A few replies dribbled in once they had gotten on the train and secured a good seat with a table.

"You better sit facing the direction we'll be moving in, I know how you get sometimes."

She'd not 'travel sick', but he definitely got 'travel grumpy'.

"So we get there and have a poke about people's dreams to see where they us?"

That was a start. But she'd also fired off a few texts, asking a few contacts about vampire activity in Yorkshire as a whole. Particularly new blood (pun intended). -

Well stocked pockets full of stuff.

“Right. Were you serious about Yorkshire? I’m trying to think who I know in Yorkshire. And who I can understand, because you know, the accent…”

“We could take the train? Have you ever been on a train?”

"No, I don't know... You'd still..."

Die.

And yet some iteration of Dream would live on. So why couldn't he syphon off the part of him that made him 𝒽𝒾𝓂 ?

"None of us know what we're doing, so you'd fit right in with that part. At least."

"Is there a way you could... move that part of yourself into a second form? Separate the aspect of Dream, from the things that make the man?"

Her palm was sweaty, she wiped it on her trousers. Maybe that was just an insult, asking him to split himself in half and sacrifice one part. -

"But you know, maybe we're thinking about this backwards."

To end the suffering of his son meant that Morpheus would die. That was a fact, something unchangeable.

"You... Everything you are now, it's different from what you used to be, right?" -

Her fingers tapped off her thigh, first three, then two, and finally just her ring finger. The one that had a ring placed there by him a few years ago now.

"Lucienne is capable of caring for the Dreaming. And there is the little boy, Daniel Hall. You said he was part of the Dreaming." -

“What kind of being would you be afterwards?”

That mattered. No so much to her, but he’d made a point to change her into something that would endure the years, he’d need to be able to do the same.

“Could you protect yourself?”

He’s touched on that before, or rather she’d asked. Long ago, now.

Because of his son.

“Abdicate? Find a replacement?”

Actually. The how didn’t matter. She knew he’d never leave the Dreaming without someone to care for it. -

There was never any question in her mind when she did a spell or set a ward, she knew it would work, even if it wasn't in the way she planned. Because it always worked. Even back when she was a novice and just learning, it worked.

That's because London was full of sweaty bodies and exhaust fumes. Not good for a baby, not at all.

Luckily, Drina was with her nannies in the Dreaming. And Matthew, probably.

"Feels like the smug satisfaction of something I know will work." -