The Man Inside

The dream city is not a refuge. It is a replacement, built to be moved into, and the takings are only the leak in a plan meant to exchange one world for another. Holding the exchange back, alone for twelve years, is Joren Arden: Tam's father, awake inside the stone, keeping the Held Door shut with his own wanting.

Freeing him would uncork the exchange for everyone. Corin makes his great argument in person, and offers Wren the one thing she cannot refuse lightly: Bram back by spring. What saves the crew is not force. It is Bram's own written no, a confession made in the open, and a single waking done properly: one boy, asked nine mornings, woken whole.

The Man Inside is Book Five of The Stone Plague. Tam becomes a Waker, and the book ends with the door held by two keepers, one on each side.