The Chain of Small Hours

Aubry sleeps on chains. Three hundred years of them, running from every bed to the watchtower, where the town's dreams are pulled taut and tethered before dawn. Nobody remembers why. Cael was raised to keep the chains and never to ask. Then the famine-dream arrives in his own bed, and it knows his name. When his sister dreams off-chain, the bishop calls for the whole family to be cut — from the town, the watch, and the sleep. Cael's only ally is Thea, the bell-woman, who has never slept a night through and can walk into the chains without being caught. Together they follow the dream back through Aubry's own memories, and what they find is patient, and hungry, and has been waiting for the bargain to come due. The tower can hold. The tower can cut. Or the tower can tell the whole town the truth, on the last small hour before dawn.