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herself a nice golden tan, too. She loved how easy it was to manipulate reality in a dream.
    Isabel wandered along the shore, her feet sinkingdeep into the sand with each step. The sand felt so soft, as soft as dusting power. She had never seen such small grains.
    The sky grew completely dark, and the moon came out. Isabel sat down and stared up at it. That’s when she realized that there wasn’t one moon in the sky—there were two. Both perfectly full and glowing with a silver light.
    A breeze kicked up, blowing Isabel’s hair across her face. A moment later her hair was up in an elegant twist. She wished she had this much power when she was awake! She’d never have to suffer through another bad hair day.
    Clouds drifted across the moons. Acid green clouds.
    Isabel felt her heart give a little flutter in her chest. She had seen clouds like those before. She and Max and Michael had all come out of their pods with memories of their home planet. Max figured they were some kind of species memories, memories all the people on their planet were born with. Those acid green clouds—that’s where she had seen them before. In one of her species memories.
    Why were those clouds in this dream? It would make sense if it were Max or Michael doing the dreaming. But they definitely weren’t. Isabel knew exactly what their dream orbs looked like.
    It’s just a coincidence, she told herself. Acid green clouds could turn up in anyone’s dreams. It’s not like humans couldn’t imagine weird-colored clouds.
    Isabel shoved herself to her feet and headed down the beach. She came to a stand of trees. They wereshort, shorter than she was, with peeling, papery bark. She had never seen anything like them, but she wasn’t a biology head like Max. These trees could be some ordinary earth variety for all she knew.
    She reached out and pulled off a strip of the flaky bark. Red sap, as glossy as nail polish, began to leak from the tree. The scent hit her nose—sharp and tangy. And familiar. But familiar only from one of her species memories.
    Whose dream was this? Why couldn’t she see them? Was the dreamer hiding from her? Watching her? That had never happened before. But she had never encountered an orb with a metallic surface before, either. She had never had a dream match up with her species memories.
    â€œWhere are you?” Isabel cried. “Who are you?”
    This was getting too creepy. She wanted to get out of here. Next time she would bring Max and Michael into the dream orb with her and they could explore together.
    Isabel stumbled away from the tree. Two strong hands caught her by the waist, steadying her. Then she was pulled up against a broad, bare chest. All hard muscle under smooth skin. She knew she should jerk away. But it just felt too good.
    â€œLooking for me, Isabel?” a low male voice asked. The feel of warm breath against her ear sent shivers through her.
    â€œWho are you?” Isabel demanded. She started to turn around—and the dream broke. She was back on her bed, back in her regular clothes.
    She sat up, feeling groggy and disoriented. She dipped her fingers in the glass of water that she had placed on her nightstand earlier and splashed some water on her face. It helped a little. But she still felt half asleep.
    That’s it! Isabel drew a sigh of relief. She must have fallen asleep before she entered the plane where the dream orbs were visible. That explained everything—the strange metallic orb, the acid green clouds, the way it felt like there was no dreamer in the dream.
    Isabel
was the dreamer. Yeah, that explained everything.
    Well, everything except those two strange bursts of unexplained power. Those weren’t part of her dream.
    Max tilted back his head, enjoying the feeling of the sun shining down on his face. In another month or so it would be too cold to eat lunch in the quad. But today the weather was perfect. He liked the way