Page 37 of A Theory of Dreaming (A Study in Drowning #2)

Dearest Clementina,

We read fairy stories and dreamed of those knights in shining armor.

Brave, loyal, clever, and good. They littered the earth with the corpses of slain dragons and climbed the ivy to reach us in our secret towers.

Now, in my advanced age, I have come to wonder what lies beneath the helmet and mail.

These knights—are they rageful? Are they callous?

Or worse—are they simply mortal, given to all the passions and tempers of ordinary men?

I find such a thought so difficult to bear.

Would that I could still believe in the untarnished gold of our girlhood heroes.

Effy was shaky and almost numb. She watched, unable to move, almost unable to breathe, at the scene unfolding before her.

After several moments straining against the porters’ grip, Preston’s body at last went limp. He stopped struggling, and the porters hesitantly let go of his arms. He stumbled slightly forward, hand raised to stanch the flow of blood from his nose.

Lotto moved to catch Preston before he tipped over, slinging Preston’s arm over his shoulder, while Effy knelt to the ground. Her brain was not working, only her body. She picked up the mangled remains of his glasses—the lenses cracked and shattered, the frames bent beyond repair.

“Effy, stop.” Preston’s voice was muffled but sharp. “It doesn’t matter.”

But you can’t see without them. She couldn’t manage to find the words. Instead, she stood up, trembling, cradling the crushed glasses in her hands.

Southey scrambled to his feet. Blood ran down the front of his shirt and there was already a garish purple bruise swelling his left eye.

“You could’ve killed me!” he screeched. “Argantian scum—”

“Oh, like you weren’t begging for it,” Lotto shot back.

“ Enough ,” broke in one of the porters. “You’re both in deep trouble.”

“He started it!” Southey bawled. “I was just making idle chat—”

“You’re a liar,” Lotto snapped. “A liar and a fucking c—”

“ Enough! ” the porter shouted. He shoved his way between them, one hand on Preston’s chest and the other on Southey’s. “The two of you are getting written up and sent straight to the dean’s office tomorrow morning. You’re lucky I’m not putting a call in to the police station.”

“Please,” Effy said, recovering her voice at last. “Please don’t.”

The porter’s gaze flickered to her. It was utterly cold. He looked her up and down and said, “Perhaps you shouldn’t dress like this. What do you expect two red-blooded males to do? I’ve half a mind to report you to Dean Fogg, too.”

The three of them stumbled through the cold, back to Preston and Lotto’s dormitory.

No one spoke. Lotto supported Preston with his arm, though he was not having trouble walking, and Effy held her hand at his nose, though it had ceased bleeding.

In her other hand, she carried his broken glasses.

When they reached the dorm at last, Preston gave Lotto a pointed stare and, taking the hint, he retreated to his bedroom.

That left Effy and Preston to return to his bedroom, still in complete silence. Once the door closed behind them, Preston sank down into his desk chair. He bent over, head in his hands, obscuring his face. The only sound was his labored, raspy breathing.

With nowhere else to sit, Effy dropped to her knees before him, so they were almost at eye level. For a long moment, she just looked at him, at the slivers of face she could see between his fingers. His faintly tanned skin, the freckles that had faded with winter.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered at last, without removing his hands. “About your dress.”

Effy looked down. The front of her gown was splattered with his blood. It was drying in streaks over the taffeta and had soaked even to the silk shift below.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “Rhia won’t care.”

“I care.” The word was bitten out, and bitter. “I ruined it. I ruined everything.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s not your fault. Like Lotto said, he was begging for it—”

“ No ,” Preston cut in. “It is my fault. I could’ve just walked away. I should’ve ...” At last, he removed his hands from his face. His eyes were glazed and bright. “What’s wrong with me, Effy?”

Her heart ached. “Nothing,” she said firmly. “Southey deserved it. He deserved worse, probably.”

He just let out a slow, shuddery breath. “I never thought I’d be capable of something like that. I still...” Preston squeezed his eyes shut. “I don’t know who I am anymore.”

Slowly, Effy reached up. She peeled his hands from his face. Her white gloves were sticky with blood. Then she cupped his cheeks, feeling the warmth of his skin through the red-stained fabric, fevered with drunkenness, with the vestiges of rage.

“I know who you are,” she said softly. “You’re brilliant. Infuriatingly so. You’re principled. You’re honest and you’re good. And you rescue people. You rescue Lotto from his worst impulses. You rescued me, in every way that could possibly count.”

Preston closed his eyes again, a furrow carved deep in his brow. Effy watched him intently, fingers brushing his cheekbone, preparing to wipe away his tears. But she had never seen him cry.

And he didn’t now. Instead, he opened his eyes again and tilted his face, pressing his lips to her palm. Effy felt so much love surge up within her that it was almost painful. He had been her rival once. Then her ally. Then her friend. Her lover. Her protector. Her savior.

She leaned close, until their foreheads were touching. Then she kissed him tenderly, but without contrition, as if she could infuse that painful swelling of love into him through her touch.

He kissed her back, hesitantly at first, and then with greater passion, cradling the back of her head and curling his fingers into her hair. The pins that Rhia had carefully arranged to keep her chignon in place dislodged, and her hair fell loose around her shoulders.

Effy pushed herself up from the floor, so their faces were truly level.

“What is it that you told me once? That Argantian saying?” Effy traced her finger over the indentations on the bridge of his nose. “‘One must know before loving.’ I know you, Preston. And I love you.”

A swallow ticked in his throat. His eyes were shining, but still no tears fell.

“I love you,” he whispered. “For however much it’s worth... my heart is yours.”

Effy leaned forward and kissed him again.

With careful maneuvering, Preston braced his arms around her waist and pulled them both to their feet.

His hand brushed the line of pearl buttons down her back.

Effy, without breaking the kiss, began to pull at his tie, loosening it from the collar of his shirt.

She could feel his pulse, racing now, stammering, as his fingers deftly worked to undo each button, one at an agonizing time.

Finally her dress fell from her shoulders and pooled at her feet. Preston shrugged out of his jacket, and Effy helped him peel off his shirt.

When her hands dropped to his belt, he suddenly reached out and gripped her wrist. Effy looked up at him, a silent question in her eyes and her heart coming to a brief, stuttering halt.

“Wait,” Preston said, his voice slightly strangled. “Effy, are you sure?”

She nodded, and held his gaze for a long moment, so he would be sure that she meant it. He released her wrist. And then she continued, undoing his belt, then the button of his pants, until they were both divested of all their clothes and standing before each other bare.

With utmost tenderness, Preston brushed her hair back from her shoulders and kissed her throat, then her collarbone. Her pulse twinged and that place in the bottom of her belly grew taut. He bore her down onto the bed, and in a matter of moments, they were both swathed and tangled in the sheets.

Effy had been with him enough times to know that he would be gentle.

She knew the manner in which he would slide his arm beneath her and tilt up her hips, the way he would duck his head into the curve of her shoulder, breathing hard and huskily until they were both wrung through.

But he seemed to hold her even tighter now, as if he could bear no space between them.

When the theater behind her eyelids was flickering with false stars and Preston had collapsed beside her, panting, Effy reached over and placed her palm flat on his chest. Over his heart.

They were both still, illuminated only by the pale, pooling moonlight that slanted through his window.

It clung to the curves and valleys of Preston’s face in profile, making him appear even more still, somehow, like a marble statue veined in silver.

In a swift and sudden motion, Preston reached up and clasped her hand in his.

It was her left hand, with its absent ring finger.

He didn’t speak, but Effy was afraid that he had come to think of it the way she did.

That he had come to believe she was ruined long before they had ever known each other.

But Preston never said a word. And he held her hand until they drifted into their twin, moonlit slumbers, carrying them both into the refuge of dreams.

The next morning was cold and bleak. It was too cold, even, for snow to fall, and what remained on the sidewalks had ossified into banks as hard as bone.

Effy’s breath streamed out from her face in white clouds as they approached the administrative building, Preston’s hand in hers, and Lotto in tow.

She was trying to guide Preston carefully around the obstacles on their path because he was not wearing his glasses.

They had been left, broken and mangled, on his nightstand.

Effy knew how terrible his vision was without them.

But he maneuvered himself with remarkable certainty, as if he were not impaired at all by their absence.

It unnerved Effy—was he so distraught that he didn’t care if he tripped, fell, or worse?