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Jay didn’t really want to read The King in Yellow anyway. That honestly felt like a cursed storyline from a creepypasta or something, like he’d read it and something would happen to him that would make Hastur claim him. If that’s how he got the Sign, he didn’t want it.

He wanted to stay neutral; if Aunt Grace had all these Signs but hadn’t fallen under the sway of any one being, then hopefully, he could too.

And if Louis told him he had to read the book… well, he’d cross the bridge when he came to it.

Jay walked past his house, heading to Louis’s instead, feeling a bit like he was going door to door collecting for charity. Spare a Sign to help save the world? He laughed weakly under his breath, ringing Louis’s doorbell.

A minute or so later, Louis answered. He was wearing jeans and a black shirt with gold trim around the wrists and collar, and looked somewhat severe in it. “Jay,” he said.

“Louis,” Jay said. “Hi.”

Louis looked past him, up at the sky. “Do you see that?”

“Yeah,” Jay said. “It’s really bad.”

“You know what it is?”

“The hordes of dancers around the throne of the blind god are free from his music.” Maybe, Jay thought, I have it in me to be a weird cultist after all. Listen to me.

In all fairness, Louis did look impressed at that. “Oh. That’s really bad.”

“It’s really bad!” Jay repeated fervently. “Listen, do you want to come over? There’s something I need to talk to you about. We could get take-out or I could make a can of soup or something. You can meet my new cat.”

Louis looked dubious. “…It’s the end of the world and you adopted a cat?”

“He’s from a city I went to in a dream. He followed me home.”

“Oh.” Louis considered that, then grabbed his keys and wallet, locking up and gesturing for Jay to lead the way.

Jay did, letting Louis in; Ulthar bounded up to meet him at the door, then paused, tail twitching curiously, hunched and slightly cautious.

“You did get a cat,” Louis said. He crouched, head tilted, watching Ulthar with curiosity, then held a hand out. Ulthar hesitated, glancing between him and Jay, but whatever he read in Jay’s body language seemed to relax him and his tail perked up a bit more as he trotted over to sniff Louis’s hand. “What’s his name?”

“Ulthar.”

“Like the god?”

“What? No, what? Like the city,” Jay said, alarmed. “I don’t think he’s a god. There were a lot of cats in Ulthar, and this just happened to be one I helped out. I named him after the city because… well, I didn’t have any other ideas.”

Louis shrugged, apparently unaffected by the implications. “I’ve only heard of Ulthar as a god in passing regardless. Some sort of guardian. There are worse things to share a name with.”

That was, at least, mildly reassuring. Jay let out a breath, leading the way into the living room; Ulthar trotting after and bee-lining for a mouse toy Jay had given him earlier, and Louis ambling to bring up the rear. He sat again in the solo chair, Louis taking the love seat.

“Okay, so,” Jay said. “It’s about the Yellow Sign.”

“Ah,” Louis said. “…Should we order dinner first?”

“What? Oh. Sure. Not a lot seems to deliver out here,” Jay said, a bit thrown off. At least Louis thought they’d still be able to eat after this conversation. “Pizza, something resembling Chinese food. Which do you want?”

Louis looked at him askance, the dubious expression clear even through the mask. “…You don’t need to just order from places that offer delivery.”

“I mean, I guess if I wanted to go get take out—”

“It just depends on who you know,” Louis said. “Do you like bouillabaisse?”

“That’s, uh, fancy French hot-pot? Then, yes, I guess?”

Somehow, it seemed as though Louis was smiling, eyes crinkling. “There are similarities. All right, we’ll get it. My treat.” He pulled out his cell phone, dialing, then ordering in rapid French.

Jay stared at him, fascinated by the abilities of the rich. The world was clearly a very different place for Louis.

Louis didn’t seem to notice, finishing and hanging up the phone. “There. Alexandre will have one of the escueleries drive it over shortly.”

“Uh, well, thanks,” Jay said. “I hope it’s no trouble?”

“No trouble,” Louis said. His voice warmed. “I do this for myself often enough. It’s more pleasant to order for two.”

Jay couldn’t quite keep from blushing. “Well, yeah, thanks,” he said. “…So.”

“So. The Yellow Sign,” Louis prompted. “You haven’t read the play.”

“I haven’t, no.” Jay rubbed the back of his neck. “I’ve collected three Signs. I’m trying to collect four, and… your god’s is among them. And… I’m trying to collect four because they are ones that Aunt Grace had, signs marked on her door into dreams, and since I’m trying to find something she lost, in order to save the world, I just… feel like I should try to match whatever she was doing.”

“That makes sense,” Louis said cautiously.

Jay drew a deep breath. “But the other thing she did that I’d like to do is… well, remaining neutral. I don’t want to give any particular god a claim on me. I know having and using their Signs will draw their attention, but I don’t… want to play favorites either?” He rubbed the back of his neck, ducking his head. “So… if I can get it from you without reading the book, without… whatever ritual that is? I’d like that.”

Louis was silent for a long moment; when Jay looked up again, he saw Louis picking at the hem of his jeans. “…This is a bit awkward,” Louis said, finally. “I’m supposed to be a… harbinger. I’m supposed to drop portents, and lead you to the book. To put you in the  grasp of the Feaster from Afar. I’m the messenger.”

“I know,” Jay said. “I don’t really want to be in anyone’s grasp. At most, I want to be within arm’s reach? And besides, the world is ending.”

“Besides, the world is ending,” Louis agreed slowly.

“Do you really want me to become… whatever it is after I’m in his grasp?” Jay asked.

Louis said, “But it’s what I’m supposed to do.”

It hurt, despite everything. Then again, they’d only known each other a couple of days. And he had already warned himself about Louis’s intentions. “Is that a yes?”

“It should be a yes.” Louis looked up, meeting his gaze, his own expression also strangely hurt. “…No. I’ll get you the Sign. A gift. From one equal to another. If you meet him through it, you meet him through it, not through the play’s maze.”

Jay swallowed. “So—”

“So I’m not going to sacrifice you,” Louis said. His voice, usually mild and slightly vacant, had a tinge of anger. “All right? You’re just like your Aunt, so it’ll be fine, I’m sure.”

“Hey—” Jay pushed down his own sense of offense that Louis would even consider sacrificing him to his dark god. He rose, coming over, putting a hand on Louis’s shoulder. “Thanks.”

Louis looked up at him, brows drawn down far enough they were visible even through the mask’s eye holes. “I—”

The doorbell rang, and they both jumped. Louis recovered first, rising and reaching for his wallet. “That’ll be the food,” he said. “Clear some space on the kitchen table?”

Jay fled, getting some space and catching his breath as he did as Louis had asked, shifting The Laws of the Dead aside and setting out some cutlery.

Louis joined him, setting out the two plastic containers and claiming a chair. “I hope you enjoy,” he said, tilting his mask up enough to show his mouth, soft pink lips with fine scars marked all around it.

“I’m sure I will—” Jay sat, still flustered over the whole situation. “Thanks again.”

The soup was delicious, rich and saffron-flavored, similar enough in composition to haemul jeongol to feel faintly nostalgic, while also far enough away in flavor profile that it didn’t make him homesick for his family’s cooking. They ate in near silence, broken only by Ulthar begging for seafood. Louis did not seemed compelled to speak, and Jay found himself just watching the way Louis’ spoon carried food to that scarred mouth. He wondered if he should ask.

“That really was good,” Jay admitted, when they were done. “Thanks for using your, uh, wiles to get it.”

“Wiles?” Louis sounded amused again. “If knowing the chef is being wily, sure. Let’s get your Sign.”

Louis rose, leading the way out of the kitchen and leaving Jay scrambling to get up, take the bowls away and rinse them so Ulthar couldn’t get into them, then chase after him. Louis was halfway up the stairs when Jay caught up, walking with confidence toward the office.

It felt weird that Louis knew where the office was, where the book was kept—but then, their houses were designed the same way, and Grace may well have had Louis over before, and anyway, Louis had even told Jay that he was aware of where the book was, if it had been found, if it had been read.

And Louis did in fact go right for the book, taking it down, and flipping it open. He traced patterns on the pages as he went, fingers caressing them.

“Are you—reading it? You’re not going to get in… trouble, are you?”

“It’s fine. I’ve read this before.”

Jay braced himself against the edge of Grace’s desk, watching Louis standing in the middle of the room, skimming through it, fingers moving. After a few moments, Jay shifted his gaze out the window, looking at how dark it was getting out there. When Louis was done, Jay should send him home, he thought; find some way to relax tonight so he could sleep easily, and head to the Library after.

Just when it began to take long enough that he thought he should offer Louis a seat, Louis flipped the book closed, put it down, and offered Jay a small gold coin, a key hanging from it.

The coin had the twisted, questioning triangle on it. Jay closed his fingers around it with a sense of relief washing over him. He had all four Signs and, as far as he knew, he hadn’t had to give up any part of himself to get them.

“Thank you,” he said, meeting Louis’s gaze, feeling almost shaky with relief. “Seriously, Louis. Thank you.”

“Jay…” Louis still hadn’t lowered his mask. His lips were trembling. He brushed Jay’s jaw with his fingertips, then leaned in.

Jay realized almost too late that Louis, too, was going for a kiss.

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No nap, he decided. At this point, he wanted one of each Sign represented on the door before he went anywhere—or at least, as many of them as he could get his hands on. He still had time this afternoon and evening, assuming the world didn’t end before that; better to be as fully prepared as possible.

He’d been scritching Ulthar absently as he considered his options, and sighed, looking down at him. “I don’t suppose you can help find me any other Signs in this house?” he asked hopefully. “Like you found that last one.”

Ulthar yawned, then flopped out on his side, eyes closing, tail thumping lightly.

Jay supposed that was a ‘no’. “Guess not.” It might have been coincidence that the cat had gone digging for the one in his mattress, or perhaps some sort of affinity through the dream magic. Or perhaps the cat could find them, but only when close, or only when interested, or who knew what else. He was a cat, after all.

It seemed like the best option for now was to talk to Ashesh. He wouldn’t want to be confrontational; as far as he knew, there were reasons behind everything that happened. And besides, it was a situation where literally nothing could be gained from being confrontational, and a lot could be lost if he pissed the guy off. Death seemed like a best case scenario.

He took a quick shower, because after the last couple of days he definitely needed it, and listened to Ulthar wailing outside the bathroom door. “I’m not drowning!” he called.

“MOWWW!”

“I’m doing this willingly!”

“WAAAOUUU!”

He hurried it up, opening the door to let Ulthar in; the cat glowered at him balefully, then jumped into the wet tub and began grooming himself in there.

“Your turn, huh,” Jay said.

He dried and gelled his hair, dressed hurriedly, then headed next door.

“Hey, gorgeous,” Ashesh said, opening the door a moment before Jay could knock. He was wearing skinny jeans and a fitted shirt covered in tiny embroidered eyes, and a tie with a silver key painted on it. There was something about him which didn’t look quite the same as before, but Jay couldn’t put his finger on it. Nose more straight, maybe; eyebrows thicker, maybe; jaw thinner, maybe.

“Hey,” Jay stammered. He’d thought he’d braced himself for the sense of Ashesh’s presence, but that was all gone now. His legs were weak and he felt warm all over as Ashesh’s gaze swept over him. “I’ve, uh, learned more, and I think we should talk?”

“Sure, babe. Come in.” Ashesh’s fingers closed around Jay’s wrist, strangely hot; Jay hadn’t seen Ashesh reach for him. He tugged Jay inside. “I see you’ve found a couple Signs. Glad those keys came in handy.”

“I’ve found two,” Jay said. “Based on the markings on the door, I should find two more, and yours is one of them.”

Ashesh grinned at him, leading him into the living room and sitting way too close. “Well, you’ve come to the right place.”

Not denying it, Jay thought weakly. Like, he’d known, but this was knowing. He tried to clear his head, looking at Ashesh’s tie rather than at his face.

He thought the bow of the key winked at him.

“Okay,” Jay said, managing to keep his voice pretty even. “So, as I understand it, the problem is that my Aunt Grace had a quest to steal the flute from… from your father.”

“Parent, not father, technically, but yes,” Ashesh said.

“Except she dropped it.”

“She dropped it,” Ashesh agreed. “Now, she obeyed the terms of her Dream-Quest, so she earned her reward. So I said I’d take care of it.”

Jay blinked. “And… eight years later, that means me?”

Ashesh shrugged. “Time moves slowly in the Dreamlands,” he said, like it meant nothing to him. “And I knew you’d be along with the same talent.”

“Why not someone else?” Jay persisted. “Surely, even if it’s a rare skill, there’s enough other dreamers out there.”

“Sure,” Ashesh said. “But you don’t want to ruin your great-aunt’s peaceful dreaming afterlife by tarnishing her reputation, right? So you won’t tell anyone.”

Jay couldn’t quite keep himself from making a face, and Ashesh laughed, pinching Jay’s cheek, stinging but warm.

“I know, I know,” Ashesh said. “But listen, you get it, right?”

“Sure,” Jay said. He worked his jaw a few times to try to make the sensation fade. “But I don’t understand your… motivation. If you want the flute found, why did you have it stolen in the first place?”

Ashesh shrugged. His eyes were flickering, all of them: the ones on his face, the ones on his shirt, flicking around, blinking, moving. “It’s interesting, isn’t it?”

“Don’t you protect the Dreamlands?”

“Sure. I’m doing it right now.” Ashesh leaned his elbow on Jay’s shoulder and dangled a key between them, attached to a reversed ankh. “So find it and return it.”

Jay drew a deep breath. “Is this a dream quest?”

“No, babe,” Ashesh said. “It’s way too easy for that. It’s not like you’re stealing it from Azathoth. You’re just looking for an object that your bloodline stole, and returning it to the bloodline it rightfully belongs to. Why, do you need a reward to save the world?”

Even opening his mouth to speak, Jay couldn’t find words. He closed it, shaking his head.

“Good boy.” Ashesh leaned in, his lips brushing Jay’s, warm and tingling, then pulled away, dropping the key in Jay’s lap, where it sat, heavy and cold. “When you have it, call me. I’ll come to take it off your hands and get rid of our…” he gestured to the sky. “Problem.”

His lips were tingling, and he sort of wished he didn’t want to lean back in to make out with chaos, just to see what it felt like. He curled his fingers around the key, the Sign, feeling it pulse and throb under his fingers in a way the others hadn’t. “It’s our problem, now?”

“If it helps, I have faith in you,” Ashesh said, with a benevolent smile. “Did you want anything else?”

Jay swallowed. He did, but…

“No, thank you,” he said. “I’ve still got things to do tonight.”

“Catch you around, then.” Ashesh didn’t get up, didn’t see him out, and the break in the standard hospitality felt odd to Jay, leaving his shoulders crawling oddly with the weight of Ashesh’s gaze as he headed to the door and let himself out.

With a door between them, Jay let out a slow breath. He held up the symbol to look at it; it seemed to suck in the light, remaining obsidian-dark even in the afternoon sun.

One more Sign, he thought. From what Louis had said before, he could get it on his own, through reading The King in Yellow, but he didn’t know what effect that book might have on him. Still, if he read it, that’d give him more time in the afternoon, to spend however he wanted. Otherwise… he could probably also find a way to get Louis to give it to him directly, he assumed; he had to assume that Louis had a Sign of his own.

He rubbed his lips again to soothe the sensation that still lingered there.

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As he parked at his house, Jay frowned up at the sky, stomach sinking. The clouds continued to seem wrong somehow, and as much as he wanted to, he couldn’t keep thinking of this as a coincidence based on his dream. Not when the dream was real, and not when Ashesh had warned him about the world ending soon.

He had to go back to the Library tonight, he decided. If eldritch terrors were attempting to push through the sky into this world, he needed information. Hopefully, he’d acquire the other two Signs first—and given that the remaining two were the Yellow Sign and Nyarlathotep’s symbol, there were very direct sources he could go to in order to get either, so at least there was that option as well. But even if he didn’t, having any Sign would allow him to get information from the Library. Without knowing why they were coming, the method they were using to do so, or how to stop them, he was essentially helpless.

And whatever was happening seemed like it might have been related to what Aunt Grace stole, and who she’d taken it for. So his first priority should be more research.

Ulthar let out a demanding meow from the carrier, and Jay shook himself, exiting from the car and carrying him back inside. The cat sprang out as soon as the carrier was open, and spent a while exploring the living room.

Jay left him to it as he headed back upstairs, returning to the computers that he still had set up. Considering Aunt Grace’s files… he didn’t have a lot of hope, but he spent a moment composing an email to a devops friend of his from his last work, Navya, thinking she might have suggestions he hadn’t tried. He left out all mentions of Elder Gods and all the rest, just explaining that he was trying to recover his late aunt’s files and the difficulties he’d been having so far. He gave information about Grace’s system and the details of her word processor, along with a step-by-step account of the methods he’d tried, then sent that off.

It was really the best he could do. If it was something supernatural, he needed more help than he already had. If it wasn’t, Navya’s suggestions would work or they wouldn’t.

Ulthar let out a “Mrrt” to announce his presence as he entered the office, starting to wander it again. Jay greeted him, then went back to what he was doing, pulling folders out of Grace’s drawer and spreading them out across the desk’s surface so he could sort through them.

Some were clearly journalistic—she’d largely done theatre writing, and many of the folders were labelled after publications she’d worked with, or were labelled Plays, A-E and so on. These he put back in the desk without more than a glance; there might be information hidden in there, but he didn’t think it was likely, and he could look more in depth if other folders didn’t turn anything up.

Other folders were less obviously unrelated, and he flipped through those in a cursory way to ensure that they matched their labels: Recipes, taxes, family. That last was letters and photos that had been sent to her by the rest of the family; he hesitated over one of his own letters to her, a thank-you note he’d sent in response to some gift or another she’d given him for his eighth birthday. For a moment, his heart ached.

He put those folders back as well, then eyed the three remaining folders. These were unlabeled, and would likely need greater scrutiny.

There was a clatter as Ulthar knocked a book over, spooking himself and tearing across the room. “You did that to yourself,” Jay told him, getting up to put it back. It was the King in Yellow, and had thankfully landed cover closed—he still wasn’t sure he wanted to read any of it—so he picked it up, putting it sideways on the shelf instead of where he’d left it on the edge of her desk.

Jay returned to the folders, sorting through them. The first was a series of workbooks that made up a dream diary. It appeared to start shortly after she had begun to travel the Dreamlands; likely, she’d kept it by her bedside and wrote in it each morning. He put that to the side to peruse in more detail; it might have some helpful tips, or at least things he could learn about the locations he’d named, but he didn’t have high hopes. First, it would take extensive reading from the dense, crabbed writing. Second, there weren’t any illustrations or labelled headers to tip him off to the content, and third, from the dates at the tops of the page being in the 80s and 90s, it appeared to have been done before she moved to using the computer to record her dreams instead. He might find some things relevant to dreaming there in general, but he didn’t think there was anything regarding this actual incident.

The second unlabeled folder was a collection of letters, which turned out to be love letters. He got as far as reading half of the first—

K,

The way you laugh fills my heart. I could chase you around these stacks, these corridors forever. When you speak, flowers blossom in my heart: ideas, desires. I know you have eaten better women than I, and better men, and others as well, have absorbed their learning, but it means that you are richer for it, more full of knowledge, holding every joy and sorrow they have held, and it makes me long for you the more—

Jay blushed, quickly flipping through the rest of them, and finding them similar. Either unaddressed or addressed to this K, and all presumably unsent, as Grace had them in her folder still. He closed that and put it under the dream folder; he couldn’t be sure it was entirely unrelated, not code or something similar, but it seemed like none of his business.

The last unlabeled folder began with the sketch of a strange flute: the mouthpiece pointed oddly, then far far too many finger holes along the body, then a strange bulbous end that seemed as if a flute was made of a wasp’s nest, or a wasp’s nest was made of a flute.

There were scraps here from books, xeroxes and images that had been printed, or handwritten pieces of paper as if she were copying something out long-form. None of the copies were good quality; from the looks of them, they were copies of either very old pieces of printed work, or of handwritten ones. Put together, they were clearly forming a clear picture of one god, as they were descriptions of a great god far in the cosmos—each physical description was different, if equally horrifying, an amorphous blob here or a super-massive black hole there or a giant worm, but all had the same name, Azathoth, and all described him as blind and mad. He ruled from space, on a black throne, and forever piped, forcing his mindless, shapeless followers to cluster around him to dance.

Grace’s handwriting added annotation to several of these:

 

• Always holding the pipe, then — how can I get him to let go?

• Accessible by signing your name in his book & following N.

• N’s his messenger anyway so I guess he’ll just give it back once I’ve got it to him.

• Nearly impossible Quest, and a prank on his father.

 

“Oh, fuck,” Jay said aloud. He closed the folder and stared up at the ceiling, stomach churning.

His Aunt had stolen the flute for Nyarlathotep?

And lost it while she fled?

And his mindless, shapeless followers were no longer compelled by its sound?

This was making a picture he didn’t like. He drummed his fingers on the outside of the folder, and hardly even reacted when Ulthar pounced them. It was still early in the afternoon, and he wondered what to do next. Try to find the remaining Signs by talking to Louis or Ashesh—or did he want to commit to that? Confront Ashesh with this new information—but what would he even say? Take a nap and try go to the Library—or would he even be able to sleep after learning this?

No matter how he looked at it, things seemed pretty bad.

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Jay slowly pulled back the blanket, revealing the curled-up form of the small sand-colored tabby cat, who blinked up at him sleepily, then began to purr.

“Hey,” he said weakly. “Hi.”

Well, maybe this wasn’t so weird. Hannah had told him that dreamers could bring things out of dreams—or had she? Either way, either he’d figured out how to, or the cat had decided to come with him through its own accord. He wasn’t sure how that would work either, but… well, cats already had a reputation for weirdness, even back when he hadn’t thought any of this stuff was real.

Finding out which it was might take some experimentation, he thought wryly.

“All right,” he said aloud, sitting up and pulling the cat into his lap, putting it on its back. “Let’s take a look at you.”

It was definitely the exact same cat, down to the injured paw, although, now that it had been cleaned, the wound was looking a lot better. He contemplated if he could bandage it, but he wasn’t confident he could wrap the paw in a useful way, and the bleeding had seemed to have stopped again.

“I guess I own a cat now?” he asked it. It purred louder, making biscuits in the air, and he scrubbed fingers through his own currently kind of grungy hair. “Okay. Well. I guess as soon as I’m up and about I have to get some things for you.” This cat was going to need food, litter… he wasn’t even sure what else. A vet appointment, certainly.

That at least he could do now. He grabbed his laptop, putting it beside himself and googling for a local vet. He found one that opened at eight-thirty, and rolled around for an hour just resting, eating leftovers for breakfast, writing out the details of the two dreams journeys he’d been on so he wouldn’t forget about them, and otherwise catching up on his real online life while waiting for it to open, then gave it a call.

“Kingsport Central Veterinary.”

“Yeah, hi,” he said, as always a little awkward over phone conversations. “I found a stray cat and I, uh, was thinking I wanted to keep it, so I wanted to make sure it had all its shots and so on. Can I make an appointment?”

“Let me see—It looks like we have an opening at 11:30. Will that do?”

“I think so. Thanks.” Honestly, three hours out wasn’t bad. The idea of doing something as mundane, if unexpected, as picking up something like cat supplies seemed like such a relief that he could cry.

He dressed properly, leaving the cat snoozing in his bed, stretched out with its eyes squinched shut in pleasure and curling up, and petted it lightly before he headed out. “Stay here for now,” he said. “I gotta get you some things so this is your home too.”

It “mrp”ed sleepily, and he hesitated a moment on whether or not to shut it in his room—not fancying the risk that it’d use his blankets as a litter box rather than somewhere else in this hoarder’s nightmare of a house—but he also didn’t want to risk it waking up to find him gone and panicking, maybe hiding somewhere he wouldn’t be able to find it. He could walk around with it later and make sure it was exploring in nonthreatening circumstances.

He shut the door, then headed out to the car, driving down into town where he vaguely recalled seeing a pet store earlier. Twenty minutes later, he was out again with a litter box, cat food, treats, a carrier, a cat bed, a running water dish, a food bowl, a bunch of toys, and the amused congratulations of the pet store employee who’d been helping him out.

While he was in the plaza with the vet, he stopped by a pharmacy to get some first aid supplies in case the cat’s wound opened up—or in case he hurt himself on something old and gross in the house, or maybe got bit by some horrible dream monstrosity—and also grabbed himself some quick food supplies from the pharmacy as well. A box of eggo waffles, some cans of soup, bread and jam, and he was ready to head back again.

Back home, he put the waffles on—since he’d had leftovers for breakfast, he might as well have breakfast for lunch—filled the litter box, and placed it in the laundry room so it would be somewhat out of the way. He put the food and water in the kitchen at the end of the counter, then headed back upstairs.

The cat was awake when he got there, pawing at the blankets; it had managed to peel up the corner of the fitted sheet. Jay winced, fully expecting the accident he’d feared, and came over to check—but there wasn’t anything, and the cat seemed less like it was trying to cover something and more like it was trying to get into the mattress.

Aw, shit. These mattresses had been here for a while; his heart sank. Was there a mouse? He hadn’t heard any mice running around, no rats in the walls, but that didn’t mean anything. “Uh, buddy, what’re you after?” He picked up the cat and put it on the floor to check the mattress himself.

The cat sighed at that, then rose on its back feet, shoving its head at the line between mattress and box spring as if trying to squish itself in there. Jay steeled himself for whatever horrible thing he was about to see, whether rodent nest or insect pile, and pushed the top mattress back to check the condition of the box spring.

It was fine, in perfectly good condition, clean—relatively new at the time she’d left, apparently—and, lying on the box spring, right under where his head would have been laying on the mattress and pillow above, was a palm-sized round disk, the twisted pentagram with the flaming eye on it, with a key attached to the bottom of the disc.

“Uh,” Jay said weakly. The cat, having lost interest in the mattress now that he’d pushed it back, wound around his ankles.

So Aunt Grace slept with a Sign under her mattress. Now, or always? If she’d owned all these Signs, then it made sense she’d have them around the apartment. On the other hand, if she’d used them to go through the door with her physical body, wouldn’t they have gone with her? He wondered if there was even a way to know if it had been here because she’d put it here, or if it had appeared because of something he’d done—because of dreaming? Meeting Keziah?

Then again, there was the reed symbol he’d found in the attic, and Ashesh had implied he knew it would be there. Would meeting Camden have made it appear? Should he keep it away from Camden, if so?

Or had it already been there? If it had been, the other two would be too. And if it wasn’t, the other two would appear when he did something to cause it—as Louis had indicated could happen with the Yellow Sign.

Or maybe, he thought glumly, it was both. There were Signs here, and more could appear. Maybe he’d end up swimming in Signs. Fucking drowning in Signs.

But that was a problem for a future Jay, he decided firmly. If he thought of a good place to look for existing Signs, he’d go looking. Otherwise, he could look toward triggering them and see if that worked. Either way, he needed ideas on where to look, or how to trigger it, and he hadn’t thought of either yet. Maybe later today he’d ask Ashesh, if he couldn’t come up with his own ideas—he probably should talk to him sooner or later anyway, since he’d learned more since they’d talked the day before. But, Jay thought glumly, he didn’t really want to owe Ashesh. If he were going to talk to him, he had better think through what exactly he wanted to ask, and what, at most, he was willing to offer up.

But for now? He had a new cat to take care of. He looked at it; it had stopped winding around his ankles and was trotting around the room with curiosity. “You seem kind of comfortable with being indoors. Did you belong to someone in Ulthar?”

The cat, obviously, didn’t answer, but began exploring the hall outside with no sign of trepidation. It occurred to Jay that he might have stolen someone’s cat, but… well, he decided, it seemed more likely it was a stray. For all that it was soft, and had clearly been fed, there had been a lot of cats wandering the banks where he was found, and from how the barkeeper had talked, people probably put out food and water for the strays. If it was familiar with the indoors, again, people might just allow them into stores and so on. Certainly the barkeeper hadn’t minded him bringing it in.

So yeah, hopefully that. Anyway, he hadn’t chosen to steal it, which had to count for something.

The cat had discovered the stairs and was limping down them, so Jay hastened to catch up. “Let me show you your stuff,” he said, scooping it up to carry it the rest of the way down to the basement, ignoring the ominous door to take it into the laundry room. “Here’s your litter box. So you can, uh, use the bathroom.” Even if it could understand him, did it know what a bathroom was? “You know, relieve yourself, then bury it.”

He put the cat down in case it needed to use it; it went over, sniffed at it, looked up at Jay with an expression like Yeah, I know, and turned to explore the rest of the laundry room.

“Ok, you can look around later, but I want you to know where your food is too.” Jay carried it back upstairs, to the kitchen, and put it down in front of its food dish.

That it liked. Jay’s waffles had popped out at this point, so he ate them at the same time, enjoying the hunched form of the cat and the loud crunchy way it chewed, finding a moment of peace in that simple thing.

He still had a short time left before he had to go to the vet, so now that he was assured the cat was perfectly comfortable here and unlikely to hide, he left the cat to it and headed back upstairs to Grace’s office—or so he thought; moments later, he heard a meow and the cat followed him, trotting after.

“Hey, clingy thing,” he said fondly. He let the cat in with him and watched it explore for a few moments, then popped back out to grab his laptop to take with him into the office, set it up next to Grace’s computer, and powered her machine back on, getting to work.

Recovery was, he quickly saw, a failure. None of the basics worked—the USB he’d confirmed he’d filled the night before was blank, the files on her drive weren’t recovering through any of the standard means, and even specialized recovery utilities got nothing. He’d suspected as much, but he didn’t like it; it was worth continuing to try, he decided, at least later.

He still had her paper files to look at, but not enough time to do so before the vet, so he locked the new Sign in the desk with the other one, then scooped up the cat from where it was sitting in the windowsill watching outside and brought it to its carrier.

“Mow? MOW? MOW??” The cat’s wails started at once as Jay attempted to put it in. It dug its paws into the sides—even the injured paw—to try to keep itself from being put in, and thrashed around. Betrayal radiated off it.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Jay told it finally, sweating, slightly scratched, and disheveled. “I’m not trying to lock you up. I just need to use this to take you to the vet. A doctor for cats. It might not be a fun experience but it’s so I can make sure you stay healthy and get your foot all fixed up! We’ll come right back after and I’ll let you out, I promise.”

The cat glared at him again, but something about his tone must have convinced it, because it finally slunk in on its own, its tail lashing.

“Good kitty,” Jay told it, and shut up the carrier, picking it up and taking it out to the car.

As he shut the door, he paused, frowning up at the sky. Something about it didn’t look quite right. The cloud shapes seemed wrong somehow, making him anxious. Nerves, he thought. Just his dream carrying through into the daytime. Still, he strained his eyes, staring up, watching the clouds shift and move like they were trying to get closer.

His phone warned him that he needed to leave now to get to the vet on time, and he tore his gaze away, getting into the car himself. It was probably nothing.

The cat stayed quiet through the car trip, occasionally bumping around in the carrier as it turned itself around in there, and also was quiet—definitely sulking, though—as he carried it in.

“Name?” the receptionist asked.

“Jae-Hyun Park.”

“And your cat’s name?”

Right, shit, it needed a name. Naming a dream cat felt like a big commitment, but he had to give something to the vet—even if he changed what he called it later. “Ulthar,” he blurted out, when nothing else came immediately to mind.

“Arthur?”

He repeated it, and she typed into her computer. Not long after that, the cat was seen—it was equally affectionate with the vet, and seemed to be over its sulk once it realized it got to be talked to and petted. Jay learned that the cat was male, relatively healthy but underweight, and was unchipped. The cat got its shots, a chip, and antibiotic ointment, along with a lot of praise for being a Good Boy.

And then he was back to the car under the unnerving sky, ready to head back to his new home with his new cat.

 [What’s next for Jay?
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Jay held his breath until he was sure that he wasn’t going to hyperventilate. Don’t panic, he told himself. He’d never been to the Dreamlands before, so maybe ‘monstrosities in the stars trying to get in’ was normal here. Maybe it had always been this way.

And besides, he’d wanted to come to a safe place, so surely this was safe.

Even as he thought it, though, he found himself doubting. Sure, if he was a waking-worlder with the same talent as Aunt Grace, he might be able to have power in his dreams here, but it sounded like plenty of people practiced for years before they could change anything. Places here were real, and most of them pre-existed—four continents, places that Aunt Grace mentioned like she’d just passed through them, not made them, a library that already had rules. People had been talking like creating something was possible but a huge achievement, and if that was true, then the idea that he, himself, could create some kind of barrier that could keep out whatever that was—

But what could would panicking do? He had to believe that if he’d wanted somewhere safe, and he’d happened to come here, it was safe.

He wrenched his gaze away from the sky and found himself staring at the injured cat again, instead. “Hey there,” he said, his voice a little croaky with stress.

“Mrrp,” the cat said, and rubbed its cheek against Jay’s fingers, lips slightly parted and whiskers spread, a toothy smile.

“You’re pretty tame, huh.” He slowly moved his hand to rub the cat’s ears, moving with deliberation so the cat could pull away or swat him if it wanted, but it just leaned up, starting a rumble. “Can I take a look at that paw? See if there’s anything I can do?”

The cat rumbled louder, then flopped onto its side. He petted that side too, carefully, then slid a hand down the cat’s leg to lift it so he could examine it. The cat’s side twitched and its tail thumped, but it otherwise didn’t protest the treatment.

The underside of its paw showed a nasty gash, clearly recent, though not still bleeding. Blood caked the fur between its toes, and Jay winced as he looked at that. “Oh, poor thing,” he muttered, tone sympathetic.

“Mreeeep!” the cat agreed, tail thumping again.

Jay carefully adjusted his grip on the cat, trying to pick it up. Its foot needed cleaning, and walking around on it was clearly doing it no good—he’d have to see if there was a place nearby that could help.

The cat seemed to hesitate, torn between jumping down from Jay’s arms and accepting this, and after a moment, it leaned up against him, putting its cheek against his shoulder and purring.

Shit, it’s cute. Horrible monstrosities in the sky or not, it did make him feel a little more secure.

He settled the cat in his arms as he rose again, looking around. For a while, he just walked, unwilling to knock on a house door after dark even if there were lanterns there, looking for a place that might be open. Finally, he found a place with a sign outside reading The Cat in His Cups, with a pub-style window, all criss-cross grating. Fiddle music could be heard from the inside, and the place looked well-lit, so he opened the door.

There was in fact a fiddler sitting up in stage, and several people at their tables, having dinner or drink, but the place was largely abandoned. Some of the customers glanced up at him with worried faces as he entered, then away, uninterested or unwilling to get involved.

That was fine. He carried the cat up to the bar, holding it carefully, as the barman—a handsome black man with a puff ponytail—came over to greet him. “Can I help you—?”

“Sorry to bring a pet in,” Jay began. “But this guy seems to be hurt, and I was wondering if I could get a little water to help clean his foot with?”

The bartender’s brows rose. “Of course. Poor little thing. You… just found it like that, you didn’t do anything, right?”

“No, of course not,” Jay protested. “I saw it limping so… I figured I’d try to help.”

“Good on you, lad,” the bartender said. “It’s illegal to kill a cat here, and I shouldn’t think anyone would look kindly on you for hurting one. But if you’re helping him out, you’ll surely earn some favor.” He poured a glass of water from a pitcher and grabbed a clean towel from under the bar, offering both over.

Jay nodded his thanks. “Can I put it on the bar while I get its foot clean?”

“Sure, don’t mind that you do, as long as you keep your grip on it,” the bartender said, easily. “Can I get you anything yourself?”

Carefully depositing the cat on the bar, Jay shook his head. “I don’t… have any local currency,” he said. “I’m, um, new? New to dream-walking.”

The bartender seemed more surprised at that. “A waking-worlder whose talent clicked, huh? Well, congratulations. Most of us are the descendants of dreamers ourselves; welcome to Ulthar.”

“Ulthar,” Jay repeated. “Is that the city or the country or—”

“Just this town, lad,” the bartender said, watching as the cat obediently let Jay tilt it onto its side. “We’re in the West continent, near the river Skai. The West continent is the most settled one, so if you find yourself travelling to a city, you’ll usually, though not certainly, be around here. Or are you here to stay?”

Jay shook his head. He dabbed the cloth into the water, then carefully pressed it to the cat’s foot. The cat let out a whine, but spread its toes, tail thumping as it gazed mournfully up at him. “I’m just… learning more,” he said. “I’m trying to get better at dreaming and… help others, I suppose.” Camden came to mind again. “I know someone who’s under some sort of sea curse?”

“Don’t know anything about that here,” the bartender said. “We live a quiet, safe life here in Ulthar. A port town might have more information?”

Nodding, Jay sighed. “Speaking of port towns,” he said, “I don’t suppose you have a map?”

“I suppose I could help you with one of those,” the bartender said. “Since you’re here being so kind to that poor creature.”

“It’s like it understands that I’m trying to help,” Jay said, watching the way the cat allowed him to clean its wound, even though it was trembling.

“Aye, probably,” the barkeeper agreed. “They’re smart beasts. Good pets. Almost everyone has one.”

Jay smiled a little. “I don’t have one myself,” he said. “My old place didn’t allow them on the lease. But I like them.”

“Figure the little beastie can tell,” the bartender said fondly. “One moment.”

He headed into a back room, and Jay finished cleaning up around the wound. Removing the dirt and old blood got it bleeding again, a bit sluggishly, and he pressed the cloth to the cat’s foot to try to stem it, gently petting its head and earning a nuzzling into his palm in return.

“Here you go,” the barkeep said, returning and unrolling a scroll. “Study the map as much as you want, though I’ll need it back.”

Jay pulled the cat back into his arms, so he could hold the cloth to its foot and look at the same time. As he examined it, his heart sank a little.

The world of the Dreamlands was big and, more to the point, not clearly divided into areas that would narrow down where Grace had gone—if it was even here, and not something else her dreaming had permitted her. The continents made a big jagged loop around a middle ocean, which was divided into smaller seas in a z-shape. And a full three of the continents had deserts on them—all but the North.

He resigned himself to get what information he could, at least. “Are any of these cities made of black spires?”

“Black spires?” The barkeeper had to think about it, and the result he came up with was dubious at best. “Maybe Dylath-Leen? I’d call it more obelisks myself.”

It might be close enough to count, but he wasn’t sure. Still, there was one more name he’d been told, which didn’t seem to be on this map. “I’m also looking to find where the Library of Celaeno is.”  

The bartender seemed taken aback at that. “Celaeno? That’s a star.”

“What?”

“It’s not in the Dreamlands,” the bartender said, drumming his fingers on the bar. “I mean, it’s connected to it. Those Great Old Ones all have portals here and there, especially through the dreams of men, so the Dreamlands have exits into their worlds as they do into the waking world. The Stalker Among the Stars makes frequent use of the portals here, so we know of their existence, though I don’t know of any humans who’ve made use of them.”

Jay winced a little. “Who? Are they…” he glanced out the window at the awful sky.

The barkeeper’s expression darkened. “Not those,” he said. “Those started to show up some years ago. More and more, they’ve been gathering. So far, they haven’t broken through, so there’s only so much worrying, you know? Someone will deal with it.”

Actually, that seemed plenty worrying. “How long ago?”

“Mm. Just under a decade by a waking-worlder’s time?” the barkeeper wagered. “Time passes differently when you’re here physically. It’s slower, so I’m just guessing off what I saw.”

That wasn’t great.”…If the Stalker Among the Stars isn’t one of those, what is it?”

“You know. The Crawling Chaos.” He lowered his voice. “Nyarlathotep. He fancies himself a protector of the Dreamlands, as little respect as he shows for it. So if you’re looking for the Library of Celaeno, you’ll need to look outside your world and mine. At best, the Dreamlands is a stepping stone to it, and it is a stepping stone to the Dreamlands—among other realms.”

Jay was silent, thinking back to the Library—and the painting he’d found himself in front of when he’d gone there. A city full of black domes and spires.

“I see,” he said, chilled. “That’s not great.”

“Why’s that, lad?”

Jay opened his mouth to answer, but his voice seemed to be coming from far away, hard to pull out. For a moment, he felt dizzy, scared—had they broken through? Was this the end?—and tried to focus on the texture of the cat in his arms, the pressure on its paw, as if that would save him from whatever was happening.

It did not; he was waking up.

***

He woke up dry-mouthed in Aunt Grace’s—his—room, shaking as the first light of dawn was beginning to show through the window, the dissolution of that dream sitting uneasy in him, nearly a shock. Trying to steady himself, he curled on his side, tightening his arms around the bundle of blankets he was clinging onto.

“Mrew,” it said, protesting.

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