(Narrated by Kevin Coffey)

Hey everyone. A big welcome to my new followers and thank you so much for joining Coffey House! I’m in the latter stages of finishing up my first novel I began posting nearly a year ago, Kingdom of Dreams, which I also affectionately call The Neverending Story! (It’s about to end soon, I assure you.)

As this year begins to unfold, there seems to be exciting things ahead for my stories, podcasts and other mind-blowing possibilities. One never knows what happens when one puts their art out there, but I think the doing is the hard part and then fate and the universe take over. And admittedly, as I’ve at times forced this artist to put myself out threefold with each posting: writing, illustrating and narrating, I’ve discovered there is no going back to simply writing anymore. Like a comic that works out their new material on select audiences, you have been my wonderful sounding board. Can’t wait to get into what comes next, but I’ll forgo that until our current story concludes.

Stay well and thrive this week. See you again soon!

-KC

Before peace truly sat in after successfully winning water from the bloodsucking trees of the Vampire Grove, a humongous knot in the wood spun open beneath them, sending Jimmy, Charley, Francis, and Lem sliding deep into the rotten tree’s core.

They spilled (mostly) uninjured in a pile beneath a darkened alcove. The stump’s insides didn’t appear nearly as rotten as its filthy outside. In fact, the wood boasted reinforced layers of ridged, armored bark.

“What about this view, huh?” Lem marveled, the wonder of the enormity of the space evidently overtaking even her usual cynical observations.

They stood on a wide, smooth, wooden ramp that ran along the outer wall. The inner walls were actually embedded shelves filled from floor to ceiling with books. There appeared to be no end to them, either. The smell of ancient wood and dust, along with the flicker of well-spaced torches, created a sacred vibe.

“It’s like we’re standing inside a giant wooden Slinky library,” Jimmy said. Then it hit him. He’d been here before. “I…I dreamt of this place.” Jimmy placed his hand on a gnarled wooden wall, half-expecting to feel a heartbeat. “I think we’re in the kingdom’s sacred library, The Deep Stacks.”

They wandered through countless rows and long aisles filled to the brim with books. As books tended to do, they emanated their own power. Just like it had been in his dream, Jimmy found it a mesmerizing, spellbound place.

So too did Francis, apparently. His cat inhaled deeply, clearly inspired by the space to recite more poetry. “Ah, this secluded space has that lonely library mood, as if it has a soul: the papery bouquet of reams of knowledge, lovingly planted in rows of sacred silence, a precious garden.”

“Yeah, like you read,” Charley said out the side of his mouth to the cat.

“In fact, I am a voracious reader. I’ll have you know,” Francis replied. “You on the other hand are a voracious eater.”

“Yeah, so what? I got needs,” Charley grinned.

Jimmy picked out an odd sculpture nestled on one of the books. It was squat and fat, shaped like a yellow eyeball with a thin black slit for a pupil. Curious, he put his face within inches of the painted art.

The eye winked at him. Jimmy jumped back. “That’s a real eyeball,” he said taking a few steps back. “Something’s back there!”

The evil eye disappeared with a slurping giggle, leaving an empty black hole.

Jimmy pointed out another spyhole. They soon identified many more.

“Who’s spying on us?” Lem asked, fully freaked out.

A terrible wheezing laugh erupted behind them, apparently coming from the upper bookshelves.

Up on a higher shelf, a long green nose with a single plump red eyeball on its end, like a big wart, pushed an elderly but beefy volume out of the way so they had to dodge as it crashed to the floor. The peculiar eyeball nose sneezed at them, drenching them with disgusting snot droplets they hurriedly wiped off. A long tongue rolled out of one of its nostrils, either to make fun of them, or clean up the mess. Either way, it turned Jimmy’s stomach.

“Blimey! The books are coming to life!” Francis warily nodded at the rows. The books appeared to sprout eyeballs on all sides. All of varying disgusting sizes and shapes mixed with ears, mouths—all body parts that had no business put together. It reminded Jimmy of some wacky modern paintings he’d seen on field trips to art museums.

“My word, they are vile specimens, aren’t they?” Francis added.

“AHEM,” a voluminous voice interrupted, apparently clearing their throat. “SO… WHAT DO YOU THINK OF MY DREARY REMAINS, YOUNG MAN?”

Jimmy almost leapt out of his sneakers and wheeled around to face the gruff, speaking wooden walls chocked full of tomes. A great presence filled the room as if the cranky old fogey of a stump itself had spoken to them. Jimmy guessed it had.

“Who said that?” said Charley, unsure at what might be talking, so he growled and dealt out warning woofs to every knot and crack.

“Meet my army of…BROKEN DREAMS,” the voice said in a dramatic tone, seemingly coming at them from everywhere. “Rejected dreams that didn’t make the cut. Never got sent out. They’re attracted to dumpy old buildings and rotting things like trash heaps.”

“Or a humongous stump,” Lem said out of the side of her mouth to Jimmy.

“I WOULD WATCH MY TONE IF I WERE YOU, YOUNG…LADY,” the voice warned, seeming highly insulted. “Broken Dreams are quite unpredictable and at times, LETHAL!”

“Oh dear me, the librarians here are killers,” Francis shuddered, stowing himself behind Jimmy’s legs.

More eyes joined the motley assembly of Broken Dreams. A ruckus swelled as the creatures all begin chattering away in a unique language that consisted of every foul and detestable body sound that obnoxious cliques in his middle school used to make each other laugh. Jimmy couldn’t hear himself think.

The library was now nothing but a constellation of revolting eyes: blinking, oozing, and sometimes crying.

“Well, I guess they know we’re here,” Jimmy said.

“INDEED, WE DO! A DEAF OAK WOULD KNOW YOU’RE HERE!” The tree’s booming words traveled up from deep within the withering roots.

Charley quieted his barking, backing away from the walls.

Jimmy managed to perk up. “Uh, hello. I’m Jimmy Reve. This is my sister Lem, Francis is the cat, Charley, the dog, Oh Great… Once… Tree… Stump?”

“YOU SHALL NOT ADDRESS ME AS THE ONCE TREE! EVER!” The tree’s wooden sides creaked and shook with emphasis as his voice exploded. “ARE WE CLEAR, YOUNG MAN?”

“Yes, sir,” Jimmy said quietly.

“NOT ‘SIR’ EITHER. YOU SHALL CALL ME MR. STUMP!”

“Mister?” Jimmy repeated.

“DO YOU TAKE ME FOR A SAPLING, YOUNG DREAMER?”

“No, sir… uh—Mr. Stump,” Jimmy said.

“That’s better. Now, I need to better know the miscreants that would nose around my withering roots. Push on the bookcase beside you and follow the corkscrew hallway down until you reach the set of double doors and enter my dining room. HURRY, BEFORE ALL MY BARK SLIDES OFF MY SIDES AND I’M UNSUITABLE, EVEN FOR WORMS!”

Not knowing what to expect, Jimmy pushed open the bookcase doorway and, with his family trailing behind him, entered a vast, hall that indeed spiraled downward.

Just as they twisted around the first corner a voice assaulted them.

“Foals of Earth!” said a familiar voice.

No.

Jimmy spun, nearly colliding with a tiny white face, flashing an icicle smile. A gentle snowfall hovered around the tiny knightmare’s proud face, blanketing it in soft powder. A fiery blue spark for an eye flashed on and off, like it winked at him.

“Sinsul! I don’t believe it! How did you—”

The horse turned his head away from Jimmy to the side as if embarrassed. “Captured.”

Jimmy couldn’t believe it. “You mean you were taken prisoner?”

Sinsul nodded.

“Roots of tree. Tangled me. Pulled me here,” Sinsul gestured with his neck, indicating the room with a furrowed brow.

Jimmy screamed as a short figure sprang from the shadows, snatched him to his feet and… hugged him? He was equally surprised as Sinsul acted indifferent to the invader’s presence.

“Jimmy! It’s me again, now us again. Isn’t it great?”

A half-occupied set of mostly complete Dreamknight armor with an antique vacuum base for a helmet nearly squeezed him to death.

“Burks!” Jimmy returned his missing friend’s bear hug.

“Who?” Lem said, looking the knight up and down, eyeing Burks with a sense of the ‘stranger danger’ their parents used to warn them about.

“This is Burks O’Barden; he’s been helping us all along. He’s my—”

“Imaginary friend?” Lem whispered. She lost color and was temporarily as black and white as the rest of Meird, about to scrape the floor with her bottom lip. She weakly shook Burks’ hand, suddenly mute.

“Once we crashed, I wandered around calling for you and fell through that trapdoor,” Burks pointed up.

“But what happened to your body?” Jimmy squinted, blinded by searing sunbeams happily spraying out of exposed forearms and thighs in the broken off sections missing armor. “I need sunglasses just to look at you.”

“Well, Sinsul salvaged some of my lost armor, but I’m missing quite a few pieces.”

That’s an understatement, Jimmy thought.

Evidently fatigued, Burks had shrunken to Jimmy’s height, and some of the armor dragged behind him when he walked down the spiral ramp, plowing ugly ruts into the bark. His sword looked positively huge in comparison, but Jimmy was thankful he still had a weapon, at least.

“You’d better, uh… grow back into your armor.” Jimmy motioned to Burks to grow.

“On it,” Burks said. He ballooned up in size until he could once again fit into the remaining pieces of his armor.

“Master, I see the aforementioned double doors just ahead,” Francis proclaimed with a swish of his tail from his position well ahead of them at the end of the corkscrew hallway’s last turn.

They joined Francis in the hallway (thankfully free of Broken Dreams) in front of two giant wooden doors that seemed more like a gate with strange interlocking circle designs carved across them. They pushed opened the thick stubborn doors and entered.

In the middle of the circular room sat a round oak pock-marked table with a half-moon wooden bench. A conflicted chandelier with issues involving unicorn horns and snake rattles hung from the rafters above it.

“AH! Finally, YOU BOTHER TO ARRIVE,” Mr. Stump pined.

String music stretched toward them from the corner of the room, where a skeleton sat cross-legged on a stool, playing an old, beat-up violin with a long dagger.

“Pay no mind to the nightmare in the corner,” Mr. Stump instructed.

Jimmy scowled. Easy for him to say.

Out of a hollow in the wall limped two towering snakes way taller than Jimmy and even Burks. They carried silver trays with puny arms (and legs!).

The snake-men’s long tongues flickered, and their eyes darted from side to side as they set down their trays. Jimmy didn’t miss the dreamcatcher cloaks they had fastened to each of their necks. It was a pretty flimsy clasp that held the cloak up as well, if you asked him.

“Walking snakes,” Mr. Stump trumpeted like he anticipated their thoughts. “Maintain your good manners, and you needn’t fear them. These Broken Dreams serve me and now… THEY SERVE YOU—HA! HA-HA-HA!” Nobody else laughed at the surly tree’s horrible joke and laugh.

The snakes plucked off the domed tray covers to reveal massive platters filled with fresh game. The snakes pointed as Mr. Stump overdid it, identifying each dish in his massive voice—even rolling his r’s—like a formal dinner host.

“IMPECCABLY GRILLED JACK-O-LOPE, SUCCULENT LEG OF LAKE MONSTER, AND IMPOSSIBLY MOIST FREE-RANGE PHOENIX! Go on, do sit down, I don’t have another millennia to wait.”

With hunger burning their insides, Jimmy and the others practically sprinted to the grand table. An assortment of wild-shaped Meirdian vegetables gleamed with dewy beads; a fresh pitcher of rainbow water sparkled invitingly on the table. Even a Barctic Warhorse-sized share of softened shadow grass and stripped bamboo (or perhaps beanstalk?) were in abundance, complete with an oaken water trough on the opposite side of the table.

Sinsul drooled a quickly evaporating frost. Charley begged beside Lem out of habit while Francis settled on the actual table, stalking a dish full of grilled rainbow trout.

The stump yawned. “Now sit and eat while I nap.”

The massive walls creaked and heaved around them as the great Mr. Stump evidently settled into sleep.

Jimmy and his companions plowed through platter after platter while the chandelier candles burned lower and lower. Being a daydream with no need for food, Burks looks bored out of his mind, his legs crossed, propped up on the table, reinspecting the numerous gaps in his armor again and again.

The second they finished their bountiful feast, the bony musician stood up from his stool, gave them a slight bow, and then evaporated in a curious purple mist.

There were heaps of leftovers, and they filled as many pockets and packs—now that they had Sinsul’s saddle again—as possible. Jimmy had to admit, the food was unbelievably good and way overdue. And who were they to be picky? They hadn’t really had a proper meal since they’d gotten here and certainly had no idea when they might next eat again.

Lem squeegeed out her damp hair with her hands into an empty water pail that Sinsul had drained. It made no sense why a dream would eat and drink, but Jimmy wasn’t about to ask him about his motivations.

The Walking Snakes crept out once more to remove the empty platters. The snakes said nothing, but their shifty eyes were filled with what Jimmy swore looked like bad intent. Finally, the filthy things slither-walked back into the folds of the rotting tree, leaving them alone.

Jimmy reasoned a possible pecking order because as soon as the Walking Snakes departed, lesser Broken Dreams dared to come out of hiding to spy on them again. As the light in the room waned, nosy eyes lined the gaps in the crowded walls, blinking, bulging, and sometimes weeping. Crude burps, sobs, sneezes, obscene breathing, crazy laughter, and varying degrees of flatulation polluted the room as the Broken Dreams jabbered at one another.

A shudder rumbled through the floor, like the ancient wood had inhaled a breath.

“WELL THEN.” Mr. Stump said anew. “Full bellies, have we? Then to business. YOU DIDN’T LAND ON ME AND SURVIVE MY TRAPS JUST TO WATCH ME ROT, NOW DID YOU?” Mr. Stump said in his ever changing (and uber-aggravating) shifts in volume.

Jimmy shook his head. “No, sir.” He stood and clasped his hands, suddenly nervous. He sometimes (make that all the time) got hyper self-conscious when giving speeches. “Uh… Mr. Stump, I have come to break the Curses that plague Meird. We’ve done well with the first two—though we didn’t recover the water droplet nose ring thingy—and we’re not sure what to do next. We do appreciate your roots always pointing us in the right direction. With your help, we hope to save the realm.”

The wood creaked again, and Jimmy swore he felt a heavy presence lean over his shoulder for a better look at him. NOT a good feeling.

“Well, well—commendable ambitions….” The voice considered something for a moment. “As I rot and crumble, YOU are the reason the lot of you still live and breathe.”

Cackles and wheezes echoed all around them. Jimmy frowned. Mr. Stump’s dysfunctional pets grew bolder as the candlelight burned lower.

“However, YOU are also the reason I do not.” The laughter ceased.

Jimmy wiped clammy hands down the front of his clothes. Oh boy.

“You are my… CAPTIVE audience. You must forgive my being forthright—THE ATTENTION OF OTHERS IS A HARD VICTORY TO ACHIEVE THESE DAYS.” Cold breath spilled from the gaps in the wood and made him shiver.

“NOW. LET’S DISCUSS YOUR BED.”

“My bed?” Jimmy asked, still baffled, putting his hand to his chest.

“Yes, which also happens to be the Portal of Dreams, made from own bark. It dawned on me that the fate of dreams being successfully delivered depended on the Portal’s safety. To keep the portal safe, I stored it at the boundary of dreams and reality—‘The Place.’ And so, the bed remained for countless ages, awaiting to discover the true bard that would lie in it and dream, while I acted as Driem’s caretaker. Are we FOLLOWING?””

“My bed?” Jimmy said again in disbelief.

Jimmy jumped as a strange, hacking laugh—perhaps more taunt than laugh—ravaged the space, throttling his ear drums.

“YOU are something else. As fate would have it, when you turned five years old, Jimmy, your parents took our precious vessel out of The Place and put it in your room, calling it your Big Boy Bed.” The chorus of Broken Dreams behind the outer walls cackled with cruel snickers.

Jimmy nervously scratched his body, this was a lot to take in—too much.

The wood creaked out another groan. Sadness settled heavily in the air; even the Broken Dreams remained quiet. Mr. Stump sighed and continued.

“Then, not long after that, THEY came into our world. Unnatural, rogue Night Terrors that I would NEVER and DID NOT create.” He sniffed. “In turn, they ruthlessly chopped me down.”

The great stump hummed a bit in deep regretful memory. “Driem expired, and Meird came to be. Despite my current state of being—MY ROOTS STILL RUN DEEP.”

Lem stared open-mouthed at Jimmy.

Don’t worry, it’s surreal for me, too, he thought but wasn’t sure she was getting that from him.

Jimmy remained quiet until he was pretty sure the tree had finished speaking. He shifted his feet, his nerves still buzzing at a heightened level. “I owe you an apology, but that’s not enough, is it?”

“NO.”

A great tremor vibrated the wall. Perhaps as a warning.

Jimmy craned his neck, still not quite sure where to direct his conversation. “But we still can right all of the wrongs, right?”

No response came.

“You’ll help us banish the remaining Night Terrors?”

No response again.

Jimmy managed a feeble smile. “You’ll help me make things right?”

“OH YES INDEED. THINGS WILL BE MADE RIGHT, BOY.”

Stepping out of the creeping shadows, the Walking Snakes reappeared. Their beady little eyes and flickering tongues laser-focused on Jimmy. Their necks were bare—no dreamcatchers!

Sinsul whinnied.

A horde of other hazy shapes slid out from behind the wall. They weren’t close enough to identify, but their shapes were hideous.

“YOU SEE, FEASTING SO LATE IN THE EVENING HAS MADE YOU SUSCEPTIBLE TO THE POWER OF MY NIGHTMARES.”

Jimmy palmed his belly. It bloated unnaturally like he was pregnant with an alien baby or something worse. Now that he thought of it, every time Jimmy had ever eaten a late dinner, he had suffered the worst nightmares of his life. Really bad timing to realize that now.

Lem’s skin was also pale and sickly, her movements sluggish.

Francis dozed beside his platter of fish bones.

On his back beside Lem, Charley belched and licked his lips with embarrassment, barely mobile.

Even the mighty Sinsul sloughed around on his hooves.

“What—what have you done to us?” Jimmy burped, astonished at the involuntary belch.

“WHAT HAVE I DONE TO YOU?” Mr. Stump answered in his booming voice. “And to think some beings call me thick.”

The ancient tree cleared his splintery throat and said: “YOU ARE THE IMPOSTER RULER THAT WILL NEVER LEAVE THIS ROOM—I AM STILL THE ONE-TRUE-BARD.”

Hairy roots crashed through the floorboards, tethering everyone in place with firm grips on ankles, wrists, tails, and hooves. The largest of the furry roots constricted around Jimmy and lifted him into the air. His eyes bulged, and he coughed. His ribs had to be cracking.

“Member me lad?” the end of the root taunted him, speaking with a primitive curved mouth like a carnivorous eel. It was the rude root that had served as their guide!

“Let me go!” Jimmy managed to say with his last breath. The wicked stem would crush him in no time.

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Mr. Stump cackled another wicked laugh like bark being rubbed together. “I WILL LET YOU GO… WHEN THERE IS NO LIFE REMAINING IN YOUR WRETCHED LITTLE BODY!”

Jimmy’s body gave way to the root’s suffocating grip. He couldn’t move. Not one finger or toe. There was no fighting back being constricted inside the squeeze of such thick wood.

“SAD LITTLE BOY, YOU WILL NOT SUFFER LONG,” chided Mr. Stump.

Burks attempted to draw his sword to help, but apparently, it was too heavy for him as the blade slid back down into its scabbard.

Sinsul attacked the tree, biting, gnawing, slashing, stabbing his icicle deep into the wood again and again with no effect.

“Nooo,” a sleepy Lem moaned at the sight of her helpless brother, but she too couldn’t move a muscle as a root had bound her legs together.

Charley and Francis snored through it all, still at the table, as the effects of the nightmare feast took its toll.

Jimmy’s ears began to ring, and his temples throbbed. But the defiance from before when he cursed the bullies returned. That was all this tree is now, right? Another bully. Jimmy nodded that he had something to say and Mr. Stump obliged and loosened his root coils enough for him to speak. “Let me go. You’ll let ALL of us go and… more than that—you’ll help us,” Jimmy seethed.

The terrible root squeezed Jimmy harder, and a cruel laugh poured from the walls. “PERHAPS I’LL HANG YOUR BONES AS A WARNING TO OTHERS. YOU SEE, EVEN IN MY DEPLORABLE CONDITION, I WILL LEAD THIS ONCE-PROUD REALM AS IT SHOULD BE LED. I AND I ALONE WILL DEFEAT THE CURSE.”

Was the heat around Jimmy increasing or was it his blood boiling with rage? At the same time, a dripping, swollen pair of eyes casually dropped out of the chandelier, causing it to swing dangerously.

“Will you?” Jimmy whispered like a dare.

“WHAT’S THAT? Who’s that? Not…” Mr. Stump’s voice deflated.

“Oh? Trouble speaking for such a cocky loudmouth? Are you afraid of my recurring nightmare?” Jimmy whispered with a smile. Dromon’s smoke and heat were everywhere at once. As if mockingly, Dromon’s smoky tentacles shot out, caressing the tree’s interior. With every lethal touch, more wood blistered and blackened, threatening to spark into flames. Acrid smoke began to fill the dining room.

“Y-you’re hurting my wood,” Mr. Stump stammered in a feeble old voice.

“And what of those same wooden arms crushing our true Bard?” Dromon sneered.

The hairy roots dropped Jimmy with a thump and retreated through the torn floor into the Stump’s depths. His arms and legs were all numb like Jimmy no longer had them attached. He crawled to a sitting position, sputtered out a cough while having to support himself with his arms or risk flopping like a doll without the use of his legs.

Jimmy gave a respectful nod to Dromon, liking the power his recurring Night Terror brought to the party.

Lem shook and broke into a sweat, seemingly still stricken.

“Want to tell us everything?” Jimmy panted out his threat. “Or do you want to become a campfire?”

“Jimmy?” Burks said.

Jimmy ignored the knight. “How do we get the water droplet?”

No answer.

Jimmy nodded to Dromon, and hovering ever so close to his master, the Night Terror pressed against a section of the wall with its writing shadows and the wood instantly bubbled and warped from the extreme heat.

“ARRGH!” Mr. Stump roared in pain. The rotten wood’s breathing became labored. “You have it…you silly Earth-borns already have it in your possession,” the rotten tree said after taking a second to recover his breath. “It’s…it’s caught in the savage girl’s hair.”

“What do you mean?”

With a writhing band of smoke, Dromon reached and plucked a sapphire droplet from the tangles of Lem’s locks before she could so much as flinch. (He also helped instantly dry her hair to a nice crispy perm.)

“Get away, creep!” Lem grabbed her steaming hair protectively, shying away from the nightmare’s scalding touch.

Dromon kneeled in front of Jimmy on his base of smoky black coils and plopped the droplet into his open palm.

“Don’t trust that used-up old cigarette. He’s up to something,” Burks advised Jimmy.

Jimmy glared at Burks while he massaged the prickly feeling of blood circulating back into his legs before addressing the tree again with a snarl. “What else do we have to do?”

Mr. Stump sighed. “Travel alongside my easternmost root. That will lead you to the Lurking’s realm. The third item needed is the fang of the wretched wind devil. Wrench it from his foul mouth.”

“And… after that?” Jimmy said.

“Ah, yes,” Mr. Stump said with an amused tone, somewhat recovering. “To reach the Portal and return home, you must cross…The Bridge of Good Measure. A failsafe that I installed in case the wrong types happened to somehow find their way into our realm and inflict damage.”

Jimmy scowled. “And where’s this judging Bridge exactly?”

“None know, as it does not have a precise location,” Mr. Stump said, even more amused. “It will find you, and, when it does, it will judge you worthy or…UNWORTHY to cross.”

Lem raised her head with apparent concern. “What does that mean?”

“It means if it deems that you are well-intentioned heroes, you will be permitted to cross and finish your quest. If not… let’s just say you will be cast into The Place with nightmares like your friend there for a long, long time.”

Jimmy crossed his arms. “I’m not worried about any stupid bridge.” But truth be told, Jimmy was worried about whether or not he could pass the test to cross. But he wasn’t about to show any weakness in front of their enemy. “What about the last object needed?”

“Why not ask your personal recurring Night Terror?” Mr. Stump asked Jimmy.

Dromon blinked his eyes as if nodding. “You must claim the last Talisman from me,” he said without fanfare.

“And… what is it?” Jimmy said, cautiously meeting his recurring nightmare’s eyes.

Dromon appeared to shrug, his smoke momentarily formed rising shoulders. “The last Talisman is a spark. It’s yours if you can take it from me. Perhaps ask nicely,” he said.

Jimmy blinked and stared at Dromon’s shifting black bands of smoke, trying to decipher where he hid his spark. He sensed possible deception, but still, Dromon had been helping him along the tough parts of the journey.

“HA!” Mr. Stump thundered, causing even Dromon’s smoke to seem to flinch and pull his countless feverish fingers from the wood. “I KNOW WHERE YOU HIDE THE SPARK, FILTHY NIGHT TERROR. ULLP—”

Dromon hurled the entirety of his smoky body against the wooden wall, causing shrieks from the chorus of Broken Dreams hiding back there.

“Master?” Dromon’s eyes beamed at Jimmy.

Jimmy squeezed his eyes closed; he didn’t even consider what the right thing to do might be, he had been pushed too far by everyone. “Do it,” he commanded Dromon.

With a single tentacle of smoke, Dromon reached up and yanked the chain holding the chandelier.

With a twang and a rattle, the chain snapped. The chandelier crashed to the floor like a freed anchor, splintering the wood; several unicorn horns stuck in the floor.

A number of still-lit candles rolled dangerously, and the Walking Snakes chased them down and doused them with the pitchers of water from the table. All but one.

As if in slow motion, the stray candle rolled to a stop against the far wall and—

“Adios,” Jimmy grinned as the candle ignited upon contact, the wooden walls began to crackle with fast-spreading flames.

Dromon disappeared, zooming inside of the cracks in the wood.

Mr. Stump howled in pain as the fire soon turned into an inferno.

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