motives; she saw shapes in shadows and clouds. But if she’d told her parents what Eila had said about the city under the city, McDaniel had probably pulled that information from them already. Denial now would be pointless. 

She told me it’s a city under Waldron’s Gate. 

Uh huh. And what else? 

The Blunderbuss has a bottom half down there. And there’s another Ministry, the Ministry of Dreaming. They take thoughts from people above and sift them somehow, to pull out the best ideas for Building.

Cora stopped herself, feeling her mouth like a broken faucet. She’d been about to tell him the rest: about how the unworthy ideas, the bad thoughts, and the things Eila called nightmares were discarded into the Fog. About dirty scientist Daw Blackburn’s fear that the Fog was thickening, and that in time, it would consume all of Alterra. 

Is that all? 

Cora nodded. 

Yes, yes, he said, nodding. That’s what the Doyles told me she said, too. 

So you did talk to them? 

Of course, said McDaniel. "They are quite concerned. And very eager to help. Because you see, Eila Doyle has created some very serious problems for Alterra and, as she remains at large, is a danger to us all. Insisting that citizens stop taking Crumble? What if people listen to her? The asylum at Joffrey will overflow! Eila is a very sick girl. Once we find her, the Doyles understand that our first priority will be making sure she is taken care of and made better. Fortunately, Crumble usage is actually up following her stunt, which is comforting because it means that most citizens are sensible enough to value their sanity. It also means that most people see Miss Doyle for what she is. Thank The Crown." 

Cora had never heard three less disingenuous words spoken. She didn’t believe for a second that Liaison McDaniel believed in The Crown.

What is she then?  

She is a very sick girl, repeated the Liaison. 

Cora shook her head. 

The Liaison said, You don’t think she’s sick? 

I don’t think your first priority is to help her if she is.

Ever since that first night, the broadcasts had been awash with regular interruptions calling for any information on the whereabouts of Eila Doyle. The tone of those interruptions was anything but helpful. There had been long programs about Eila and her alleged scheme, exposés on the great Doyle family line and its new black sheep. 

Miss Doyle turned her manifestation cradle into her own personal toy box, a deep-voiced announcer said during one, creating whatever suited her, poisoning coordinated Builds and even collapsing a period of resonance known as a Pianoforte in the interest of her own selfish pursuits.

Those segments had been backed with subtle but dark music, displaying Eila’s worst casual images in stark black and white. 

Why don’t you think I want to help her? the Liaison asked. 

There are rewards for information or for her capture. The increased presence of Guard in the street and around the Ministry, all armed with dragon pistols and blades. She’s painted as a public enemy. There was more, too: In addition to segments that discredited and vilified Eila, broadcasts had also been airing plenty of programs about mental health, the horrors of Joffrey Columns, people who’d briefly gone off Crumble, reformed, and had horror stories to tell. Sad tales of sorrowful souls who’d gone off the drug and never gone back, and what had become of them. 

The Liaison shook his head. "Miss Mew, you must understand. Concern for well-being is not an effective motivator. Fear is. It’s unfortunate, but if we wish to apprehend Miss Doyle — again, for her own good — then it’s necessary to make people fear her, just a little. Don’t you agree that the danger of people going off Crumble is diminished if people question the source?"

Again, Cora wondered what the Liaison knew. Since going off Crumble herself, she’d felt markedly more disobedient — something the Liaison, the rest of Constable Law, and Parliament wouldn’t want to become common. But Levi had also told her that without Crumble in her system, her dreams were wholly her own. The Blunderbuss could no longer steal them, and the Ministry of Manifestation, which made almost everything Alterra needed, could no longer use them to Build. Eila’s entreaty to shut their mental back doors wasn’t just reckless. It would starve the country of the very fuel it required for survival. 

Pavilion is a myth, Miss Mew, said the Liaison. If you think about it, you’ll understand how obvious that is. Have you ever seen it yourself? Or must you take Eila’s word? 

Cora didn’t speak, hoping he’d take her impassive face for contemplation. 

"A city under the ground? A city filled with people who don’t know they are underground? Who just stay below in constant oppression? How would that be remotely possible? How could anyone live in a cave and not realize it? Why have they not tried to come out in all this time? How could they possibly breathe? How could they grow what they needed — or if they don’t, how could they receive food without wondering where it had come from or who had sent it? You have no appreciation of a city as an ecosystem. There are ins and outs. Nothing can live long without sun, or circulating air. Don’t you see the absurdity?" 

Cora said nothing. 

Yes, she’s told these tales to others, McDaniel continued. Very passionately, in fact, because, again, I am quite sure she believes them herself. So why would we want to punish her more than help her? 

How did she make that broadcast? said Cora. 

The Liaison had stood while speaking, and now his head snapped toward her. That had been a mistake on two levels. First, it implied Cora’s belief rather than continuing to profess her general confusion. And second, it had raised the Liaison’s hackles. He was immediately back to being an interrogator, all amity forgotten. 

"Interesting question, Miss Mew. How did she make that broadcast?" 

I … Cora didn’t know how to answer. She’d said it as a debate point, but for it to have any teeth in proving Eila’s truth, Cora would have to admit to her own knowledge of the Novan ship floating just beyond the Fog. I’ve just been wondering, she finished. 

McDaniel eyed her for longer than Cora liked. Then, as before, he resumed pacing. His feet made wet sounds on the dark tile floor, as if it had been painted while he’d been sitting. One of the overhead lights seemed to have burned out, burying the corners in shadows. Cora, whose mind had lost much of its discipline since flushing away her Crumble, could already see demons nestling in the dark. 

"Yes. We’ve been wondering, too, Miss Mew."

He reached the shadows’ edge then turned back, never meeting Cora’s eyes. The darker room charred his mustache and sideburns, his already-deep eyes shaded in pits. 

Tell me, Cora, what has Levi told you about Eila and her plans to topple Alterra? 

Cora looked at the Liaison’s face, now turned toward her. The light was in this direction, but she still couldn’t see his eyes. They were wells of ink, his lips turning dark and wanting to curl up at the ends like a joker’s grin. 

Noth … he hasn’t said anything like that! 

It’s fine, said the Liaison. With your confirmation, we know just where to find Levi Meade.

Cora’s eyes were pulled to the room’s barely visible door. As she watched, it seemed to twist as if pulled from behind, like taffy. It became a trapezoid, turned sideways, then tumbled backward in retreat. 

What’s going on here? she said. 

You’re finally telling us everything we need to know. 

"Us?" 

McDaniel looked up after Cora spoke. Following his gaze, Cora turned as a hand fell on her shoulder then jerked the rest of the way around nearly fast enough to topple her.

The hand was covered in dark-brown spots, like rot on an apple. Prime Minister Tillet Morrison was behind her, cloaked in a black executioner’s hood pulled up just enough to see his features. He was flanked by two reapers of myth, their faces invisible in the depths of their hoods, each holding a scythe in bone-fingered hands.

Morrison’s voice was nasal in person. His large, buggy eyes were fixed on something in Cora’s middle, somehow behind her gaze. 

Thank you for your service to Alterra, Cora, he said.

McDaniel spoke from behind her. Cora didn’t want to turn from Morrison and the reapers, but she had to; something was wrong with the Liaison’s voice. She found him still pacing, the wet sound of his shoes on the floor deepening as he trod through what she now saw was partially congealed blood. His jaw seemed to have unhinged at one end, creating something grotesque. 

Did you know, Miss Mew, of the secrets that Levi and Eila are keeping from you? 

Cora shuffled back, away from the monstrosities. She saw McDaniel, his skin beginning to slough and sag, to the right. Morrison and the reapers were on the left, their blank, hooded faces vacant. 

Don’t feel bad, Cora, said Morrison. You’ve done what’s right by helping us. 

Cora’s heart was in her temples, in her stomach, in the palms of her clenching hands as they opened and closed. She struck something at her rear and turned back to find a league of creatures behind her with three gray fingers on each hand, the top halves of their heads removed to show rows of black teeth. 

Thank you for your service, Morrison said. 

He retreated as the room darkened. The reapers and McDaniel fell slowly backward with the chamber’s only light. 

You won’t have to worry anymore. Because it’s all over, and now you can go.

Morrison turned, dismissing her from the distance.

Gray hands and black teeth eclipsed him. 

And Cora started to scream.

TWO

The Doon

TURN IT OFF, EILA SAID. 

Jasper looked at Admiral Wellington, who nodded his consent. Then the Novan scientist reached out and killed the screen, clipping the sights of demons and sounds of Cora’s screams as suddenly as if Eila, rather than Cora, had been the one waking from a nightmare. 

I don’t want to see these anymore. Eila stared at the blank screen as if offended. The screen, built on Novan technology, was significantly different than anything she’d seen inside Alterra. Alterran broadcast units were as deep as they were wide and tall, filled with vacuum tubes and cogs and chains and belts. The Novan device was little more than a flat panel, giving no clue as to what powered it. 

You need to, said Jasper. We’re not sure of the nature of your connection to the Alterran engine …  

The Blunderbuss, said Eila, wiping at her eyes. 

Right. But as I said, it’s like nothing we’ve seen. Willoughby agrees that if we want to be sure you don’t lose that connection, you should be regularly exposed to dream streams. You used to sit on the thing all day at your Ministry, but now you’re disconnected. We have no way of knowing what that will do. And if your mind disconnects from the Blunderbuss fully, we’ll lose whatever advantage we have. 

Which means we’d be unable to help your people, Wellington added. He was sitting next to Eila, looking like he thought he should wrap an arm around her for comfort but unused to affection. His accent was slightly different from Jasper’s — testament to the patchwork nature of Wellington’s fleet. Jasper’s A sounds were hard and slightly nasal, whereas Wellington drew them out enough to soften them — his most common exclamation was the Novan semi-swear sham, and it came out sounding, to Eila, like shohm.

Eila looked to her side. Wellington, sitting, was wearing the same red-and-white Novan military uniform he always seemed to wear. On his shoulder, above some sort of insignia, was the Novan motto: Freedom or Death. 

"But Cora’s dreams? Why does it have to be Cora’s dreams that you show me?" 

Jasper pulled a small, coin-like device from the thin screen’s top. The device itself (some kind of recorder) was Novan technology, but Willoughby and Jasper, working together via messages shuttled by Eila as she crossed the Fog, had fashioned an adaptor that allowed it to work with Alterran tech. The adaptor was small by Alterran standards, huge by Nova’s: about the size of Eila’s palm, and nearly as thick. Dark and troubled Phoebe Horn of the Guile had been taking it with her to the Ministry of Dreaming daily. Every few days, Eila came to the big ship to review whatever Phoebe managed to plug into and capture on the sly. It seemed unfair that the incredibly arduous, dangerous, and terrifying journey through the Fog should be rewarded with a display of nightmares, but nightmares were all Phoebe seemed able to capture. 

Jasper, who Eila suspected wasn’t much older than her, had shaggy brown hair and blue eyes. He tapped the coin-like device on the thin screen’s top. 

Levi is able to give your Dreamer a kind of carrier signature through a device Willoughby built on his end. It helps Phoebe find Cora’s stream at the Ministry. You may have seen them using it together? 

Eila had. The contraption was little more than two metal hats, with chin straps, connected by wires. When Phoebe and Levi weren’t using the thing to transfer Cora’s dream signature, Walker Burch and Savannah, the professional impostor, sometimes wore the hats and chased each other around until the wire snagged and made them fall. At this point, Daw always yelled at them to act like adults, for Crown’s sake. 

"I’m not asking how, said Eila. I’m asking why." 

I know this is hard for you, but … Jasper looked at Wellington, helpless. 

Look, said the admiral, standing, his posture shifting into a sort of and-that’s-just-how-it-has-to-be bearing, "getting onto your engine at all is shucking hard. Levi can talk to Cora in her dreams all right, but we need a dream feed, and this is pretty much the only way to get it because you have only one Dreamer. If you can recruit someone better at finding sunshine and lollipops in the engine’s stream, then by all means see if you can get that sunny fellow to hook the recorder into their cradle. Do that, and you can come back here, and we can watch your friend skipping through meadows. But for now, this sharr here … " he pointed at the screen’s absent imagery to indicate the sharr he meant, no longer bothering to apologize for his constant mouthful of Novan profanity, … is all we have. 

If it helps, said Jasper, looking apologetic, we’ve found that negative imagery has a significant advantage over positive streams. The subharmonics, under the audio and video and biometric data, are much more accurate — and therefore more useful to us. 

Eila, tired and irritated and sad, gave Jasper an annoyed little shrug. Jasper was just like Willoughby. Both the Alterran Tinker and the Novan scientist constantly used big, technical words that they alone understood. 

It doesn’t just record normal audio and video, Jasper explained. There’s also heartbeat and breathing, blood pressure, Galvanic response …  

Eila shrugged again. 

"Just a lot of body measurements, is what I mean. We call those biometrics’ Beneath those are what we call subharmonics, kind of like the dream under the dream. See, there’s what actually happens in the dream, then there’s your mind’s response to what happens. He gave an inappropriate smile. You study this kind of thing enough, you start to see dreamscapes as if they were theaters. It’s not about the show on the stage at all. What it feels like, when I look at this data, is like one part of the brain is showing another part of the brain something horrible specifically so it can see how that second part reacts. It’s kind of like … "

I have a younger brother, Eila interrupted, so yes, I know what it means for a person to do something horrible to another specifically to see how they react.  

The thought of Nicholas, even though she’d used it as an example of irritation, dropped Eila’s stomach. The idea of her brother’s annoyances was somehow precious rather than loathsome. She almost wanted Nicholas to be here to make fun of her, to bother her, to make her scream at him. Thinking about him any other way gave her an ache. How much pain had she caused him? How worried and embarrassed and fearful were her sisters, Penelope and Winter? And what about Mother? Father? What had become of Father’s job — the job that Eila, who worked at the same Ministry, had almost certainly cost him? She’d spent so much time over the past few months worrying that she’d disappoint her father. But now, there was no question. Now, she certainly had. 

We get really bland subharmonics from nice dreams, honestly, Jasper went on. Nightmares are far more honest. You don’t learn much about the mind from seeing what pleases it. But disturb it? Scare it? He nodded. "That’s when the truth comes out." 

Eila looked at the scientist, too tired to point out that his explanation did nothing to address her or Cora. It was all about his own research: about what Nova stood to learn about the Blunderbuss and how it worked. 

Why wasn’t Levi with her? Eila asked. Why did she have to be alone? 

Look. Wellington held up a hand. We could go through all of this again, but is that really the best use of our time? Why don’t you just shucking ask again why she can’t take Crumble in order to feel better? 

I know why she can’t take Crumble, Eila muttered.

Well, it’s not like you haven’t asked, Wellington said.

Eila looked up. The admiral’s hair was short and light blond, his face somehow lined beyond his probable fortyish years, his speech always clipped and impatient in a way that made Eila feel stupid for ever saying anything. He’d been nothing but polite and kind to her, but he wasn’t the sort of man people questioned, and his attitude proved it. 

He held up his left hand then ticked off points with his right.

"One, you’ve suggested she take Crumble, knowing full well your boy, Levi, won’t be able to so much as shucking find her mind if that mind is shut by drugs. Two, you’ve asked why she has to be our eyes up top at all, despite knowing she’s the only one we have or can get, and that she actually asked to do it." 

Why can’t whoever’s been feeding information to Genevieve be our eyes up top? said Eila, thinking of the faceless mole who’d been sending information down to the Guile through its conduit for years.

"Three, said Wellington, ignoring her and continuing to tick off points, you’ve asked, even today, why you have to watch these streams even though we’ve explained the reasons over and over. You’ve asked why Levi can’t be with her before, too." 

I have not! 

Well, said Wellington,