Cage of Dreams

by Rebecca Schaeffer

Genres: YA Contemporary; YA Dark Fantasy; YA Paranormal

Synopsis

In this thrilling sequel and conclusion to the City of Nightmares duology, which has been praised as "so much fun readers will stay up all night to finish it" (Kirkus, starred review), Ness is forced to make a twisted deal with the Nightmare Phantom—only to find herself embroiled in the explosive fallout of the agreement when a botched assassination attempt unleashes chaos into the City of Newham.

Nineteen-year-old Ness used to have a vehement terror of Nightmares—people who’d been turned into their worst fears while they slept. Through two assassination attempts, an explosion, and a faustian bargain with a dream demon, she’s finally working through those fears.

Unfortunately, Nightmares aren’t the only dangerous thing in Newham. Working at a speakeasy where gunfights are common and death is a regular occurrence, Ness is forced to reckon with all her other fears—including her fear of mortality. It’s easy to die in Newham, but it’s hard to live.

So when the Nightmare Phantom—the monster that turns people into Nightmares—shows up, asking her another favor, she agrees, but only if he turns her into a Nightmare. One of her own choosing, something bullet proof and strong and able to live without fear.

But when Ness’s attempt to fulfill the bargain goes wrong, things start to spiral out of control. Now, Ness is in the crosshairs of enemies old and new, and this time, she can’t run from her problems. If she wants to survive, she’s going to have to conquer the most difficult enemy of all: herself

Release date: September 26, 2023

Publisher: HarperCollins

Print pages: 368

Sample

1

My worst fear used to be that I would fall asleep and wake as a Nightmare, my body and mind twisted into something monstrous and unrecognizable, and I’d slaughter everyone I cared about.

Now, sometimes I dream of becoming a monster—at least then I wouldn’t be so afraid of everything.

I crouch behind the bar of the speakeasy I’ve been working at for the past month as gunfire roars above me. There’s a gang war going on because someone looked sideways at someone else, or made a remark about the upcoming mayoral election or some other equally inane nonsense. The patrons of the speakeasy are always getting into fights over something, and then they start shooting.

The bar, of course, is bulletproof, which is why I’m crouched behind it like the coward that I am. My only company are the bottles of various alcohols, which are also stored in the bulletproof bar—because servers can be replaced if they’re shot, but the alcohol brings in the money. Heaven forbid something happened to it.

The waistcoat of my heavily starched uniform digs into my side as I curl into a ball, painfully aware of how incredibly fragile my body is, how easily a bullet could rip through me, shredding my internal organs into a bloody pulp.

But it’s okay. Behind this bar, I’m safe.

Usually, I bring a penny novel to work with me for times like this. These shoot-outs can go on for a while. But I finished the last penny novel I was reading, and I haven’t brought in a new one yet.

Which means my only distraction is my own thoughts.

I can’t think of worse company.

The Friends of the Restful Soul always taught me that peace comes from within, that deep breaths and slow meditation can bring calm in even the most stressful of situations.

But the Friends of the Restful Soul also turned out to be a cult that lured people in by promising to help them and instead kidnapped them. So, I take all their advice with a grain of salt these days.

I try and think of the whole Friends situation in a positive light sometimes. Sure, they planned on kidnapping me too, but I escaped before they did—and I got several years of free food and rent from them before I got out. So really, who was getting conned here?

Me. It was still me.

Though I’d never admit it to anyone, there’s a part of me that desperately wants to go back to the Friends. A part that dreams about my tiny little room there, its rough brick walls. A part that longs for the sense of peace and security as I lay on my bed, eyes closed, knowing nothing in the world could get to me, that for the time I was locked away from the world, I was safe.

I know it was all a lie. I was never really safe. It was just an illusion. I know that. I do.

But at times like this, with gunfire rattling above my head, crouched on the sticky floor of a speakeasy with shitty pay, bad hours, and constant risk of life and limb—well, that illusion starts to look pretty good.

The clatter of gunfire changes pitch, as the guns swing around toward something else. People yell, and the thuds of something heavy hitting gang members, followed by the thump of their bodies crashing to the ground, is a dark staccato amid the bullets.

After a moment, the gunfire ends, the thudding stops, and there’s only silence.

I’m not dumb enough to peek over the top of the bar. Someone will come fetch me when the coast is clear. I’m not risking my neck out of curiosity. I’m perfectly happy to hide behind the bulletproof bar all night long. Or even longer. I could just live in this dark bulletproofed bar case, curled away from the dangers of the

 world. That sounds nice.

A head pops over the edge of the bar, looking down at me. “Hey, Ness!”

I blink up at my friend Priya. Her smile is cocky and bright, matching the neon bright turquoise ombré in her black hair. She has an athlete’s frame, tall and long legged, and she’s always dressed for a fight. Or a party. Preferably at the same time. Today, that means a variety of very illegal weapons pinned to a sequined belt, leather pants, combat boots, and a formfitting red turtleneck with a black waistcoat.

“You didn’t mention how exciting your work was,” Priya continues brightly as she swings herself onto the counter, legs draping over the edge. “Is it like this every night?”

“Mostly,” I admit, continuing to crouch behind the bar.

“Sounds fun,” Priya says amiably, and I roll my eyes. Priya and I have very different ideas of fun. I’m afraid of almost everything—she’s afraid of almost nothing.

“Is the coast clear?” I ask.

“Oh yeah.” Priya waves absently. “I took out the shooters. They weren’t too much of a challenge.”

Of course they weren’t. Priya lives for the adrenaline rush of hunting down and killing rampaging Nightmares, from ten-story lizards crashing through office buildings to sea serpents eating boats. A few gang members are probably a walk in the park for her.

I wish I were like her. She takes action. She fights the things that go bump in the night, and she does it with a smile on her face.

I hide from them and fantasize about rejoining an evil cult.

How can she be so brave when the world is so insane? And why can’t I be like that?

I rise and dust myself off. My once white button-up shirt is now as gray as my waistcoat from all the crawling around on the floor I did to get behind the bar.

Priya hops onto a barstool, ignoring the pile of unconscious—at least, I hope they’re only unconscious, though I wouldn’t actually care if they were dead—gang members behind her.

“One Newham Twist please,” she orders. “On the rocks.”

I start mixing her drink while the other staff members drag the bodies in the middle of the room outside. Some of them leave bloody trails that another staff member mops up. The gang shootings are always so messy. At least with a customer at the bar, I have an excuse not to scrub brain matter off the walls this time.

The only bad part about not dragging the bodies into the alley behind the speakeasy is that I don’t get the chance to pick their pockets. Whoever tosses the bodies gets to pick them clean. That’s at least half the income from this job.

I’m careful when I pour her drink to lean the tumbler against the glass. The extra support helps hide the faint shaking in my hands, the only remaining sign that five minutes ago, death was rattling through the building.

I pass Priya her drink, and she downs it in one go, then slams it back on the bar. “Another.”

I raise an eyebrow.

 “You know those are pretty alcoholic.”

“That’s the point.”

I shrug, and make her another.

She downs that too.

My eyes narrow. “You okay?”

“What, you think I can’t take my alcohol?” she asks, as though this is a personal offense.

“No,” I say slowly, trying to figure out how to phrase this. “But you don’t usually drink so fast. Did something happen today?”

Priya deflates.

“Not really,” she admits. “It was the same as every other day since I’ve started working for Nightmare Defense. We train in the morning, then sit around waiting for calls about Nightmare attacks that never come, and then we train in the afternoon, and then we go home. Rinse and repeat.”

She swirls her empty glass. “It’s just . . . not what I imagined.” Her expression turns bitter. “I joined to fight dangerous Nightmares, to blow up dinosaurs ravaging apartment buildings and behead flying zombies.”

“Well,” I say carefully, “maybe it’s just because you’re new. All the missions are going to the experienced members.”

She shakes her head. “You killed all the experienced members, remember?”

I wince. “I didn’t kill them.”

She rolls her eyes. “I’m sorry, I forgot, you got someone else to kill them for you. How silly of me to miss the nuance there.”

A month ago, Nightmare Defense, the one place that I’d always thought wasn’t evil in Newham, had kidnapped me and my friend Cy. We’d accidentally survived a mass assassination they’d arranged, and then riled them up by exposing it. In an effort to, you know, not die, I’d released the monster living in people’s dreams. The one that turned people into Nightmares. The one that, with a single touch, had turned every single member of Nightmare Defense into cockroaches and butterflies, then crushed them beneath his smooth black shoe.

I didn’t regret releasing the Nightmare Phantom. Yes, I’d released a monster from dreams and he’d wiped out the city’s defense force. But I’m alive. And Cy’s alive. That’s what matters.

I’m too much a Newham girl to regret staying alive, whatever the cost.

“Sorry,” Priya says. “That was uncalled for.” She rubs her temples. “It’s just, the people who got into Nightmare Defense a week before me got to crawl into a dragon’s eye socket and pour acid on its brain. Like, how cool is that?”

We have very different definitions of what “cool” is.

“Uh. That’s nice.” I lean in. “But you also did some cool things. Remember that sentient flesh-eating blob that you dissolved last week? And the week before, you had it out with a twelve-foot-long crocodile.”

“That last one wasn’t actually a Nightmare,” Priya points out. “It was just a pet someone flushed down the toilet that became very large in the

 sewers.”

“It was sure nightmare material, though.” I smile encouragingly. “That’s gotta count for something, right?”

“I suppose it was a good fight,” Priya grudgingly admits. Then she sighs. “But ever since you released the Nightmare Phantom, the number of Nightmares has plummeted.”

“That’s a good thing, isn’t it?” I say.

Priya looks away. “Yeah, of course.”

It doesn’t sound like she believes it though.

Every year, thousands of people forget to take pills to prevent dreams, or break prohibition laws—like we’re doing right now—to drink alcohol, effectively neutralizing the Helomine in the tap water that stops people from dreaming. Because if you can’t dream, you can’t have a nightmare, and wake up having become it.

But now, the monster that turned people into Nightmares isn’t in their dreams anymore.

Because I brought him into reality.

“What do you think the Nightmare Phantom is doing?” Priya asks, thoughts mirroring mine. “I figured now that he’s out, he’d be, I don’t know, turning people into Nightmares on the streets and causing chaos everywhere.”

“Me too,” I admit. “It’s too quiet. It’s unsettling.”

“Like the calm before the storm,” Priya agrees, tapping her finger in a nervous rhythm on the polished bar counter.

I thought, when I freed him, I’d be unleashing chaos on the world. But it’s actually been less chaotic. It unsettles me, this quiet. I can’t help wondering if he’s planning something much worse.

The band has come back onstage now that all the blood is mopped up, and a rollicking jazz ditty starts up.

New customers trickle in, drawn by the music, returning now that the fight’s over. A woman walks arm in arm with her boyfriend, the two of them giggling together. She’s wearing a flapper dress that glitters with beads.

She’s also a three-headed wolf with goat hooves.

She waves as she passes us, three grinning mouthfuls of jagged teeth, and I force my hand to unclench from my tumbler, wipe my shaking sweaty hands on my trousers, and smile politely back.

I’m better than I was—I haven’t set anything on fire trying to escape from a terrifying-looking Nightmare in almost a month—but I still have problems with really obvious Nightmares. Logically, I know it’s not their fault they were turned into their worst nightmare while they slept, and that they’re still people under that monstrous skin.

But logic has never had anything to do with my fears.

Priya looks mournfully at the Nightmare girl, as though hoping she’ll go on a murderous rampage at any moment. The girl doesn’t oblige, continuing to giggle as she leans against her partner, a dapper Black man wearing a top hat, enticing him to dance.

Priya downs her freshly refilled drink and slams the glass on the bar.

“Another.”

I eye her. “I think you’ve had enough.”

“Are you cutting me off?” she says, clearly offended. “Just because you can’t hold your liquor doesn’t mean I can’t hold mine.”

“Oh, I’m sure you can hold your liquor,” I tell her. “But bar policy has a cutoff limit, and you hit it. I can’t serve you for another hour.”

This is complete horseshit. The bar has no such policy. If anything, the policy is “milk the customer for as much cash as possible, then when they’ve fallen unconscious from drink, rob them.”

I’d rather not see Priya unconscious and robbed.

Priya mutters under her breath, and then reels out onto the dance floor, grabbing a random person and pulling them into a polka.

I sigh. I’m worried about Priya. She spent her whole life dreaming about getting into Nightmare Defense, and now that she’s there, nothing is at all like she imagined. Every time I see her, she’s more miserable.

I just wish I knew how to help.

Bang.

I drop instantly, pressing myself to the ground behind the safety of the bulletproof bar.

Did the gangs come back? Are we going to have a second shoot-out tonight?

Priya was on the dance floor—was she shot?

For that matter, was I?

I paw myself, checking for wounds, in case the adrenaline and terror have kept me from feeling them, but I’m uninjured as far as I can tell. It’s okay. I’m okay. Everything’s okay.

“Ness?”

I look up to see Estelle leaning over the counter looking down at me. She’s white, freckled, with a halo of bright red curls. She’s the one who got me this job a month ago, mostly because I think she felt sorry for me.

“Ness, what are you doing?” Estelle asks.

I stare up at her. “What are you doing? That was a gunshot.”

Estelle lets out a long-suffering sigh. “No, it wasn’t. Someone dropped their beer mug. It broke.”

Oh.

Well, now I feel stupid.

I stand slowly, dusting myself off, trying to play it off like nothing happened.

Her eyes crease in concern. “You okay?”

“Fine, fine, fine,” I insist, my voice high and chipper. “Never better.”

I mean, for someone living in Newham, I’m doing as well as can be expected. I’m alive, and still have all my limbs. No one has tried to eat me yet today. That’s honestly better than most days.

Estelle considers me. “And how are things going living with Cy? He hasn’t . . .?"

I flush, turning away. “I told you, he’s a friend. He’s just letting me stay at his place until I get enough savings to rent my own place. I’m not a blood worker.”

Estelle purses her lips, seeming to not quite believe me. She’s been worried about me from the start, and I understand her concern. After all, vampires can be incredibly dangerous. And it’s easy to end up dead from blood loss. But I’m not feeding Cy.

Well. I did once. But that was a one-time thing.

And anyway, Estelle has to know that I’m not feeding Cy—after all, she is.

“Seriously, Estelle,” I insist. “I’m doing fine.” I note her hollow cheeks and shadowed under-eyes. “Are you okay?”

“Fine, fine.” Estelle waves me off and looks me over. “You seem a little jumpy, though. Why don’t you swap with me. Take the rest of the trash out and start mopping down the kitchen.”

My shoulders loosen a little, and I’m grateful, though I won’t admit it. Cleaning the kitchen is safe, far away from the drama of the speakeasy itself.

“Sure.” I smile. “Sounds good.”

I waste no time grabbing the trash bag under the bar and heading to the back alley. Maybe I’ll get lucky and someone forgot to pick the pockets of the dead gang members tossed out there earlier.

The air outside is crisp and a little chill, a reminder that we’re going into autumn. Tucked in the alleyways and hidden nooks of the city, the homeless population is already preparing—not for the cold, though that always kills a few people every year, but for the scams that rise up every winter. The shelters that aren’t actually shelters but covers for some mad scientist to experiment on a population that won’t be missed. The monsters seeking human flesh to eat or wear or sell that roam the streets, luring people in with promises of warm food and beds.

I shiver, and not from the cold. That could have been me in the streets.

If I’m not careful, it still could.

I shudder at the thought. No. I have a job now. I’m saving money. Soon, I’ll be able to afford to rent my own place, my own little cubbyhole of safety. I’ll be independent and stand on my own two feet without any help.

And I definitely won’t end up on the street.

My fingers tighten on the trash bag handles, and wish I believed my own words.

I toss the bag into the alley, then look at the pile of bodies, wondering if I should go through them for anything of value the other servers missed. We call the money we find “tips” because the patrons sure don’t tip when they’re alive.

I take a step forward, but stop when I see her.

Her uniform waistcoat has been stripped off, showcasing the bloody hole in her white button-up shirt. The glow from the streetlight bounces off her pale face and dark hair, and her eyes are mercifully closed.

I don’t remember her name. Lesley? Lisa? Linda? She was new. Just started this week. She was supposed to be on door duty tonight, letting people into the hidden speakeasy. Which meant that when the shooting started, she was out in the open with nowhere to hide.

She hadn’t been part of the fight. She’d been a regular girl, like me.

Now she’s dead.

Thrown out in the back alley with the rest of the trash.

I stare at her, unable to take my eyes off her. Not because I care she’s dead, people die all the time. Not because I liked her and am grieving, I didn’t even know her well enough to remember her name.

But because it could have been me.

I’ve done door duty. I’ve even had fights break out when I was on door duty. It’s only been luck that’s kept a stray bullet from hitting me.

How long before I’m not lucky?

The shaking hands are back, but this time the shaking rises up, and I have to crouch, to ball myself up and wrap my arms around myself, hold myself before I shake my bones right out of my skin.

On the ground is a ratty newspaper with a large photo on the front page. The Director of the Friends of the Restful Soul smiles up at me, his lizard face familiar and welcoming. I can almost hear his voice, so soothing, telling me to come home, that my wonderful little room is waiting, my safe haven.

But it’s not.

My room is gone, and even if I could get it back, the illusion has been broken. I know it’s not safe anymore.

But I want it back. I want that feeling, that knowledge that I was safe. I want the life I had there, even if I didn’t fit. I had to play at religion and pretend to care, but it was a small price to pay for the free room and board. And the jobs they had me do were so much safer than working in a speakeasy. I delivered mail, I dropped off flyers.

And yes, the last time I dropped off flyers a woman turned into a Nightmare and tried to murder me. And true, the last time I did a mail run the boat exploded.

I know these things. It wasn’t really safe, even without the whole kidnapping scheme. But it doesn’t stop me from wanting that life back, the overwhelming sense of security and stability that living there gave me.

I want it so bad it hurts, and if I thought that I could beg the Director for everything to go back to the way it was, then I’d do it. No matter what the cost was.

But I can’t.

Because it doesn’t exist. The safety was a lie, and I still don’t know how or where to find the reality. All I want is to be safe. To not be afraid.

But how can I be safe

 in a place where wild gunfights are a normal part of the evening?

I can’t.

That’s the truth. This job isn’t safe, this city isn’t safe. And it’s only a matter of time before my luck runs out and I end up dead in an alley somewhere too.

2

Whenever I tell people I live in a closet, they either think I’m exaggerating—I’m not—or make a joke about Newham’s rental shortage.

None of them ever imagine that I chose to live in a closet.

My closet is small and cramped, but it’s contained. I like contained spaces. I picked it because it reminded me of my perfect little room with the Friends, but the truth is that it’s a poor substitute. The doors are slatted, which means light and noise from the main room slip through easily, disturbing the peace of it, reminding me every time I’m there that it’s nothing more than a sham imitation of a broken illusion.

But that doesn’t mean I’m leaving my closet. For one thing, then I’d have to sleep on the couch in the living room, and that’s just too exposed. I already feel guilty that Cy is letting me stay in his apartment rent free while I get back on my feet. I don’t want to take up more of his space than I have to.

All the way home I try to focus on how nice it will be to relax in my little closet, and not on the image of my coworker’s dead body, thrown away like so much trash.

It doesn’t work.

Cy’s apartment building is in the nice part of town, all whitewashed buildings across from green, well-tended parks. The lobby is full of polished fake marble and crystal chandeliers, the kind of thing I’d only ever seen in films before I met Cy. The door guard, a burly ginger man over seven feet tall with arms as wide as tree trunks, looks up from his book when I enter.

“Evening, Ness,” he says. His speech is always slow and ponderous, and I suspect it’s part of the change his body went through when he became a Nightmare.

“Evening, Ronald,” I reply.

I’ve never asked Ronald what kind of nightmare he had to end up so monstrously large, with exaggerated features and slow movements, but I suspect it was about a person. ...