In a small apartment, a world of love is contained in one little boy. His name is Daniel, and his mother, Lyta Hall, guards him with a fierce, almost frantic devotion. She sees shadows in every corner and danger in every stranger's smile, a premonition of a coming storm. The storm breaks one night when she returns home to find an empty crib and a wrecked room. Her son is gone. The police are useless, offering only hollow procedure in the face of a primal wound. But Lyta remembers a promise made to her years ago by a pale, dark-haired king of dreams: “Take good care of it. One day I will come for it.” When the authorities deliver the final, soul-shattering news - a photograph of a small, burned body - her grief curdles into a singular, burning purpose. She knows who to blame.
In a cozy English cottage that sits outside of time, three women are at their work. One is a girl, one a mother, one a crone, and they spin, measure, and cut the threads of life. They speak of the yarn they are making, a fine and intricate story that will suit its subject perfectly. They are the Fates, but they are also something older, something wilder. They are the Erinyes, the Eumenides, the Kindly Ones. They are the hounds of vengeance, empowered by the most ancient of laws: to hunt down and destroy any who spill the blood of their own family. They have been waiting, and now, a mortal woman's cry of rage is about to give them their quarry.
The Dreaming, realm of Morpheus, is unwell. A strange and listless weather has settled over the land; the skies are a perpetual, bruised grey, and a cold wind whispers through the corridors of the silent castle. Its subjects feel the disquiet. Lucien, the loyal librarian, worries in his endless halls, while Mervyn Pumpkinhead, the dutiful handyman, grumbles about the gloom. Their lord is distant, walking his lands with his raven, Matthew, speaking of rules and responsibilities he cannot escape. He seems weary, resigned, as if he is playing his part in a tragedy whose ending has already been written. He knows a debt is coming due.
The threads of the tapestry are drawing tight, pulling in figures from across the world. In the land of Faerie, the lady Nuala is called home, but her heart remains in the Dreaming, and she senses the coming doom. The trickster god Loki, freed from his ancient prison, walks the earth again, a catalyst for chaos. Rose Walker, a woman whose life is forever entangled with the Dreaming, is drawn back to England by a message from a dying friend, returning to the place where all the sleeping sickness began. A reality storm is brewing, a vortex of conflicting destinies threatening to tear the fabric of the worlds apart.
Fueled by her loss, Lyta Hall begins a journey into the dark heart of myth. She is no longer just a mother; she is an avatar of retribution, her humanity burning away to reveal the implacable fury beneath. She seeks the three ancient sisters, finding them in a desolate land, and they test the quality of her rage. She gives them the name of the one she holds responsible for her son's death, but it is another crime, an older and deeper one, that empowers their hunt. Morpheus has the blood of his own son, Orpheus, on his hands. He is their legitimate prey, and with Lyta as their guide, they are unleashed.
The Kindly Ones descend upon the Dreaming. It is not a war, but an erasure. They move through the realm like a plague, their very presence causing reality to fray and unravel. The sky weeps blood, and the land cracks open. The dreams and nightmares that populate the world are torn apart, their forms dissolving into screaming chaos. Loyal servants fall defending their home; Mervyn Pumpkinhead is shattered, and the gentle soul of Fiddler's Green is extinguished. To protect his kingdom from utter annihilation, Morpheus must leave it, abandoning its defenses and making himself vulnerable.
He walks out into the storm, a king who has lost his kingdom. He knows the rules that bind even the Endless. He knows what he has done, and he knows what must be done. He does not fight his pursuers, for their claim is just. Instead, he finds his sister, Death, waiting for him on a desolate, snow-dusted peak. “You are the most infuriating person I have ever known,” she tells him gently. He takes her hand, and as the storm rages, Dream of the Endless is no more.
The rain stops. The grey skies over the Dreaming clear, and a profound, aching silence falls over the land. The Kindly Ones are gone, their purpose fulfilled. In the throne room of the castle, a new figure appears. He is a small boy, robed in white, with emeralds for eyes. The child Daniel is now Dream. The surviving inhabitants of the realm gather to mourn their lost master, and across all of existence, the other Endless feel the departure of their brother. The family gathers for a wake, to remember the one who is gone, and to greet the one who has taken his place. The story has ended, and a new one begins.
