The dream melts away in watercolour streaks of grey and black, its colours caught in the ocean surf as it hurls itself against--and then slowly encroaches across--the raised stone platform. Only one aspect of the dreamscape doesn't vanish into the sea, because he was never apart of the dream at all.

Atticus stands on the ledge created by the platform and the churning sea, the backs of his heels inches from the water, but it doesn't touch him. Some unseen wind, some powerful current, forces it back away from him, so that waves that should crash into him instead collide with an invisible barrier, and instead rush upwards towards the sky. It doesn't recede again; instead, the platform itself almost seems to sink into the depths of the sea as dark, murky black water rises and rises around them on all sides, only the force of the barrier holding it at bay. When lightning crackles through the atmosphere, it illuminates dark, ghostly shapes drifting and groaning in the deep.

The water that has already spilled onto the platform parts in front of Atticus as he walks towards Myr--but though it stays clear of the shrouded magister, Myr is offered no such protection.

When Atticus speaks, his voice is at once soft; far above them, the roar of the storm is muted by the towering sea waves that bracket them in. "Sometimes, I believe you Southern mages got what you deserved."

Then he reaches out a hand towards the distant surface of the waves, and the sea begins to crash in around them.