The Sky Gardens were stranger than Maggie had imagined.

  Maggie walked through streets paved with compacted cloud, craning her neck to take in the giant houses that loomed on either side. Every building was sized for beings three times her height—doorways she could walk through without ducking, windows positioned so high she'd need a ladder to peek inside. Gardens overflowed with flowers the size of beach umbrellas, their petals thick and waxy, colors more vivid than anything in the grey world below.

  "This is insane," she said.

  Locke padded alongside her, nose twitching at the unfamiliar scents. She reached down and scratched behind his ears.

  "Thanks for staying with me," she said quietly. "On the climb."

  The husky's tail swayed once.

  "It's something," Martin agreed. He moved with careful steps, testing each patch of cloud-street before committing his weight. Old habits. "Never thought I'd see anything like this."

  "You get used to it!" Johnny bounded ahead, shifting between dolphin and human form every few steps. "Wait until you see the vegetable patches! The carrots are HUGE! Like, tree-sized! I tried to eat one once but it was too big!"

  "Stay away from the giants," Mark said. It was the first thing he'd said since they arrived.

  Maggie glanced at him. "Bad experience?"

  "They're not friendly to humans. Or small things in general. Just keep your distance."

  They walked in silence for a while, taking in the impossible architecture. Martin fell into step beside Maggie, his pace steady and unhurried.

  "How are you holding up?" he asked quietly. "That was quite a climb."

  "I'm fine." Her arms still ached, but she wasn't about to admit it. "You?"

  "Better than I've felt in years, honestly." He looked down at his hands, flexing his fingers. "No pain. No fatigue. It's strange, feeling healthy again."

  "The Dreamscape does that," Maggie said. "Makes you feel whole. Even when you're not."

  Martin nodded slowly. "I can see how that would be dangerous. Easy to forget what's waiting on the other side."

  "Is that why you're staying? To forget?"

  "No." His voice was firm but gentle. "I'm staying to remember. Every moment I get here is a moment I can think about my wife. Plan what I want to say to her when I wake up." He smiled slightly. "If I wake up."

  Maggie hesitated. "Martin... you probably won't remember any of this. When you wake up. Mark said most people forget everything that happened here."

  "Oh." The word came out quiet. He was silent for a moment, processing. Then he nodded slowly. "Well. I suppose the thinking still counts for something. Even if I don't remember the words, maybe I'll remember the feeling."

  "Look at this!" Johnny's voice cut through the moment. He was pointing at a massive sundial in what looked like a town square. "It actually works! See? The shadow moves! I watched it for three hours once!"

  "Three hours?" Maggie raised an eyebrow.

  "I wanted to make sure it wasn't cheating!"

  Mark pinched the bridge of his nose.

  They explored for another hour, Johnny leading them through winding streets and hidden gardens, pointing out his favorite spots with boundless enthusiasm. Martin asked thoughtful questions about the architecture and the physics of cloud-streets. Maggie mostly just stared, trying to reconcile the fairy-tale scenery with everything she knew about the Dreamscape.

  Eventually, a thought occurred to her.

  "Wait," she said. "Where's Jack?"

  Mark glanced at her. "Jack?"

  "Jack. As in Jack and the Beanstalk. This is his story, right? Where is he?"

  "Caught," Mark said. "Arrested. The giants got him eventually."

  Maggie nodded slowly. That made sense. In the stories, Jack was a thief. He stole from the giants—gold, a goose, a harp. It tracked that they'd eventually catch him.

  "So he's in prison somewhere?"

  "Something like that."

  Martin spoke up. "How long has he been locked up?"

  Mark was quiet for a moment. "A few decades, give or take."

  "Decades?" Maggie stopped walking. "He's been in prison for decades?"

  "The giants have long memories. And longer grudges."

  "That's..." She struggled to find the word. "That's insane. That's too much. He stole some stuff—he didn't kill anyone."

  "He did cut down the beanstalk," Mark pointed out. "Killed a giant in the fall."

  "In self-defense! The giant was chasing him!"

  "I don't think the other giants see it that way."

  Maggie looked at Martin, hoping for backup. He was frowning, clearly thinking it through.

  "Decades is a long time," he said finally. "Even for murder, that's a heavy sentence. And if it was self-defense..."

  "We should help him," Maggie said. "Try to convince the giants to let him go. Or at least reduce his sentence."

  Mark raised an eyebrow. "Convince the giants."

  "Yes."

  "The giants who have been holding a grudge for decades."

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  "Yes."

  "The giants I specifically told you to stay away from."

  "Mark, we can't just leave him there."

  "She has a point," Martin said. "If there's a chance to help, we should try."

  Mark looked between them. Then he shrugged.

  "Fine. But talking to them won't work. They can't be reasoned with. It'd be faster to break him out."

  "No." Maggie shook her head. "We ask first. If that doesn't work, then—" She stopped. "Then we figure something out."

  Martin nodded slowly. "She's right. We try talking. If it fails, at least we'll know the layout. Where they're keeping him. Guard positions." He paused. "Thirty-two years on the force. I know how these things go wrong when you rush in."

  Mark raised an eyebrow. "So your version of 'doing it right' is reconnaissance for a potential jailbreak."

  "I'm saying we gather information first."

  "Sure you are."

  Mark stared at them for a long moment. Then he sighed, reached into his coat pocket, and pulled out a small wrapped package.

  "What's that?" Maggie asked.

  "Cake." He unwrapped it, revealing a dense yellow slice. "You'll need to look the part if you want to communicate with the giants."

  Maggie frowned. "Look the part? What do you—"

  "Wonderland," Martin said quietly. "You mentioned you went there. The cake that makes you grow."

  Mark nodded. "I grabbed some before we left. Just in case."

  "You planned for this?"

  "I plan for everything." He broke the cake into pieces, handing portions to Maggie and Martin. "Eat. Then we talk to giants."

  Johnny had already grown to giant size, his muscular human form now towering over the houses. "Come on! This is gonna be fun! I love being big!"

  Maggie looked at the cake in her hand. Then at Martin, who shrugged and took a bite.

  She followed suit.

  The growth was immediate and disorienting. The world shrank around her—or she expanded into it, she couldn't tell which. The houses that had loomed overhead were suddenly at eye level. The streets that had felt wide enough to drive trucks through were now just... streets. Normal-sized. For her.

  "Okay," she breathed, looking down at her giant hands. "That's weird."

  "You get used to it," Mark said. He'd grown too, his lab coat now giant-sized, his glasses still fitting his face.

  "Does anything in the Dreamscape make sense?"

  "No. Stop asking."

  · · ·

  Johnny led them through the giant town with surprising confidence.

  "Squish!" A giant woman waved at him from a doorway. "You're back! Did you bring friends?"

  "Squish?" Maggie whispered.

  "They think I'm a flying fish," Johnny muttered, his enthusiasm dimming slightly. "I keep telling them I'm a dolphin, but they don't get it."

  "Why Squish?"

  "I don't want to talk about it."

  Johnny waved back at the giant woman, forcing a smile. "Hi, Greta! Yes! Friends! We're just walking around!"

  The giant woman's face scrunched up in thought. "Walking. That's nice. Walking is good. I like walking too."

  "Great!" Johnny said. "We're gonna go walk some more!"

  They moved on. Johnny continued asking around, bouncing from giant to giant with careful questions that didn't reveal too much. Most of the giants were friendly but slow—conversations took twice as long as they should have, with lots of pauses and confused expressions.

  "Have you seen any small things lately?" Johnny asked one giant.

  "Small things?" The giant scratched his head. "Like... rocks?"

  "Smaller. Like a person. But tiny."

  "A tiny person." Long pause. "No. Wait. Maybe? There was something at the castle. Or was that a mouse?"

  "The castle! Thanks!"

  Another giant overheard and wandered over. "Hey, Squish! You're looking for small things?"

  Johnny's eye twitched. "It's Johnny. And yes."

  "I saw a small thing once," the giant said, ignoring the correction. "It was... small."

  "Where?"

  "Where what?"

  "Where did you see it?"

  The giant thought about this for a very long time. "I don't remember."

  Johnny took a deep breath. "That's okay. Thanks anyway."

  "You're welcome, Squish!"

  Maggie had to look away to keep from laughing. Johnny's expression was something between despair and homicidal intent.

  It took another hour of similar exchanges before Johnny pieced together enough to be useful.

  "There's definitely something at the castle," he reported. "Something small. The giants keep mentioning the Keeper's kitchen, but they can't remember why."

  "The kitchen," Maggie repeated. "That doesn't sound good."

  Martin spoke up. "It makes sense he's at the castle. In the original story, that was the first thing Jack saw when he climbed the beanstalk. He kept going back to steal—gold coins, a goose that laid golden eggs, a golden harp."

  "Greed," Maggie said. "That's what got him caught."

  "Most likely." Martin nodded. "He got too confident. Went back one too many times."

  They reached the castle—a massive structure that made the giant houses look like cottages. Its walls were built from some kind of white stone that gleamed in the golden light filtering through the beanstalk leaves far above. Towers stretched toward the sky. Banners fluttered from parapets.

  Locke's ears flattened. A low growl rumbled in his throat.

  "Easy," Mark said. The husky quieted, but stayed tense.

  Mark stopped at the gate. "Last chance. Are you sure you want to talk this out?"

  Maggie and Martin nodded.

  "Fine." He looked at Martin. "Can you manifest your weapon now? Reliably?"

  Martin hesitated. "I've been practicing. While Maggie was climbing."

  "That's not what I asked."

  "Yes." Martin's voice was steady. "I can do it."

  "Good. You might need it." Mark turned back to the castle. "Let's go."

  The guards at the gate were massive even by giant standards, but security was surprisingly lax. They barely glanced at the group before waving them through.

  "The Keeper's in the great hall," one guard said, scratching his chin. "Down the main corridor, take a left. Can't miss it."

  "That's it?" Maggie asked. "You're not going to ask why we're here?"

  The guard shrugged. "Not my job. I just stand here."

  They followed the directions through corridors that echoed with their footsteps. The castle was opulent in a clumsy way—gold everywhere, but arranged without any sense of taste. Piles of coins in corners. Golden statues of giants in various poses. A golden goose in a cage that honked mournfully as they passed.

  "That's the goose," Johnny whispered excitedly. "The one from the story! It lays golden eggs!"

  "Focus," Mark said.

  They found the great hall—a vast room with a throne at one end, occupied by a giant who was somehow even larger than the others they'd seen. His clothes were trimmed with gold. His fingers were covered in golden rings. His expression, as he watched them approach, was one of profound boredom.

  "More visitors," the Keeper said. His voice rumbled like distant thunder. "What do you want?"

  Maggie stepped forward. "We're here about the human prisoner. Jack."

  "The thief." The Keeper's eyes narrowed slightly. "What about him?"

  "He's been imprisoned for decades. We think that's excessive. We'd like to discuss his release."

  The Keeper stared at her for a long moment. Then he laughed—a deep, booming sound that made the golden decorations rattle.

  "His release? The thief stole from us. Murdered one of us. And you want us to let him go?"

  "He's served his time," Martin said, stepping up beside Maggie. "More than enough time. Whatever he did, decades of imprisonment is a disproportionate punishment."

  "Disproportionate." The Keeper seemed to taste the word. "You speak like the small folk. Always measuring, always calculating. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth." He leaned forward on his throne. "But the thief took more than gold. He took pride. He made fools of us, again and again. That debt doesn't expire."

  Maggie's hands clenched at her sides. "He's been here for decades. How much longer? Another decade? A century? When does it end?"

  "When we decide it ends."

  "That's—" She stopped. Something twisted in her chest. She thought about the man who killed her father. Five prior convictions. Not seventeen, like her nightmares had made it. Five chances, and he'd kept going.

  And here she was, asking for another chance for someone else.

  The words came out quieter than she intended. "He made a mistake. A bad one. But he's paid for it. At some point, that has to be enough."

  The words echoed in her head. Her own voice, saying things she didn't know she believed. And with them, something else—memories, pressing against the edges of her mind. Her father. A man with a knife. A car spinning out of control.

  "Does it?" The Keeper's brow furrowed. "And who decides when enough is enough?"

  Maggie didn't have an answer. Martin stepped forward.

  "Not you," he said. "Not one person with a grudge and the power to act on it."

  The Keeper's expression didn't change. "The thief is useful. He helps in my kitchen now. Very good for making bread." He smiled, and it made Maggie's skin crawl.

  "You're not punishing him anymore," Martin said. "You're using him."

  "Is there a difference?"

  Maggie opened her mouth to respond, but the Keeper held up a hand. His nostrils flared. The air in the room seemed to thicken.

  "I find it strange," he said slowly, "that giants would come to plead for a human." He rose from his throne, and the movement was deliberate, predatory. "Very strange indeed."

  The room went quiet.

  "Fee-fi-fo-fum," the Keeper said. "I smell the blood of a human."