Venice, 1652 — When Sleep Stops Being Safe
Jakob did not fall asleep.
He was taken.
Night folded slowly across the Remembered Edge and the chapel quieted. Elena finally allowed herself to sit. Matteo and Chiara lay on the stone floor in exhausted truce with existence. Kessel murmured something about watchfulness and then eventually surrendered to fatigue himself.
Jakob had promised he would rest.
He had tried.
He lay curled in borrowed blankets, counting breaths like someone trying not to drown in air.
Five breaths in—
Fog brushed the doorway like a careful guest.
Eight breaths out—
The altar hummed faintly.
He closed his eyes because it felt impolite to remain awake.
The island seemed to approve.
Darkness should have followed.
Instead, light.
Not bright.
Not external.
A low glow, warm like a lantern held under the heart.
Then Venice arrived.
Not the lagoon.
The city.
Not geography.
Presence.
Not streets.
Memory.
He stood in San Marco, barefoot, breath visible in cool night. He did not know how he had come here. He was not frightened. He was… expected.
Fog curled around his ankles like a cat deciding whether to stay.
Jakob whispered into the hush:
"I'm dreaming."
The fog tilted its head as though amused by the word.
He turned.
Venice breathed.
The square was not empty. It had simply removed unnecessary witnesses. Stone watched. Water waited. The basilica's mosaics shivered very slightly as if they disapproved of being involved.
Jakob took one cautious step.
Nothing pounced.
He took another.
Fog guided rather than resisted, nudging gently as if steering him toward a destination only it recognized.
He didn't fight it.
He trusted what loved the city.
He trusted what loved him back without understanding why.
He passed an alley that did not exist in waking life.
He entered streets that had never been paved and yet always belonged.
He walked between versions of Venice that had lived and died and lived again.
In one blink, he saw the lagoon when it was still deciding to be city.In the next, he saw Venice in rains that had not yet come.He saw walls never built.He saw bridges never broken.He saw mistakes avoided and mistakes embraced because the city preferred them that way.
"Slow down," he whispered, dizzy.
Fog steadied him.
He inhaled.
He steadied back.
"Thank you."
Fog rippled at his feet.
There was no voice.
There was only relationship.
He continued.
Finally, the fog stopped guiding.
They arrived somewhere that did not have a name.
There were no walls.There was no ceiling.There was no ground.
There was Venice, suspended in possibility.
Canals hung like ribbons in dark space, twisting gently without spilling.Bridges connected nothing to everything.Bell towers hovered where they pleased.Streets bent slowly like thoughts.Fog existed in structured breath.
It was beautiful.
It was wrong.
It was terrified of becoming wronger.
Jakob understood.
This was Venice thinking.
This was Venice… rehearsing itself.
He whispered softly:
"You're trying."
Fog pulsed.
He felt approval.
"You're afraid."
Fog paused.
Then, gently—
Acknowledgment.
He lifted his chin carefully.
"I am too."
Across the suspended canals, something flickered.
A tremor.
A ripple through thought.
Something foreign brushed the city like cold fingers skimming warm water.
Not Vienna.
Something narrower.
Sharper.
Small enough to slip in where armies could not.
Jakob turned sharply.
The dream twisted.
He wasn't alone anymore.
A man stood across the space — not quite present, not quite absent. He seemed drawn in charcoal: firm strokes, no softness. Commission posture. Vienna logic. No arrogance. Just belief.
He did not look at Jakob at first.
He looked at Venice like a scholar looks at fire:
fascinatedworshipfulfrightenedwanting to ownunderstanding he never would
Then he did see Jakob.
He did not smile.
He bowed slightly.
Not mockery.
Respect.
"You're asleep," he said.
Jakob swallowed.
"So are you."
The man tilted his head.
"Yes."
They regarded each other.
"You shouldn't be here," Jakob said.
"I didn't intend to be," the man replied, studying the floating city with reverence. "Something opened. I followed."
Jakob shook his head.
"You weren't invited."
"That," the man said gently, "is rarely how knowledge works."
Fog thickened between them.
It was polite.
It was warning.
The man nodded.
"I mean no injury," he said softly. "We are trying to keep the world understandable. We are frightened too."
Jakob's throat tightened.
"I know."
He did know.
He hated knowing.
The man looked again at Venice.
"You're not just a child," he whispered. "You're a hinge."
Jakob laughed, thin and shaky.
"I didn't ask to be."
"Most hinges don't," the man said.
Something pulled then.
Not from Vienna.
From the Commission.
From instruments pushing too hard at the edges of interpretation. Trying to stabilize what should not yet be charted.
The dream-city flickered, its lines tightening defensively.
Fog pressed forward in instinct.
Jakob's chest hurt.
"Stop," he whispered.
Not to the fog.
To the man.
"Stop measuring."
The man blinked.
"We can't. That's all we have."
"No," Jakob said.
He stepped closer.
Every step cost effort. The dream-space resisted movement, as though he were walking on the fragile scaffolding of consequence.
When he stood closer, he finally saw the man's eyes.
Not cruel.
Not ambitious.
Devoted.
The worst kind of dangerous.
"I don't want to hurt you," Jakob whispered.
"That is comforting," the man replied softly. "But it isn't enough."
Fog surged defensively.
Venice's dreaming self expanded around Jakob like a halo of place.
He reached a trembling hand forward.
He touched fog.
It steadied.
He touched the dream-city.
It breathed.
He touched the fear between them.
It resisted.
He whispered:
"Please."
Not a command.
A request.
Fog hesitated.
Then listened.
The city relaxed fractionally.
The Commission presence dimmed to a respectful distance.
The man exhaled shakily, as though only now understanding he had nearly been burned by something sacred.
"Thank you," he murmured. "We don't want to break you."
Jakob looked confused.
"Then why do you keep pushing?"
The man didn't answer immediately.
"Because," he said finally, "if the world learns to do this… choosing. Remembering. Caring without being told… then politics fails. Control fails. Systems fail. We become… unnecessary."
Jakob blinked at the honesty.
He whispered:
"I think that's a good thing."
The man laughed softly.
"Of course you do."
A hush rolled through the dream.
Fog curled inward, signaling time.
This was ending.
The man knew it too.
He bowed again.
"I will leave," he said softly. "Not because you demand it. Because I feel like a guest somewhere sacred."
"Will you tell?" Jakob asked.
"Yes," the man said truthfully.
Jakob nodded.
"That's fair."
The man hesitated.
"Child?"
"Yes?"
"Are you afraid you cannot hold all of this?"
Jakob looked at the city.
At fog.
At himself.
He whispered:
"I am afraid I will be asked to."
The man closed his eyes.
Then he faded.
Not violently.
Gently.
Fog relaxed.
Venice settled its dream.
Jakob stood very small inside a city larger than belief.
Then something unexpected happened:
Venice comforted him.
Not with words.
With adjustment.
The suspended canals lowered just slightly, bringing themselves nearer to ground. Bridges steadied. Bells stopped trembling. Walls aligned without hard edges.
Fog wrapped him like a shawl.
The city made itself smaller so a child could feel safe inside it.
Jakob burst into tears.
He hadn't cried since the night the Commission sang his mind open.
He wept.
Venice did not hush him.
It simply remained.
Warm.
Present.
Chosen and choosing.
He whispered into fog:
"I don't know how to be what you need."
Fog rested against his cheek.
He understood.
He wouldn't be alone.
He wouldn't be burdened.
He would be part of a conversation larger than control.
He stood straighter.
He breathed.
"Okay," he whispered.
"I will stay."
The dream did not end abruptly.
It released him.
He sank backwards into warmth—
—and woke on the Remembered Edge with tears drying on his face and Elena's hand already gripping his shoulder because she had heard him murmur and had come without question.
He clung to her a moment.
She held him without asking.
Kessel stood silently in the doorway, watching with a face that understood too much and not enough at the same time.
Matteo pretended not to wipe his eye.
Chiara pretended not to see him do it.
Jakob finally whispered:
"Venice is dreaming now."
Kessel swallowed.
"Is that… safe?"
Jakob thought about the man.
About mercy.
About fear.
About fog choosing.
He nodded slowly.
"Yes," he said softly.
"Until someone tries to wake it the wrong way."
The chapel quieted.
The island hummed.
Fog shifted faintly across the distant lagoon as if stretching into morning.
And somewhere far away, instruments trembled with data no one had language for, Vienna leaned forward, Rosenfeld closed his eyes in careful dread, and the Minister of Secrets whispered into stone:
"Then let us be very careful with how we walk from here."
Jakob lay back down.
This time when he slept,
it was ordinary.
Venice handled the rest.