“When the beasts die, the Gatekeeper cuts off their heads,” my shadow goes on, unrelenting. “By then, their skulls are indelibly etched with self. These skulls are scraped and buried for a full year in the ground to leech away their energy, then taken to the Library stacks, where they sit until the Dreamreader’s hands release the last glimmers of mind into the air. That’s what ‘old dreams’ are. Dreamreading is a task for newcomers to the Town—people whose shadows have not yet died. The Dreamreader reads each spark of self into the air, where it diffuses and dissipates. You are a lightning rod;
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