Page 43 of A Theory of Dreaming (A Study in Drowning #2)

A look of pleasure and pride touched Gosse’s eyes. “Just so, Héloury. Just so. It’s almost as though Aneurin crafted his story for the precise purpose of demonizing the enemy.”

“But...” Preston glanced over the statue of the king, his fearful gaze and defensive pose. “It’s the truth. The kingdoms have been at war for centuries.”

And yet—how had the story, so similar in its contours, found its way into a book of Argantian fairy tales? Frustration began to simmer within him. He wished Gosse would just speak plainly.

But he would not get the truth from his adviser so easily.

And their time was running out. As Preston’s anger grew and reached its pitch, he could no longer support the architecture of his dream.

This was meant to be a world without such confounding emotions, such displeasing sentiments.

The walls were not built to withstand such rage.

When Preston opened his eyes, he saw the gloaming darkness of Master Gosse’s office, the burnished wood and brown leather, the leather-bound books lining the walls.

But when he blinked, the image of Effy’s statue flashed through his mind—its corroded marble, its shuttered face.

Preston swallowed hard. He had been cast out before he could ask the most important question of all.

How can I save her?

Master Gosse was still slumped over, eyes shut and taking labored, inconstant breaths. He had kept him there—or at least, his subconscious mind had kept him there, in the dream world, while Preston did what needed to be done.

Preston rose and, with his heart pounding in his ears, began to rifle through the papers on Gosse’s desk.

When he could not find what he was looking for there, he opened each drawer, checking them thoroughly.

At last, in the very bottom drawer, he found what he was seeking.

It glinted at him through the dark. Before Master Gosse could wake, he grasped it and shoved it into his pocket.

Preston bid Master Gosse a hasty farewell, promising vaguely to return when he was needed again, and then rushed through the cold to Effy’s dorm.

His boots slid on the ice-slicked pavement, but he arrived fully intact, if short of breath.

He rapped loudly on the door, and to his dismay, it was Rhia who opened it.

“Oh,” she said, upon seeing his face. “It’s you.”

“Where’s Effy?” Preston asked.

“She’s in her bedroom,” Rhia said. But she didn’t move from the threshold. “She’s been there for weeks. I don’t think she’s been going to class. She’s barely even been speaking to me. Why haven’t you done anything about it? She’s not well. Can’t you help her?”

Preston felt his chest collapsing in on itself.

Something vital inside him, crumbling. He had known it—at least in some manner—for a long time.

That Effy wasn’t well. But he hadn’t wanted to believe it.

All his life he had believed himself loyal to the truth.

Yet now here he was, rejecting what he could not bear, armoring himself in imagination and lies.

And Effy was the one to suffer for it.

“Let me in,” Preston said. “I’m going to help her, Rhia. I promise.”

Rhia let out a long, low breath, her tiny frame still blocking the door. “I don’t know what she needs. But you can’t leave her alone.”

“I would never do that.”

Finally, and with another sigh, Rhia shifted to let him through. She stood there in the corridor, her stare lingering on him as Preston strode quickly to Effy’s bedroom. Not bothering to knock, he pushed open the door.

Effy was lying curled on her side in bed. Her hair, long and matted once more, streamed out across the pillows. The covers were drawn up to her chin. The only light in the room was the lamp on her bedside table, and it flickered weakly, the bulb nearly dead.

Panic tightened Preston’s throat. But when he approached her, he realized she was not sleeping. Her eyes were open, though she stared straight ahead, gaze unfixed.

“Effy,” he said—soft, strangled. “I’m here now.”

There was no response at all, not even a shift in her muddled gaze.

Preston hesitantly lowered himself onto the edge of the bed. “Can you sit up?”

Nothing.

Gently, he laid a hand against her cheek. It was warm, as if with a fever, though her skin was blanched and colorless. If only she were sick , he thought bitterly. There was medicine for a fever. A simple, facile cure.

That thought made another rise in his mind.

Preston glanced around the room until his gaze landed on the glass bottles of pills, lined up on her dresser.

The pink tablets that kept the Fairy King and his unreal world at bay.

The white tablets that smothered all her wicked thoughts and lulled her to sleep.

Both of the bottles were no more than a quarter full.

If even that can’t save her...

Preston did not allow the sentence to go on. Instead, he brushed a strand of golden hair from Effy’s face, and said lowly, “Won’t you speak to me? Please?”

At that, Effy finally shifted, just slightly, to meet his gaze. Her eyes were glazed and terrifyingly empty.

“I don’t know what to say,” she mumbled.

“Just tell me what I can do. How I can help.”

She shook her head, gaze lowering again. “You can’t. You should just go.”

“Come on, Effy,” Preston said. His voice was rising in octaves, strained with desperation. “I’m not leaving.”

“I thought I could do it.” A small, choked breath. “I thought I was strong enough to survive all of this. Anyone else could. There’s just something wrong with me. Something that can’t be fixed.”

“There’s nothing wrong with you.” Preston’s fingers curled into his palm. “And you are strong. You’re stronger than anyone I know. It’s not a fault, to be in pain. It’s braver to hurt than to feel nothing at all.”

“No,” she whispered. “Don’t try to make it into something noble... I’m a burden to you. I always have been.”

Preston didn’t know what to say. How to make her believe it was not true. Words, always his most faithful allies, were insufficient now. He leaned over and, very tenderly, folded her into his arms.

“I chose this,” he murmured, his lips brushing the soft hollow of her cheek. “And I would choose it again, every time. You can’t take that away from me.”

Her chest swelled with a deep, tremulous breath, and for a moment Preston thought she was going to cry. But no tears fell from her eyes. There was only the bleak swelling of silence, blanketing the room like a heavy flurry of snow.

Preston managed to cajole Effy to her feet, and then to the bathroom. He filled the tub and she sat, hunched and naked within it, the notches of her spine pressing up through her skin. He hadn’t noticed the frightening extent of her weight loss until now.

He washed her, and brushed the tangles from her long hair.

Preston would have carried her, had he been able, but as it was he managed to bundle her up in her robe and help her walk on unsteady legs back to the bedroom.

He was reluctant to let her crawl into bed again.

Instead, he maneuvered her toward her desk chair and sat her down in it.

Her gaze had grown distant and bleary again, fixed on nothing.

He was desperate to keep her with him, to get her engaged in something . He cast his eyes around the room. And then he saw Antonia Ardor’s book peeking out from under one of the pillows on her bed. Preston retrieved it and opened it to the page she had marked.

“‘Nothing is ever lost, only changed, and grief is no more than the knowledge that a wilted flower cannot be made again to bloom,’” Preston recited. “You’ve been reading this?”

Effy nodded.

His heart skipped a little bit as he read on. “‘Time even warps the panes of hothouse-glass, till they may be shattered with a wanting breath.’ She writes beautifully. Antonia.”

Again Effy nodded. There was a small silence, and then she said, in no more than a whisper, “There are bits of ‘The Garden in Stone’ where she made her own edits and additions. Like here...” She reached onto her desk for the copy of Ardor’s book, thumbed through it, and then read aloud: “‘The trail of silver light / confounds the errant-knight / the maiden seeks to follow / but in her bed she wallows.’”

Recognition lit up in his mind, sparking like a live wire. “That line?” Preston asked. “You’re sure she wrote it?”

“I think so.”

“May I look?”

Effy passed him the book. His eyes scanned the page, and indeed, the word silver was capitalized and bolded.

His memory had not failed him there. And if what Effy said was true, that this was Antonia’s addition.

.. Preston knew that he was coming upon that essential knowledge, but he was not quite there yet.

He was overturning stones and soon he would find what he was looking for—

There was a knock on the door.