Page 29 of A Theory of Dreaming (A Study in Drowning #2)
When the snow fell and the tide pools froze, I was lost to myself, more alone than I had ever been. I had only my captor’s dreams for company.
THE LITERATURE COLLEGE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CAER-ISEL
INVITES YOU TO
ITS ANNUAL MIDWINTER BALL
on the eve of Midwinter
Please come in your formal dress
This year’s theme is FOLKLORE
The Midwinter Ball committee had spared no expense.
Uncaring of printing cost, the posters were elaborately decorated, with intricate borders of crisscrossing vines and a backdrop of white birch trees.
The font was so stylized as to be nearly unreadable.
In the center, next to the flame-breathing dragon of the literature college, was the depiction of Saint Guyon, patron of chivalry, in a full suit of mail and gleaming armor.
“They’re going all out this year, it seems,” Rhia said.
Effy turned away from the poster to her friend. “What about the music college? Have they announced their theme yet?”
“Yes,” Rhia said. “It’s ‘Midnight.’ Whatever on earth that means. At least they haven’t chosen Saint Guyon to put on their posters. I think I would vomit.” She wrinkled her nose.
The patron saint of chivalry was not who Effy would have chosen, either. It seemed quite a conservative choice, especially for the first year that women were to be admitted to the college. With a sinking feeling, she realized that was probably the point.
“Midnight,” Effy mused. “What, are you supposed to come dressed as clocks?”
Rhia laughed. “I’ll have to commission an appropriate gown. Though I think they might mean it in the fairy-tale sense. So not quite as different a theme from yours.”
Effy looked back at the poster, studying its details.
Saint Guyon’s position was penitent, crouched on his knees with his sword driven blade-first into the ground.
The grill of his helmet obscured his face.
Squinting her eyes, Effy saw something that had slipped below her attention before—there was a shadowy figure lurking behind him, clad in black with skin as white as a bolt of lightning.
The Fairy King.
She was so shocked she almost stumbled backward, her breath catching in her throat. The crown of antlers, the tattered black hair—it was all so familiar to her. Painfully, wonderfully familiar. She couldn’t stop staring into his false inked eyes.
Effy had grown so paranoid over these past weeks that at first she wondered if it were a taunt. But how could the Midwinter Ball committee have known? The theme was Folklore, and the Fairy King certainly fit. She let out a stuttering, uneasy breath.
“Are you all right?” Rhia asked.
“Yes.” Effy choked on the word. “Yes, I’m fine.”
Rhia did not look convinced. She blinked, and then went on, “I suppose I could go dressed as a frog.”
It took Effy a moment to remember where their conversation had left off. But when she did, she managed a smile.
“I’m voting for the clock,” she said.
“Maisie will have to be the tiebreaker, then.”
Rhia tucked her chin and nose into her scarf just as a blistering gust of wind swept through the courtyard.
It rattled the icicles that hung from the extended arm of the statue of Sion Billows, founder of the university.
Effy self-consciously reached for the back of her head, making sure the white ribbon was still in place.
They were standing on the steps of the library, where a number of posters had been hung against its gray exterior wall.
At least all of Finisterre’s flyers had been removed, every last one.
She wished she had not had to tell Preston about them, but it was over now.
She would never have to speak to the slimy reporter again, and Southey’s loathsome plan had been wrecked.
All was well, for now. Effy wished she didn’t feel such a pit of dread in her stomach.
“Do you still want to go in?” she asked.
Rhia nodded. “I need to get something from the stacks. I’m this close to finishing my piece for the showcase.”
“Will you let me hear it, at some point?”
“Of course. I’ve tormented you enough with my practicing, after all. I promise it will sound much better when it’s done. And when you’re not listening through a layer of drywall and plaster.”
While Rhia scoured the stacks, Effy found a nook in one of the rooms on the upper floors.
She hated that she felt like she had been chased out of the main reading room, but she couldn’t bear to confront any of her fellow literature students.
She couldn’t bear the feeling of those prying stares.
So, as she had done so many times before leaving for Hiraeth, she tucked herself into a dusty corner, underneath a dusty, ice-rimed window, and took out her copy of Letters I smell his candles burning to their ends. He has called on the physician, but so far, none of his remedies have been strong enough to induce sleep. Perhaps Miss Maud knows some clever peasant healing tincture. I will ask her.
Until next time, Diary
—A.A.
Through the door, Effy could hear the shuffling of footsteps. She froze momentarily, to see if anyone would emerge in the threshold. But the footsteps passed, and she relaxed again, sidling closer to the cold glass of the window. She turned the page.
The 31st day of Winter, 80 AD
Dear Diary,
Relief, at last. This past night I slept—not fitfully, not inconstantly, but in oblivious repose.
The solution, as it turns out, is not a peasant healing tincture nor the intervention of the physician, but rather, the joining of two souls who share the same grief.
While I lay awake last night, tossing and turning in my bed, I saw the gleam of my father’s candle slip through the crack in the door.
I heard him pause and, from the other side of the wood, draw in a breath. I froze, my own breath caught, waiting.