This thrilling sequel to Traveler doles out adventure and heartbreak in equal measure as it takes readers through a kaleidoscope of intricately crafted worlds of wonder, discovery, and danger.
You’re still you no matter where you go.
Jessa has learned the hard way that traveling to alternate dimensions isn’t all delicious, glittering desserts and fancy parties: it also means accidentally running into people she thought she'd never see again. Still mourning a devastating loss, Jessa isn’t really prepared for the arrival of a reckless version of someone she once loved who is now bent on revenge. Add an increasingly complicated relationship with her best friend Ben, the reappearance of an old enemy, and the threat of the multiverse collapsing, and Jessa’s got a lot on her plate. She may be destined to help save an infinite multitude of worlds… but in the end, all Jessa really wants to do is save her friends.
In Dreamer, the young adult fantasy follow up to Traveler, author L. E. DeLano delivers a gripping, emotional story that will leave readers on the edge of their seat.
Praise for Traveler:
"Featuring skillful world-building and carefully plotted suspense, this novel will leave readers eagerly awaiting the sequel." —School Library Journal
“DeLano’s debut novel is full of mystery, action, and romance. Her masterful storyline will keep readers guessing until the very last sentence.” —VOYA
“Spicy, electric and unputdownable. LOVED IT.” —sfinnamore, reader on SwoonReads.com
Release date:
April 10, 2018
Publisher:
Feiwel & Friends
Print pages:
350
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I’m staring at the barrel of a gun. It’s black and there are grooves on the handle. A finger is on the trigger and I feel my whole body begin to shake.
I know what guns do, and it hasn’t been long enough since I’ve seen one pointed at another person. My hands curl into fists as I feel the helpless rage rush through me. I need to do something. I glance left, then right, then back at the gun. There’s still time—I can run for help, if I can just get to the door before I’m seen.
If I was anywhere but where I was, I would have made it.
I step back into the aisle of the convenience store, behind a display of sunglasses, and as I pass a display for beef jerky, the edge of my hoodie catches on one of the hooks and the whole thing tilts over with a screech of metal. The man whirls instantly, turning the gun on me, and I freeze, putting my hands up, still staring at that gun.
Crap.
Here’s where I get yelled at.
“Shall we go on?” Mario asks sharply as he gestures to the scene appearing on the whiteboard behind him—a replay of my last assignment.
For the last six weeks these assignments have been my life. I’ve been out every day shifting into other realities, making corrections and living other versions of my life. I was grateful for the distraction at first, and it’s always interesting to see who I could have been if fate had sent things another way, but lately it’s been dragging me down, making all these little changes in somebody else’s world.
We’re sent to the other realities because we’re too invested in our own. We’d want to check up on the changes we made, or put our own spin on them based on our familiarity with the world we’re in. But I’ve learned that it’s not always so easy to stay out of someone else’s business—especially when someone else is still you. There are so many variables.
Mario keeps track of all that—that’s what Dreamers do. They guide Travelers as they make the tiny changes in other realities that end up rippling into bigger changes somewhere down the line. We meet up here, in this white classroom with its vivid red door—which is not really reality but a construct I go to when I dream. Here I get my assignments, and here I get debriefed. Or yelled at.
“I remembered to ask the guy at the counter for directions,” I say, wincing.
Mario gives me a stony look. “Let’s rewind and see how we got here, shall we?”
He passes a hand in front of the whiteboard and the scene devolves, coalescing into a shot of the convenience store and me walking in. I spot my target right away and head straight to the counter, asking him for directions to Stilton Street. He draws me a map on the back of a napkin, I thank the counter guy for his help, and then—I break protocol.
The magazines here all have holographic covers, and it throws me. I’m fascinated by the 3-D effect, and I pause instead of moving on.
I take my time looking at each one before I turn to leave, but I’m interrupted by the front door slamming open so hard it nearly shatters the glass. A man with a gun in his hand heads straight for the counter as I stare, wide-eyed.
“Open the register,” he says, pointing the gun right in the clerk’s face.
I realize this isn’t the best place to be right now, so I start slowly backing down the aisle—and then accidentally snag on the beef jerky display, which rocks and then topples to the ground.
The robber pivots, leveling the gun on me.
Suddenly, the counter guy springs into action. He leaps over the counter and slams into the robber, throwing him to the ground. The gun goes off, hitting the soda machine, which lets out a loud hiss. Another clerk runs out from the back, shrieks, and then presses the alarm button, setting off a claxon that can surely be heard on the street. I leap back as the two men struggle before me.
Then I notice the gun—it must’ve fallen from the robber’s hand when he hit the ground. I start to reach for it, and then I stop myself. Then I reach for it again, and I’m hyperventilating.
I’ve never held a gun in my life.
But this me has.
I pick up the gun—it’s a semiautomatic handgun—a Taurus PT 111. Somehow, I know that. I quickly use my thumb to press in on the magazine release. I toss the magazine into a trash can nearby, and I slide the gun across the floor under the displays, as far away as I can.
A moment later, sirens cut the air, and the robber is on his feet, looking around frantically for his gun. He locks eyes with me, and for a moment, I wonder if he’s going to come after me, but I suppose he decides he’s better off running. He’s out the door in a flash.
“You okay?” I ask the clerk. He gives me a nod, holding a napkin to his bleeding mouth, and I head for the door. “His gun is under the candy display, over there,” I say. “I’m going to go get some air.”
I can hear him calling after me as I run for the door, and I keep on running, slowing down a few blocks away and putting my fingers to the window of an empty storefront in order to transfer myself back to my reality.
My mother had been more than a little shocked to see me shaking and panting as I stood in front of the microwave with my hand on the door, but I imagine my counterpart was equally surprised to be waiting for popcorn one minute and hyped up on adrenaline and dripping sweat in the next.
“So…,” Mario says, turning away from the dimming scene on the whiteboard. “How do you think that went?”
I wince. “You mean my nearly getting killed?”
He stares at me stonily. “You were supposed to get in there and then get out. Leave the store, head to the laundromat next door, transfer back from the bathroom.”
“It all came out okay,” I defend myself weakly. Honestly, seeing it all happen again is making my palms sweat. I know I’m in the dreamscape, but I wonder if I’ll wake up with sweaty palms.
“You didn’t complete the assignment,” he says. “If you’d gone into the laundromat, a young mother who was there would have seen you and remembered to call her brother’s ex-girlfriend because she owns that same shirt. There were big ripples on this one. Big.”
“Good to know you’re so concerned about me,” I grumble.
“You had a job to do and only did part of it,” he snaps. “And if you’d left right after you did what you were supposed to do, you wouldn’t have been looking down the barrel of a gun.”
“You could have told me what was going to happen!”
“It wasn’t even a probability at the time I briefed you,” Mario said. “There were too many variables that still hadn’t fallen into place. Free will changes the way the future unfolds, and that’s part of why you’re sent to make corrections in the first place.”
I straighten my shoulders. “I handled it.”
“You shouldn’t have had to.” Mario runs his hand through his hair so hard that it would have yanked out strands if he were human. “Let’s salvage something from this,” he finally says, leaning back against his teacher’s desk. “How did you know what to do with the gun?”
“I—the other Jessa, I mean—she knew about guns. My mom is dating a cop in her reality. He takes me out shooting sometimes.”
“Exactly. So you searched through your applicable memories and drew on the knowledge that was necessary to work through the situation.”
“I—yeah, I guess so.”
“Not every job is going to go smoothly. The trick is to keep your wits about you—which is something you did manage to do. I’d still prefer you not take any chances—at least until we get Rudy and Eversor rounded up.”
“It’s been weeks without a sign of either one of them,” I remind him. “Eversor hasn’t tried to finish killing me, and Rudy is stripped of his Dreamer powers somewhere.”
“Somewhere in the vast, undefined boundaries of the dreamscape,” he reminds me. “He’ll have to show himself sooner or later—and knowing how bent he was on his cause, my guess is sooner.”
“That’s what you said last week. And the week before.” I don’t even try to hide my irritation. “You’ve had me traveling out practically every day, and there’s been no sign of him, or of Eversor.”
“We were close last week,” he defends himself. “You just missed her in that reality with the archaeological dig.”
“You think. You don’t know.”
“I don’t know what she’s up to yet,” he concedes. “But we’ve got them on the run, and that’s half the battle.”
“Maybe they’ve given up. They can’t beat us.”
He makes a slashing motion with his hand in refusal. “We can’t afford to think that way. That may be just what they want—to lull us into dropping our guard. We have to stay vigilant—and careful.”
“What do you think they could do that we wouldn’t see coming?” I ask in exasperation.
“That’s a good question,” Mario snaps back. “And a rather frightening one, don’t you think?” He turns back to the whiteboard, drumming his fingers against his chin as he studies it.
“I’ve got another assignment,” he says. “It’s short. Shouldn’t take you more than fifteen minutes. I’ll send you somewhere you’ve been before, so there won’t be any surprises.”
The scene comes to life behind him.
“Is that … Philadelphia?” I tilt my head, remembering the train station.
“Yes. You’ll come through here at eight thirty,” Mario tells me. “Buy a pack of Juicy Fruit gum. Then head down to platform four, get on the eight forty-five train. Take a seat at first, close to the door. You’ll see a teenage girl with red hair—offer her a stick of gum. Once she gets off the train, stand up, grab one of the metal poles, and transfer back when you see yourself in it. It’ll be good practice—using a bended reflection.”
Mario has been adamant that I keep my skills sharp. He’s right, of course. I need to stay in practice. And considering I haven’t had much practice to begin with, I suppose I can’t afford to slack off. I don’t want to be cornered somewhere just because I’m not practiced enough to get myself out of there.
I shudder at the memory of how I nearly came to an end once just because I couldn’t travel through water in dim light. That’s not going to happen again. I even sleep with my compact mirror under my pillow now.
“Let’s keep it simple,” he tells me. “I’ve pushed you into all this far too quickly, and without the benefit of a mentor these last weeks.”
That sentence hangs in the air between us, and the pain starts squeezing my belly, radiating up into my chest. Finn was my mentor. And Finn is gone.
“Fine.” My voice is high and tight. I stride to the door and reach for the knob.
“I’m sorry, Jessa,” Mario says quietly from behind me.
I step through without looking back and wake in my bed in the dark of my room, rubbing my chest as though I can make the pain go away. It doesn’t work.
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