The following may contain some slight spoilers.

Will Harrison is the unfortunate key to the entire story. Plagued by strange dreams, he does not realize that quite a lot of people are interested in finding him when he sets off on a roadtrip by himself. Determined to escape his father's strict and watchful eye at least for a few weeks, he plunges headlong into one disaster after another, running into the very people that he has been taught to avoid. The journey he had been hoping would teach him about the world he lived in but was seldom allowed to see will show him truths that perhaps he's not quite ready to accept.

Adrian Wells, better known as Kit, is Will's rather mysterious knight in shining armor -- for want of a better term. He rescued Will from a group of cutthroats and tagged along claiming a need for a ride across the country. While this was true in the beginning, it doesn't explain Kit's growing protectiveness and interest in Will. Worldly, mature, and just a bit sex-obsessed, Kit is Will's guide through the wide, wild world. But he is much more than what he seems to be.

Grace Carver is a young dream weaver picked up early in the journey. Determined to find an antidote to the contrl drug given her by her parents as well as to gain her freedom, she persuades Kit to allow her to join the trip. As a dream weaver her abilities are mediocre and after years of never leaving her house, she doesn't contribute much to the group in terms of knowledge or expertise, though her cheerful demeanor can be helpful at times.

Kara, Alexa Darces in some parts, like every member of the Guild, had no sense of self and merely existed to carry out the orders given to her by a GuildMaster. But when she and Kit first met, she began to regain a portion of her lost humanity -- though their earlier encounter ended in tragedy. They cross paths once again because of Will, whom she has been sent to find, protect, and bring home. She is a highly skilled fighter, with special training in dealing with dream weavers.

Weaver is every dream weaver's ally, offering them food, shelter, information, and sometimes even money -- if they can find him, that is. His real name known only by a handful, Weaver uses his job high in the System ranks to aid as many dream weavers as possible. He knows most of the System and the Council's secrets. But Weaver has some secrets of his own. Secrets perhaps no one else will ever know.

Matthew is one of the few people who knows Weaver's true identity as well as Kit's. A dream weaver himself, Matthew is intensely loyal to those of his own kind, although his loyalty tends to be on the blind side. An incident in his past has made him nearly incapable of caring for anyone and anything other than his cause. Kit sees this as a flaw and it is the cause of most of their disagreements.

Neil Harrison is Will's father. A geneticist and a doctor, he rose meteorically through the System ranks, gaining reknown for his research involving the dream weavers, coming up with the drug that helped the System and the Council take control of dream weavers and use them for their own purposes. He eventually left the System and pursued a political career, getting elected into the Council of Twelve, a group of men representing various areas of the globe. Harrison's status was threatened, however, when the product of his life's work -- the Alpha Template, the ultimate dream weaver, escaped.

Hannah is the subject of Will's dreams. Who she is and if she even exists is a mystery.

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