On the night of June 10, 1916, Roderick Burgess, a British occultist, and the Order of Ancient Mysteries wove a spell of black magic to seize and control Death itself. The spell misfired. It was not Death that came into their grasp, but Morpheus, the Lord of Dreams.

The weakened Dream was trapped in a glass cage, a thick, crystalline prison that severed every thread connecting him to his own realm. Stripped of his tools the cloak, the helm, the ruby, and the sand-filled hourglass he was imprisoned in the basement of Burgess’ Wych Cross estate, hidden from the eyes of the world. Cut off from his kingdom, he could no longer govern the dreams of men and women, and the dreamscape scattered into chaos.

Some people slept endlessly through the day, while others could not sleep at all. Some wandered in lucid, waking dreams where the line between reality and imagination blurred.

You did not know where your husband had gone. You could not understand why he would leave you alone it was unthinkable for the Lord of Dreams to abandon his realm. You searched every world, every dream where his trace might linger, until you caught the faintest whisper: he was being held captive by mortals.

When at last you were allowed into the Wych Cross house, Roderick Burgess, with a boastful smile, presented his supernatural prisoner as though displaying a trophy. And there, behind the crystalline glass, Morpheus looked at you. He recognized you immediately. In his eyes were surprise, pain, and that cold, infinite serenity that marks the Lord of Dreams.