A Builder of Dreams recap

Thirteen-year-old Siobhan investigates the secret research conducted by her grandfather Raaz Kalvidasan and his associate Claudio Tierney after disturbing dreams and magical anomalies spread through their village. Claudio Tierney's popular dream sessions prove to be paths into the spirit realm, designed to remake the villagers through the endless hunger associated with the titan Hyperiodax. He has also trapped Siobhan's transformed mother, Miakoda, within an interplanar frame. Raaz Kalvidasan returns from exile in the spirit realm and kills Claudio Tierney, but remnants of Claudio Tierney and Miakoda become lodged in Siobhan. Raaz Kalvidasan suppresses her memories to seal them, then suffers a magical break and kills himself to protect her. Siobhan escapes past the transformed villagers and Rory's corpse. Three months later, she survives alone while avoiding a loose memory that could weaken the seal.

Previously: The wider series has established Thaddeus Lacer and Silva Erde.

Thirteen-year-old Siobhan suspects that her grandfather, Raaz Kalvidasan, is concealing dangerous work inside his warded tower. Claudio Tierney arrives as Raaz Kalvidasan's research associate and helps her hide the damage from her first failed break-in. Soon the household finds blood-filled eggs, and Siobhan's treehouse is overtaken by strange material carrying the incense scent she associates with her dead mother, Miakoda, and Miakoda's familiar, Paimon. Raaz Kalvidasan publicly dismisses the incidents as natural problems, but he and Claudio Tierney privately recognize and classify the treehouse anomaly. Claudio Tierney presents himself to the village as a builder of dreams and quickly attracts clients with tailored dream experiences. He later lets Siobhan and her friend Rory into the tower, where they discover a spatially altered workshop and coded ledgers but no explanation. Raaz Kalvidasan catches them and punishes Siobhan. That night, she follows Claudio Tierney into the woods and sees him burying food after becoming sick. Claudio Tierney claims that Raaz Kalvidasan may be poisoning him and persuades Siobhan to keep the accusation secret.

Siobhan completes her punishment while Claudio Tierney's dream sessions become more popular and leave him increasingly exhausted. A brutal attack kills and consumes a flock of sheep, after which Raaz Kalvidasan removes every trace. Siobhan and Rory investigate in secret and learn that many villagers share dreams of searching alien landscapes beneath a threatening sky. The dreams leave them calm at first, but their behavior grows compulsive and violent. A reanimated corpse provides further evidence that the danger is escalating. Raaz Kalvidasan leaves to find help. Claudio Tierney, constrained by a vow from giving Siobhan direct answers, tries to slow the villagers' deterioration through dream magic. Some afflicted residents begin mutilating themselves, eating flesh, and nurturing unnatural growths. Rory's family separates him from Siobhan, but she rescues him when his affected grandfather attacks. The children travel through the woods to seek a shaman in Edelbrook, hoping to avoid carrying the curse through other settlements. The shaman's cottage appears abandoned. After breaking in, they find a buried human hand in the cellar and realize that the expected rescuer may already be dead.

Siobhan and Rory exhume the Edelbrook shaman and determine that he was murdered. A brief manifestation resembling Paimon appears in the fireplace, formed from the incense Siobhan connects with her mother. On returning home, the children find their village transformed into the red, bone-like landscape from the shared dreams. Inside, the environment distorts perception and identity. Curse-touched villagers hunt them, and Siobhan becomes separated from Rory. At the town hall she sees Claudio Tierney among an assembly building a vast figure from human flesh. After escaping, Siobhan receives further incense-like images that guide her to a hidden version of the tower workshop. There she discovers an interplanar frame made from Miakoda's mutilated but conscious body. Claudio Tierney reveals that both he and Miakoda are aberrants. The original Claudio Tierney died during a spirit-realm expedition, leaving another being in his body and name. Claudio Tierney used forced dream paths to weaken the villagers' minds and import the qualities of Hyperiodax, a titan defined by inexhaustible hunger. He also admits murdering the Edelbrook shaman. The frame, powered partly with Siobhan's blood, is the mechanism behind the dangerous overlap between realms.

Claudio Tierney explains that he cannot eat and seeks Hyperiodax's ability to consume energy and power. After Raaz Kalvidasan discovered the plan, Claudio Tierney abandoned him in the spirit realm. Siobhan attacks Claudio Tierney and tries to use the frame to find Raaz Kalvidasan, but Claudio Tierney forces mirror-like material into her eye and repeatedly sends her through hostile dream constructs. Miakoda's frame gives Siobhan a route back, and Siobhan learns to resist the spirit realm through memory and a firm sense of self. Raaz Kalvidasan eventually emerges alive and kills Claudio Tierney by using Claudio Tierney's removed eye as part of his magic. The victory leaves Siobhan incapacitated. Raaz Kalvidasan finds inseparable traces of Claudio Tierney and Miakoda within her mind and concludes that removing them would kill her. He attempts to bind them by erasing the memories that activate them. During the procedure, an unexplained identity that behaves like Siobhan answers while her ordinary mind sleeps. Siobhan wakes without the memories of the ordeal. Raaz Kalvidasan then begins to break after casting through his own flesh. He tells her to hide her origin and find a capable thaumaturge, then kills himself so that the aberrant transformation of his body cannot threaten her.

After Raaz Kalvidasan's death, Siobhan gathers food, a map, and a small selection of magical equipment while transformed villagers remain active outside. Aimee calls to her from the kitchen, but Siobhan's bodily fear warns her not to approach, and Aimee's condition is never confirmed. Siobhan climbs out through her bedroom window and finds Rory's mutilated corpse near the treehouse. She leaves the tower and village alone, following the road into the forest. Three months later, Siobhan is still on her own. Hunger, theft, danger, and isolation have defined her flight. Her memory seal has not entirely eliminated the catastrophe: she notices a loose thread connected to a refined voice and recognizes that examining it could disturb something dangerous, so she deliberately turns away from it. Dreams carrying imagery from the destroyed village continue to wake her in terror. Claudio Tierney is dead and Raaz Kalvidasan's immediate sealing measure still holds, but the remnants within Siobhan, the echoed identity, the surviving transformed villagers, Miakoda's condition, and the weakening point in Siobhan's memory all remain unresolved.

Raaz Kalvidasan returns from the spirit realm and destroys Claudio Tierney, ending Claudio Tierney's immediate plan to use the village and Hyperiodax's hunger as the foundation of greater power. The village remains devastated, its victims are beyond Raaz Kalvidasan's ability to save, and transformed survivors still roam near the tower. Rory is dead. Aimee remains at the house, but her condition is unknown. Miakoda still exists as the aberrant frame, while traces of both her and Claudio Tierney have entered Siobhan's mind. Raaz Kalvidasan binds those remnants by suppressing Siobhan's memories of the catastrophe. During the procedure, a separate echoed identity answers him from within her mind and remains unexplained. Raaz Kalvidasan then begins his own magical break and kills himself before he can become a danger. Siobhan flees with little equipment and follows the road into the forest. Three months later, she is isolated and surviving through theft and caution. She notices a fragile memory connected to Claudio Tierney but refuses to examine it, fearing damage to the seal, and her nightmares continue.