"Dex!" my father yelled again, this time a few feet away from the tree.

We were only a stone's throw away, but the sand made for poor vision and I had to squint hard to make out what this Dex was. It certainly couldn't be normal; anything that had my father acting like a child who'd been plopped down in the center of a candy store dappled with signs that read, "Free," had to be something or someone extraordinary.

Through the sand, I began to make out a shape, a pathetic one no taller than Crispen. The tree had dark bark like those in the Witchewood though it wasn't nearly as majestic. And where the Witchewood grew ever upward, branches embracing the heavens, this tree grew downward, apologetic and ashamed.

Heaps of sand covered the tree's barren branches and when their weight grew too demanding, the tree shivered, as it did now, shaking itself free like a dog in desperate need to dry itself off. This process was repeated; the sand fell, the heaps grew and the tree shivered.

A shivering tree, how quaint.

Tied to the tree, yes, tied, was the mysterious Dex. The question was answered, Dex was a man, an average one at best. He had cropped brown hair, tan skin, a leather jacket studded and patched, a t-shirt with faded grey lettering and a pair of jeans similar to the ones Crispen wore. He oozed normalcy. Then why was this man bound to a shivering tree in the layer of unstoppable sand?

The two reflective surfaces we had spotted from a distance had been Dex's aviator shades. They hid half his face behind tinted green lenses and for some reason, the sand chose not to fall on them. Never had I wanted to be more like a pair of sunglasses than I had right then.

The man regarded my father with a large, toothy grin.

"Ray," he piped up, a surge of life awakening him from his dormant state. Dex looked as though he'd been tied to the tree for far too long, his bones becoming bark, storing up energy for those times yet to come.

Had the time come?

"Dexter," my father replied, holding out his hand, an empty gesture considering Dex had no use of his limbs.

My father looked flustered and shook his head, moving his outstretched hand to Dex's shoulder and giving it a hearty slap. Dex creaked like a rarely oiled door hinge though he wore no discomfort. "It's been awhile."

Dexter turned to us next. "Peneloper, Crispen, Tiny Cat, and Written One, it is a pleasure to meet you in the flesh."

Tiny puffs of sand escaped through cracked lips between his words. He laughed, his voice hoarse, his aviators reflecting a sun I couldn't see. "I am Dexter Aquarius Sapphire and I am the proprietor of this layer and grandfather of the Shivering Tree."

"Is that really your name?" Crispen asked, taking a moment to light a cigarette amid all this sand.

I gave him a quick sideways glance along with a jab to the gut, but I didn't stop him. He could have his cigarette. His one cigarette. Crispen looked at me with a smile that trumpeted his victory. His one, small victory. Dexter laughed.

"No, my name's just Dexter, but Aquarius Sapphire just sounds more magical, doen't?"

Dexter had a slight accent, one that might have clung to his syllables like molasses before, but that now had been swept away by all the sand, the strange drawl popping up only now and then.

"Why would you desire the name of devils?" the captain asked, his sword raised at the bound man, the sand making quick work to add it to the drowning scenery. Already, a half inch had coated the broad steel.

Stormholden flicked his wrist and the sand tumbled to the ground. Then, it floated back up and whipped right, hit the captain in the gut and began to coat the underside of the sword. The captain stood perplexed by the sand's vengeance and, flushed with anger, another expletive I hadn't written for him to say, exploded from his tongue. Dexter chuckled.

"Devils exited the world long ago," he said, nodding to my father. "If you'd be a dear." My father flounced over --yes, this giddy schoolgirl effect Dexter had on my dad seemed to last-- and scratched the other man's nose.

"Ah! There's nothing better than a century's worth of itch finally getting remedied."

Dexter nodded for my father to finish and then craned his neck to see us.

In a whisper he asked, "There aren't any more devils right?"

Was he serious?

"Of course I am," he said as the tree shivered and shed its latest sand heaps. "I'd lose my own head if it wa'n't always drowning in sand. I don't know up from down, smell from sight, left from right. Everything converges on me all the time."

He chuckled before continuing, "Can you imagine the headaches?"

"They'd be dastardly," the captain chimed in.

He circled the tree, his gait cautious, his eyes alert. With his sword, he traced the thin silver chains that held Dexter to the tree. Once satisfied that they were nothing more than chains, he gave them a rapid tug with his hands. They looked as though they would be easily broke, but that was just how they appeared. Try as Stormholden might, and boy did he, he could not break the chains.

"It'd be a bad idea, Cap'n. You free me, you free everything. And I mean, everything. All at once."

Dexter coughed, a spittle of dried blood hanging from the corner of his mouth. "There ain't enough medicine in the world to take care of the migraine that'd cause."

He lurched his head forward, stretching as far as he could and nodded to my father. "There isn't, is there?"

His cryptic nature led me to believe he knew much but was very out-of-date.

"No," my father said. "There's also not enough magic to undo such a catastrophe if it were to be unleashed."

Dexter peeled back his thin, crusted lips and smiled, yellowed teeth popping out of browned gums. He was Crispen's antithesis; Crispen had the chompers of the gods, Dexter had the teeth of dentists' and dental hygienists' worst nightmares.

"Good," he said, delighted. "I still have purpose."

It was my father's turn to chuckle.

"Time never stops," he replied.

At this, Dexter's smile retreated into a thin, hard line, a crack in the stone that threatened to break the man's head in two. He shook his head.

"It stops for some," he began, wetting his lips with a tongue like sandpaper. It grated against his lips and caused the cracks to rip open and bleed. Dexter didn't seem to pay it any mind though. Instead, he continued, "Like that boy who brought you here. His time stopped long ago."

"Just who is Dexter?" I asked, leaning into Crispen, hoping the boy with tight lips would let the secrets of the layers escape just this once. He shook his head before meeting my gaze.

"He's the master of the Reverse and is far more powerful than I could explain in your language."

I shot up in shock. Your language? Had there been layer specific languages?

Crispen sighed as he saw the gears turn in my head at his latest revelation, as he heard the questions I asked him in my thoughts, and turned his attention back toward Dex.

My father's smile retreated, the four of us and one tiny cat, stood in the darkness, sand overwhelming us from all sides, a wind howling through us instead of words. Silence was not a thing I found comforting anymore.

It was Dex that spoke first and freed us of silence's uncomfortable clutches.

"You know the price," he said.

His words were aimed at my father and my father only. I watched as my father furrowed his brow and scratched the back of his head. He was nervous. Why?

My father gave Dex a quick, decisive nod. Crispen looked off in the distance, his gaze held at nothing in particular, a cigarette teetering on his lip, hands in both pockets.

Plumes of sand flitted about, carried on the wind, dunes rising harshly around us as the sand settled. Crispen's nose crinkled as though he smelled something sour, and he looked even more miserable than when Genesis had gone missing.

I tightened my grip on Chant. He stared at me with his eyes and I thought they smiled, though forced, his coarse tongue licking the tips of my fingers. I was missing something here and everyone except for Stormholden and I knew what that was.

Something far worse than Gideon was coming.