Page 39 of A Theory of Dreaming (A Study in Drowning #2)

The sleeping body of Aneurin the Bard was discovered in the second century BD, beneath a green knoll in the most remote hills of Southern Llyr.

But, according to the Southern Llyrians of the area, this was no secret—they knew, all along, that the king’s bard was asleep under the hill.

They simply also knew not to disturb him.

Indeed, these peasants all bore a consistent tale: that, if one were to encounter a fairy in the woods or on the moors, the fairy would ask the question: “Does Aneurin the Bard still live?” The only way to keep from being killed or ferried away to the realm of the fae was to reply, “For now, he sleeps, but he will wake again, to reign and to conquer the world.” Then the fairy would allow you to pass unharmed.

“Héloury. Wait.”

He was half in, half out of Dean Fogg’s office.

Southey had already pushed brusquely past him, scowling and muttering swears, and Effy and Lotto were just ahead of him, down the hall.

Dean Fogg had returned to his desk and was gathering tobacco for his pipe.

It was Master Gosse who grabbed him by the forearm and halted him there in the threshold.

“What is it?” Preston asked. His voice was flat and tired.

“Will you come with me to my office a moment?”

Preston looked down at his adviser. Former adviser, he supposed. Now that he was suspended.

Despite it being so early, there was no sense of weariness about Master Gosse. His mustache was waxed and curled. His eyes were bright and flashing, no purple crescents of sleeplessness beneath them. And Preston could see all of this clearly, even without his glasses.

He did not know how it had happened, that suddenly he didn’t need them.

He saw as sharply and perfectly as he could in his underwater world, in his palace.

Ordinarily he would have interrogated this in his mind; he could never take something that appeared to be a miracle at face value. But now he was simply too tired.

And perhaps part of him did already know. The real world was breaking apart under his feet, and his fantasy, his dream, was surging up in its place. The world where he was king. He was infected with this delusion of power. It was turning him into a creature he did not recognize.

A creature that had beaten a man nearly to a pulp. Who had thought of killing him.

Preston glanced down the corridor. Effy and Lotto were waiting there expectantly. He caught Effy’s eye, and gave her a silent nod of assurance. Her brow knitted with worry and she didn’t move.

So Preston’s gaze slid to Lotto instead, and he hoped that his roommate could read his silent entreaty. Please , he thought, just get her out of here, take her somewhere safe. He was no longer certain that he could keep her that way. He was no longer certain of anything.

And, to his great relief, Lotto nodded back. He put his arm gently around Effy’s waist and began to lead her away. But Effy watched him over her shoulder, never turning once. Her lower lip wobbled.

In the end, it was Preston who had to break his stare. Every part of him protested it. It felt so utterly, viscerally wrong . But he did not know anymore what was right. He only knew that he wanted her away from harm.

He turned and followed Master Gosse out of the administrative building.

In Master Gosse’s office, Preston sank into one of the armchairs. He expected Master Gosse to sit behind his desk. Instead, he perched on the chair beside Preston’s, so that their faces were level. He was silent for a long moment. The radiator hissed and rattled.

Then, at last: “What’s wrong with you, boy?”

There was no cruelty in his voice. In fact, there was something approaching concern. Preston could not meet his gaze. He stared blankly down at the floor.

“Come on, then.” Gosse put a hand on his shoulder and gave it a gentle shake. “Speak.”

“I don’t know.” Preston’s eyes were beginning to sting for how long he had gone without blinking. “Dean Fogg should have expelled me.”

“Oh, be serious now, Héloury,” Gosse said exasperatedly. “Do you think this is the worst thing one of his students has ever done? This doesn’t even come close. Once a second-year tore up his professor’s office in revenge for a bad grade, and all he received was an admonishment.”

“He was an aristocrat, I’m sure.” Preston’s tone was too hollow to be bitter. “A Llyrian.”

At that, Gosse let out a breath. Silence fell over them again.

“Yes, well, it is what it is,” said Gosse, after several moments of contemplation.

“You can’t change your country of origin.

And perhaps it would have been better if you’d scrapped with anyone else but the son of a baron.

However, I’m very much inclined to believe that Southey deserved what he got. ”

Preston looked up. His adviser had a rather indulgent smile on his face. He waggled a brow.

“It doesn’t matter,” Preston said. “Whether or not he deserved it... nothing will happen to him. But even if I’m not expelled, this will go on my permanent record, and—”

“Don’t worry about that.” Gosse waved a hand. “I’ll keep it off your record.”

Preston simply stared at him in disbelief.

“That is,” Gosse went on, “if you agree to perform a service for me in return.”

Of course. Preston tensed in his seat. Warily, he replied, “What sort of service?”

“Helping me with my work, of course. You’re still my teaching assistant in spirit, if not in law.”

“Your work,” Preston repeated. He suddenly felt odd, almost numb. “I can’t anymore. I won’t be allowed into the classroom—”

“Oh, don’t play coy,” Gosse cut in. “You know exactly what I mean, and it isn’t grading papers or preparing lecture notes.

I mean the work of fantasy . The work of dreams .

That world of myth and magic, running underneath our conscious reality.

I have tried mightily over these past weeks, but I have not been able to access it without you.

Unbeliever or not, you are the key. I don’t have the faintest idea of why, but it seems I can’t do it without you. ”

Preston fixed his gaze on his adviser for a long, long moment. In the back of his mind, the bells were echoing. He could even see them now, brass and bold, gonging impossibly from beneath the waves.

“It can’t be me,” he said. “It shouldn’t be. Like you said, I don’t believe, so...”

“Yes, it does seem rather perverse, doesn’t it? Perhaps the world of magic has a sick sense of humor. Your mother—she’s Llyrian, isn’t she?”

“Yes,” Preston replied, his tone guarded. “What does that have to do with anything?”

Gosse smiled. “Oh, I’m not sure yet. Perhaps nothing.

Perhaps everything.” He glanced down at his watch, then back up at Preston.

“I’d say we should renew our efforts now, but you look a bit worse for wear, and I need you in tip-top shape for where we’re going.

Say you meet me here at my office tomorrow morning, bright and early? ”

Preston felt very weary. But this world held no escape hatch, no secret door in the wall. Here, he was mortal, and utterly at the whims of those who held power over him. And they kept pressing him, molding him, until he fit the shape that pleased them.

“All right,” he said. “Tomorrow.”

“Excellent.” Gosse rose, rubbing his hands together and beaming with a childlike anticipation. Preston rose as well, eager to be dismissed. But before he could make it to the door, Gosse said, “Wait just a moment.”

Preston turned, dread pooling in his stomach.

“Now, you know this isn’t my choice. If it were up to me, you’d have gotten off with a finger wag and a warning.

But Dean Fogg is at the mercy of his benefactors, and ultimately, he is a weak man.

It’s better that we appear to bend to his orders, at least for now.

We wouldn’t want him to grow suspicious and impose on our important work. ”

Preston waited without a word, his body tensed.

“Which means, unfortunately, that I must relieve you of your position as legate,” Gosse said. “Just temporarily. Just until this matter is sorted.” Gosse paused expectantly. “So, if you would turn over your pin...” He held out his hand, palm open. There was yet another small silence.

“I don’t have it with me,” Preston said. And then, before Gosse could speak, he wheeled around and shoved his way through the door.

Preston was aware of how chill the air was on this bleak gray morning, but he couldn’t feel the cold.

His coat was unbuttoned and flapped open as he walked, at a brisk pace, along the sidewalk that ran parallel to Lake Bala.

The ice had cracked open in places, and enormous chunks of it were floating like buoys, the dark water suspended and still in the crevices.

He paused there, on the pier, and looked out over the lake.

In the distance, the charcoal-colored mountains of Argant smudged the skyline.

He could see—just barely—the snow that ringed their peaks, making them appear like dark figures with beards of white.

He was astonished by just how well he could make them out, even from so far away.

Even without his glasses. In fact, the world seemed sharper now than it did with his glasses, somehow.

Without taking his eyes off the mountains of Argant, Preston reached into his pocket. His fingers closed around that piece of cold metal and he drew it out. The dragon pin stared up at him, its emerald eye glinting with an impossible canniness.

He clutched it in his fist for a moment, squeezing until the metal dug into his skin. Then he pulled back his arm and flung it, as hard as he could. It skittered against one of the ice floes and then plunged into the water, sinking irretrievably within the depths of the lake.

Preston did not return to his dorm, where Lotto would be waiting with either a keep-your-chin-up chorus of encouragement or more righteously angry rants on his behalf.

Preston couldn’t stomach either. His other option was Effy’s dorm—it was where he should go, really, to comfort her.

Southey’s words rang in his head, exacting more fury from him with each repetition.

I’ll show you what it’s like to lie with a baron’s son.

He looked down at his hands, at his bruised knuckles, which really ought to have hurt more than they did. He couldn’t trust himself. If he had done this, what else could he do?

So Preston walked on, smelling the brine that lifted from the lake.

He wasn’t walking anywhere in particular because, he realized, there was nowhere in this world he wanted to be.

Not anymore. There was only one place he belonged.

One place where the terms like Llyrian and Argantian had no meaning, where nothing changed except by his hand.

He smoked a cigarette with shaking fingers while standing at the very end of the pier. It calmed his nerves just enough that he could construct some sort of half plan.

With this new course in mind, he stamped out his cigarette and turned back toward the university.

He kept his head down as he walked, though he didn’t suppose most people would recognize him without his glasses.

The morning was misty, making even acquaintances strangers to each other when they passed on the street.

He climbed the steps of the library and pushed through the door.

Preston wasn’t sure if his suspension would ban him from the library or other campus buildings, but the security guard said nothing as he entered. Nor did the librarian, when he passed by the circulation desk and stepped into the cramped, juddery elevator.

He found the most isolated, half-lit corner that he could and slid down to the floor. He had only a few scraps of paper with him, and a nearly dry pen, but it would have to do. His eidetic memory helped as he began to scratch out words.

The Neiriad —written by Aneurin the Bard, approx. 101 BD (?). The Old King, Neirin, repels the “silver-clad” Enemy who speaks Ankou’s tongue (Argantians). His Daughter (nameless) is seduced by the Enemy into betraying the King, which causes his city to fall beneath the waves.

Les Contes de Fées d’Argant —contains a similar story, only the daughter is given a name and portrayed in a more sympathetic light. The sins of the king are instead blamed for the fall of the city of Ys—Ker-Is—Caer-Isel—

He is fitted with a hand of silver

Of silver

Of silver

Preston scarcely realized he was etching the same words over and over again until he blinked the fuzzy exhaustion from his eyes. He recalled a line, then, from an entirely different work—“The Garden in Stone,” by Laurence Ardor.

The trail of SILVER light

Confounds the errant-knight.

The maiden seeks to follow

But in her bed she wallows.

It was simple word association, at best. What did it mean? What did it prove? Preston folded the paper up and crammed it into his pocket. He was missing something essential. He just didn’t know what.