Page 24 of A Theory of Dreaming (A Study in Drowning #2)

He awoke to being shaken rather violently, with the stench of alcohol wafting over his face. Preston’s eyes fluttered open, and he was met with Master Gosse’s wild, wheeling stare. His adviser’s hand gripped the collar of his shirt.

“Well?” he rasped. “What did you see, Héloury? What did you see?”

Preston tried to extricate himself as decorously as possible, but it was difficult, given that Gosse was holding on to his shirt as if it were his lifeline in a storm.

He had also shoved him up against one of the coffins, his shoulder blades digging painfully into the marble that supported the sleeping body of Aneurin the Bard.

“N-nothing,” Preston stammered out. “Just... just darkness.”

It was perhaps his most unconvincing lie yet. Luckily, Master Gosse was in no state of mind to suss out his dishonesty.

“Something has gone terribly wrong,” he muttered, and at last loosened his grip on Preston’s collar. “I performed the ritual just as I performed it before—in the hall of the Sleepers—in the lambent pulse of their magic—and yet...”

Preston pushed himself clumsily into a sitting position. His chest was heaving; his limbs felt numb and needle-pricked. Letting out a tremulous breath, he said, “Perhaps that first time was only a fluke.”

“A fluke ?” Gosse whirled on him. “Ah, you must be the weak link, Héloury! You unrelenting unbeliever. There’s no curriculum for dreaming. No refined academic method. If you cannot accept this, well, I shall have to soldier on in this enterprise alone.”

Preston’s stomach crinkled. It was hard for him to feel relief.

Could Gosse succeed, if he continued to try these rituals alone?

Or was it true that the palace beneath the waves was his world, fitted to his unconscious desires?

Preston looked down at the floor, as if he could somehow glimpse the castle below, the seam between dreams and reality. But he only saw hard, solid stone.

If he pressed his ear to the ground, would he hear the bells?

Master Gosse stood, letting out a breath that intimated deep frustration.

Preston was left to gather the papers of Angharad’s diary, bundling them up and handing them to his adviser.

Gosse did not say another word as he led Preston back through the dim, narrow corridor, out of the museum, and into the sharp, cold daylight.

Preston returned to his dorm, hoping for a warm shower and several hours of uninterrupted, untroubled silence.

But his hopes were dashed before he could even open the door.

He smelled an overwhelming rush of cigarette smoke, and, through the thin wood, he heard tussling and thudding, and then a muffled giggle.

Solitude and tranquility there would not be. With a deep, steeling breath, Preston pushed open the door.

Slush was tracked through the corridor, which was not unusual, but beside the melting footprints, there was a trail of rumpled clothes: a fallen blazer there, a balled-up blouse, a limp pair of black trousers with the belt still looped through.

He would not even deign to describe what else he found there on the floor.

Preston picked his way around the clothes and walked to the door of his roommate’s bedroom.

He waited there for a moment, listening to the hushed laughter on the other side, and then gave a brusque rap upon the wood.

“Ah, fuck,” came a familiar voice. “Hold on a moment.”

There was more shuffling, a few urgent shushing sounds. Then the door was flung open, revealing the disheveled but smiling face of Lancelot Albyric Grey, heir to the earldom of Clare.

“Hello,” Preston said flatly.

“Hello,” his roommate replied, in a cheerful and breathless tone. “How can I help you?”

“I live here, if you recall.”

“How could I forget? You’re the only reason I haven’t failed out yet.”

Perhaps, although Preston was not exactly doing the best job of it lately. It was ten thirty, the middle of the week, and given that he had, by now, memorized his roommate’s schedule, he knew that he was missing class. Again.

There was only so much he could do, of course.

Preston helped him keep track of his assignments, devotedly filled out a planner (which he never used), and, more than once, had physically dragged him out of bed for an early-morning seminar.

He refused to let his schoolwork be copied, but they had spent uncountable hours at the kitchen table, Preston explaining themes and motifs and symbols, while his roommate took sloppy, disinterested notes.

But with Preston having been gone for so many weeks, and neglectful of this duty, the current situation was dire.

“Lancey?” someone called from the bedroom. “Are you coming back?”

“No,” Preston said through the door, before his roommate could reply.

The nickname Lancey had always seemed overly twee to Preston, although it was what all the girls—and sometimes boys—his roommate brought back called him.

Preston had his own nickname for him: Lotto.

It felt appropriate, given how his entire life seemed to be no more than lucky collisions with fate.

The luckiest incident, he supposed, was having been born the eldest son of one of the wealthiest aristocrats in Llyr.

Lotto huffed a laugh. “You’re having none of my nonsense today, are you?”

“You’re supposed to be in class. Professor Damlet will have a conniption—”

“I’ve missed the last seven of his classes,” Lotto said. “Surely he’s given up hope by now.”

Preston pushed up his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose, his temples beginning to throb. He was going to have to coin a specific term for Lotto-induced headaches. Perhaps he would consult a medical textbook.

“The semester’s more than half over,” said Preston. “You’re going to have to buckle down just to get a passing grade.”

“Now that you’re here to keep me in line.” Lotto’s grin widened. “Oh, I missed you, Héloury.”

Despite everything—despite the daggering pain behind his eyes—Preston had to admit there was something relentlessly charming about Lancelot Grey.

Perhaps it was no more than his well-formed face: his proud patrician nose and sharp, canny jawline, his black hair, which was cut rakishly to his shoulders, and his snapping dark eyes.

He always looked on the edge of a smirk.

He was not quite as tall as Preston, but he was broader and more muscled, owing to many years of rugby and polo and probably other sports that were too upper-class for Preston to even know.

“Perhaps you should start by dismissing your, ah, guest,” Preston said.

“If you insist.” Lotto turned around and spoke in hurried whispers to the person in his room. Several moments later, a girl staggered out, her hair mussed and her expression jilted. She gave Preston an enormously foul look as she passed by.

Once she was gone, Preston said, “I’m serious. You’re at risk of academic suspension, or even expulsion.”

“Dean Fogg wouldn’t dare to insult the Earl of Clare like that.”

“There is a precedent for expelling even the most blue-blooded students,” Preston said. “Silvanus—”

“Yes, yes, Silvanus Chatterly, the infamous forger,” Lotto cut in. “You’ve told me before. But I’m not at any risk of being caught out for plagiarism. That would require me to actually turn in my work.”

Fair enough , Preston thought . But it wasn’t Dean Fogg who Preston was concerned about. It was the Earl of Clare himself. Lotto’s father was, even for an aristocrat, exceptionally cold and demanding of his son. He showed no pride in Lotto’s rare achievements, and no mercy for his many mistakes.

The Earl of Clare had visited the university once, his nose wrinkling as he surveyed their shared dorm, his frown lines deepening as he saw Lotto’s slovenly bedroom. Preston had stood anxiously against the wall, saying nothing, feeling like a serf in the presence of a king.

But then, just before the earl had departed, he had approached Preston and put a hand on his shoulder.

“I hear you’re the top-ranked literature student in the college,” he had said.

“Yes, sir,” Preston had replied, unnerved.

“I also hear you’re responsible for keeping Lancelot’s grades in the passable range.”

“Well, ah, I suppose...”

“You’re a good boy, then,” the earl had said. “The sort of boy any father would be happy to have. I can only hope my own son can pick up some better habits from you. If he were even half as much...” The earl trailed off, giving a long and weary sigh.

And then—and without even one more glance at Lotto—he had left.

Preston cringed at the memory. Lotto should be more worried about being disowned than expelled. But as remote and dispassionate as the earl had been, there was one thing Preston had to give him credit for: he had not once remarked on his accent, or on his Argantian blood.

“Regardless,” Preston said at last, “Damlet is a patient professor, but his compassion isn’t endless. You should at least try and make it to class next week.”

“I’ll give it my best effort,” Lotto said. “But you can protect me now, can’t you? Legate of the literature college and all that.”

“I can’t abuse my position to help my friends,” Preston replied stonily. It was the sort of thing one might get away with if they were the son of an earl, not the only Argantian student at the university, regardless of what his college rank might be.

“Of course not.” Lotto came fully out of his bedroom, closing the door behind him. His hair was mussed, lips slightly swollen, and his shirt only half-buttoned, but at least he was wearing pants. “Luckily I have Damlet and not Gosse, eh? He came around this morning looking for you.”

“Well, he found me,” Preston said. “Unfortunately.”

“What is Gosse tormenting you about?” Lotto asked.

His vision was starting to glaze, as if he were tired, only—he wasn’t.

His eyelids didn’t feel heavy; his muscles didn’t ache for relief.

It was that the real world, Lotto’s face, the plaster-cracked walls of their dorm, were starting to shudder away.

In its place, the glimmering marble chambers of the palace rose up.

The image was translucent, so he could still see what was real, but only just.

Preston blinked, and the vision dissipated. He gave a low sigh of relief.

“Just another one of his fanciful schemes,” Preston said, which was not at all a lie, though his stomach fluttered nonetheless.

“Hopefully this one won’t end with you being menaced by reporters and making enemies of the culture ministry.”

“I don’t think it will.” He didn’t mention that he was more likely to end up in a locked psychiatric ward.

“At least there’s that,” Lotto said. He patted the pockets of his pants, as if searching for something, and then said, “How’s Effy?”

Preston hesitated. His chest suddenly felt very tight. “She’s all right,” he said after a moment, and this time, he was unsure whether it was a lie.

“Good,” Lotto said. He located the packet of cigarettes in his back pocket and pulled them out. Holding them flat on his palm before Preston like an offering, he asked, “Smoke?”

“Yes,” Preston replied gratefully. He was surprised at the way his body seemed to relax, his taut muscles unclenching.

Perhaps this was better than stewing in silence, with nothing to distract him from the memories of the palace chambers, the statues, his father, that shimmery gray unreal world.

If nothing else, Lotto was always enlivening company. “Thank you.”