Page 18 of A Theory of Dreaming (A Study in Drowning #2)

Home. Effy’s mind caught on the word as Preston stepped out of the threshold and closed the door behind him.

Neither of their dorm rooms was home , not really.

In the strictest sense, her home was Draefen, her grandparents’ townhouse.

His was across the border, in Argant. Or was it?

Perhaps home was not a place at all. Nothing so common as to be seen on a map.

“Are you sure?” Effy asked. “If you need a few more minutes...”

Preston barely broke his stride, hesitating for a single moment. Then he put his arm around her shoulders, hugging her against him, and pressed a kiss to the top of her head.

“I’m sure,” he said, and she felt his muscles tense, as if even his body was growing rigid with conviction. “When I’m with you, I’m always certain there’s no other place I should be.”

By the time they returned to her dorm, Rhia was back to practicing her showcase piece.

The strains of the melody drifted down the hallway, through the thin wall between Effy’s bedroom and hers, slow and soft and mournful.

Sometimes Rhia sang along, but her voice was too low for Effy to make out the lyrics.

Thankfully, she’d had the foresight to dump the posters in the kitchen trash.

There was no risk that Preston would see.

Effy put water in the kettle and waited for it to boil, then for the tea to steep.

She was grateful to have the opportunity to regain her composure.

More than the posters themselves, she did not want Preston to see her fall apart.

It felt hideously selfish. In that moment, as she stared into the teacups’ darkening water, she hated herself fiercely, for saddling him with the burden of loving her.

Effy exhaled softly. Then she carried the brimming mugs to her bedroom. Preston sat in her desk chair, hunched over, elbows balanced on his knees. He was leafing through a book.

“What are you reading?” Effy asked.

Instantly he snapped the book shut, cheeks reddening as if he’d been caught in some compromising position. “Just the Neiriad ,” he said. “It’s what Gosse is teaching this semester. Exploits of Llyr’s ‘last-and-greatest’ king. Have you read it before?”

“Parts of it, in secondary school.” Effy set his mug down on her desk. “‘Silver was the garb of his enemies / and red was the fury of the king.’”

“ Argant ,” Preston said. “It means ‘silver.’ In our—in the Argantian language. It’s where the name of the country comes from. All the silver mines in the north. Aneurin is talking about Argantians there, of course. I doubt common foot soldiers wore garments of silver. He means it metaphorically.”

“But it’s not a real history, is it?” Effy cupped her tea in both hands. “It’s myths and legends, mixed with some verifiable facts.”

Preston nodded. “Aneurin the Bard was real. His body is in the Sleeper Museum, after all. It would be hard to deny that. But whether he lived contemporaneously with Llyr’s last king; whether he was a dignified court musician or a lowly troubadour... it’s unclear.”

Perched on the edge of the bed, Effy bit her lip.

A part of her wanted to confront him about what she had overheard—what she knew he knew she had overheard.

It was not so much that their conversation itself had been suspicious; it was the fact that he seemed so jittery about it, that he had refused to explain.

But the thought made her very tired. Even more tired when she remembered what secrets she was keeping from him: not just the crumpled-up posters in the trash, but the fact that she seemed scarcely able to keep her head above the water.

That the Fairy King was gone, but perhaps an essential part of her had gone with him.

Her escape hatch. The crack in the wall.

When Effy looked up, she saw that Preston was watching her intently. In the lamplight, his light brown eyes were flecked with gold, and the freckles on the bridge of his nose stood out like a scattered constellation.

“What are you thinking about?” he asked softly.

I found my deathless death in dreams.

The words slipped unexpectedly into her mind. Shaking her head, Effy replied, “I’m thinking about another Sleeper, actually. Laurence Ardor. I’m reading him for Tinmew’s class... as you know.”

She hadn’t meant to sound accusatory, but she could not quite help the edge of bitterness in her tone. Preston took her meaning immediately.

“I thought it would be a help, if I marked up your book,” he said, furrowing his brow. “Scansion is just dull, mindless work—I didn’t want you to have to worry about it.”

His voice was so gentle, and his gaze so sincere. The icy resentment that had frozen around her heart began to thaw. “I know,” Effy said. “It’s fine. I appreciate it.”

“I can explain the theory behind it. If you want. It’s quite simple, really.” Seeing the look on her face, Preston added quickly, “Another time.”

Effy nodded, staring down at her tea. “You remember all those bolded and capitalized words, right? They’re on practically every page.

I started to wonder why they were formatted that way.

I used my one question to ask Professor Tinmew about them.

He gave me some rambling answer about how the shape of the letters reflected the themes of the poem, but.

..” She looked up. “I don’t know. I guess it just didn’t feel convincing.

So I went to the library and took out a biography of Ardor. ”

She stood, set down her tea, and went over to her satchel. She pulled out Rockflower’s book and handed it to Preston.

“ A Complete Biography of Laurence Ardor, Lord of Landevale ,” he read aloud. He examined the cover and spine for a moment and then said, “This does seem to be the consummate work.”

“I hoped so,” said Effy. “I wasn’t able to read the whole thing, of course. But I did read about Ardor’s marriage. About how his father-in-law and wife both died of the same illness that then afflicted him. He survived the illness himself. But he was blind.”

Preston blinked. “At the end of his life, yes. He lost most—or perhaps all—of his vision.”

“No,” Effy said. “Not at the end of his life. He lost his vision before he even started composing ‘The Garden in Stone.’ He wrote it while blind. That’s what Rockflower said.”

Frowning, Preston glanced down at the book. “I didn’t know the exact timeline. Ardor is sometimes given the epithet ‘The Blind Poet,’ but I never really thought to delve deeper than that.”

“I know it’s not your specialty,” Effy said, “but how could he have done it? By touch, or...”

“I would suspect through dictation,” Preston replied.

“It was actually fairly common for the wealthy to use scribes. Literate servants or slaves who would take down the words of their masters. Though usually it was just for rather quotidian purposes. Letters, accounting, things like that. Not art , per se.”

Effy mulled this all over. “The Ardor household would have had plenty of servants, I suppose.”

“Certainly.”

“Though...” She paused, bit her lip. “Doesn’t it seem odd, that he would be so concerned about formatting, if he couldn’t even see the words?”

“A bit odd,” Preston agreed. “To be honest, I never thought much about it. Ardor’s work isn’t... especially exciting to me. But,” he hastened to add, “it’s been a long time since I’ve read him. Maybe I could change my mind.”

Effy couldn’t help but smile. The Preston she had met months ago, at Hiraeth—that stodgy and arrogant P. Héloury —would’ve rather perished than so readily admit he might be mistaken. In the lamplight, his eyes were lambent and gentle, searching her face.

“Well, Ardor is a romantic,” she said. “That’s one of Rockflower’s main arguments. Ardor loved widely and deeply, and his work reflects that.” Effy raised a brow. “So maybe that’s why you never found his work exciting or profound. Too much of a cynic.”

“I’m hardly a cynic . At least, not anymore.”

Preston looked more affronted than she’d expected, and he reached out and took her hands.

With his thumb, he tenderly brushed over the knuckle of her fourth finger—the absent fourth finger, which the Fairy King had taken from her as a child, both a prize and a promise that she would never belong to anyone but him.

It was the finger that, ordinarily, would be fitted with a wedding ring.

It was such a small thing, but as Preston touched the place where he might have—would have—put a wedding band, Effy felt her heart crack. She had been ruined long before he had ever laid eyes on her. How could she have so cruelly beguiled him into loving such a fickle and broken creature?

Lying harlot , indeed. Effy curled her remaining fingers into a fist.

Preston looked up at her with concern. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she said. And in that moment she was as terrible a liar as he was.

“I’m sorry,” Preston said, and the words seemed to rush out of him, desperate and harried. “I think perhaps I’ve been—distant from you. I don’t mean to be. It’s just...” His throat bobbed and he trailed off.

Effy was genuinely alarmed. It was so rare for him to be lost for words.

“It’s all right,” she replied. “This has been difficult for both of us. I know it’s burdensome, to feel as if you have to care for me—”

“No,” he cut in. His voice was sharp, and behind his glasses, his eyes flashed.

“That’s not it at all. You aren’t a burden to me or to anyone.

If anything, it’s the opposite. I don’t want to lay this on you.

You’ve been so strong, for so long—stronger than I could be.

Than I’ve been.” He swallowed, giving a small shake of his head. “You deserve to rest.”

Effy felt her eyes prick. She wanted to tell him he was wrong, so terribly wrong. That any strength she might have had was withered now, a slow-dying, pale-stalked flower, like those in Ardor’s garden of stone.

She let out a tremulous breath. “You don’t have to worry so much about me.”

“It’s a bit too late for that, isn’t it?” Preston smiled softly, almost sadly. “Whatever faults I might have—and I have plenty—just know that I think of you, always. My mind is never empty of you. Not in waking; not even in dreaming.”

The tears were gathered along her lash line now, threatening to spill over. Effy blinked to hold them back, then leaned forward and kissed Preston passionately on the mouth.

He let Rockflower’s book fall unceremoniously to the floor so that he could fold his arms around her waist. In a deliberate, delicate maneuver, without even breaking their kiss, he drew her onto his lap.

“So you can speak like a poet after all,” Effy whispered, when at last she pulled away.

With her own arms braced around his shoulders, her hands cupping his face, they were pressed together so tightly that she could feel his pulse, fluttering and urgent with her closeness.

“Only for you,” he replied. And then again: “Only for you.”