His breath caught. He could feel Lucy's dream unfolding beside him - vivid flashes of a floating garden above a glimmering waterfall. He could feel Rose's fire burning deep in the ground, coiling in the roots, daring the earth to erupt. Sophie's uncertainty hovered like mist, curling around the edge of the connection but never quite vanishing. Every heartbeat, every flicker of thought - they brushed him.
And in return, they felt him too.
Lucy stirred. "You're glowing again."
He opened his eyes. His chest was alight with soft golden patterns, curling out from his sternum like the branches of a tree. "I saw all of you," he whispered.
Rose lifted her head. "We saw you too."
Zoey rolled over, half-laughing, her hair wild and eyes still dazed. "It's like we're inside each other now."
Emma sat up, brushing tangled strands from her face, her mark gleaming faintly over her navel. "What happens when we stop dreaming?"