Free Dreamfever by Kit Alloway

dust.
    â€œYeah, I’ve tried it,” Whim said. “Ian and I used to do it once in a while.”
    â€œWhat’s it like?”
    â€œIt’s like … things look different. You hallucinate a lot, but you feel like what you’re seeing is everything revealing itself, like you’re seeing everything’s true form. And sometimes you’re like, Man, the World is so beautiful . And other times, you just freak out because everything you’re afraid of is true.”
    â€œSo it’s all just hallucinations,” Will tried to clarify.
    â€œYeah…” Whim didn’t sound certain. “The thing is, sometimes I would come out of it and know things I hadn’t known before. Crazy stuff people would never have told me. But it was like I could see inside them.”
    Will pondered this. Veil dust was a drug, but it wasn’t a drug. It made a person hallucinate, but it also showed them the truth, or it showed them what they were afraid of.
    â€œWhy would the Grey Circle be using it?”
    â€œI don’t know. But one thing I do know: we can not tell Josh and Del that they’re doing Veil dust here, or they’re never going to let us come back.”
    Will glanced at him across the front seat. “I don’t want to keep secrets from Josh.”
    â€œYou don’t have to keep it a secret, but don’t bring it up.”
    â€œThat’s the same thing, Whim.”
    â€œNot in my book. I’m telling you, Josh will flip out. She hated it when Ian did Veil dust. She considered it a violation of the Dream’s sacredness or something.”
    Will groaned. That did sound like Josh. And he did want to keep coming to these meetings, even if “the real meeting” was upstairs. He’d just started making progress figuring out what was wrong with Winsor.
    â€œI won’t bring it up,” he agreed.
    â€œThanks,” Whim said. “One other thing. Could we maybe not mention that we bumped into Bayla?”
    â€œOkay, who is Bayla?” Will demanded. “What is the story with you two?”
    Whim, pulling off the interstate, grimaced. “So, this is embarrassing, but when I was fifteen, Bayla and I tried to elope. We bought a car for four hundred dollars and we tried to drive it to Mexico because we thought we could get married there without our parents’ consent—which is not true, by the way—but the car broke down in Louisiana. I wanted to hop a bus, but … Bayla bailed. She’d pretty much been losing patience since the A/C went on the fritz outside Mobile. She called her parents and told them to come get her.”
    A shade of sadness tinted Whim’s voice, which surprised Will. Whim wasn’t much for regrets, but four years had passed and he was still hurt that Bayla had given up on him. “Wow,” Will said. “That sucks, man.”
    â€œYeah, well, I don’t know what I was thinking in the first place. Bayla’s a treacherous bitch. I should have seen that from the start.”
    Apparently he’s still angry, too, Will thought.
    â€œShe did look good, though,” Whim added. He smiled at the memory. “She looked amazing, actually.”
    Uh-oh.
    â€œI won’t mention that part to Deloise, either,” Will said.

 
    Six
    The French toast tasted like happiness.
    After every bite Mirren took, she closed her eyes to savor the sweet, eggy goodness. The flavors made her want to write an overblown ode stuffed with words like “sultry” and “delirious” and “profane.”
    Now I understand why people get fat, she thought.
    Whim had woken her that morning with the announcement that they were going to brunch at Fat Mac’s Flapjacks. “They” turned out to be Whim, Deloise, Josh, Will, Haley—and Mirren. She couldn’t tell him that she’d never been to a restaurant before, but she was relieved when he and Josh ordered