The opening of the first in the series.

CHAPTER ONE

The Intruder

Not far from where you rest your head at night stand the shimmering skyscrapers of the City of Dreams. Its subways rumble quite softly beneath your bedding. The pale beam of its lighthouse sweeps past your window.

But, although Dream City is as close to your fingertips as the pages of this book, you cannot quite see or feel it. You won’t find it on your maps for it is west of your east and north of your south. It shares your space but not your time, for the city lives between the ticks of your clocks. It was offset from your world by an event that has split time in two, like a railroad switch shifts trains onto different tracks. How that split happened is for another night and another story.

A foggy mile off a wooded coast, the city spreads across three islands named for their shapes: Moon, Star and Comet. The formation was called the Dream Islands by the first inhabitants who believed they were dropped into the sea by Mother Angel when she fell asleep carrying them across the night sky.

Let us begin story the first tale an eon after that happy accident, at two in the morning in Ursa Manor, an apartment building on the east side of Star Island overlooking the cold, deep waters of Moon Straight. …