Page 47 of A Theory of Dreaming (A Study in Drowning #2)

Lotto grabbed him by the elbow and hauled him back toward the dimly lit corridor, Preston stumbling as he tried to break into a run.

The alarms were loud enough to drown out the sound of bells, and his heartbeat was even louder, the panicked pulse of blood in his ears.

He struggled to keep up with Lotto—who, for all of his drinking and smoking, could not shed the athleticism of his juvenile years on the rugby field—but they managed to reach the side door before even glimpsing a security guard.

Lotto shoved the door open and they burst out, gasping for breath, onto the sidewalk and into the frigid night air.

“Oh, shit,” Lotto panted. He bent over, resting his hands on his knees, shoulders rising and falling with great strain. “Do you think they saw us?”

“No,” Preston choked out. Shot through with adrenaline, he could barely feel the cold. “We’re—we’re safe.”

Until, of course, the security guards discovered the shattered coffin and dusted Aneurin’s death mask for fingerprints.

But his mind did not even allow him to think beyond that.

He was still focused on what he had seen: nothing behind the mask, no corpse.

Whatever had been stuffed under his robes to give the appearance of a slumbering body, Preston did not know.

He only knew that Aneurin the Bard was—in the truest sense of the word—gone.

He and Lotto walked back in silence, both of them still breathing hard. It was not until they reached the entrance to Effy’s dorm that Lotto stopped suddenly and turned to face him.

“You saw it, didn’t you?” Lotto asked. He braced one hand on Preston’s shoulder and squeezed. “You saw... there was nothing there.”

Preston nodded, his throat tight.

“It wasn’t a hallucination. It wasn’t a dream.”

Of that, Preston was slightly less sure. The barrier between this world and the one beneath the water had broken, like a seawall against the ceaseless tumult of waves. But if Lotto had seen it, too, then it had to be real. Could two people have the same hallucination?

“So what does it mean?” Lotto pressed. “Is it all a lie? Every Sleeper just a lump of clothes in an easily breakable coffin? Most of them seemed pretty convincingly, well, corpse-like.”

“I don’t know.” Preston inhaled. Again, he felt like he was close, but still missing something essential. There was one more piece to this puzzle. Yet now, he was at a loss for where to turn.

“Fuck,” Lotto said, shaking his head. “Well, I suppose we might as well go inside. It’s miserable out.”

But Preston hesitated. He was still short of breath and—more alarmingly—he felt almost close to tears. His mind was racing, his thoughts scattered, and he was certain his distress would show on his face. He looked down at his own shaking fingers.

He couldn’t return to Effy this way. The last thing she needed was to see him like this—frantic, fevered, halfway to despair. She was already burdened enough.

“Wait,” Preston said, the word barely choked out. “Just—wait a moment.”

Lotto paused. He looked Preston steadily in the eye.

And, for all his flaws, it could not be said that Lancelot Grey did not sometimes know exactly what to do.

Because he didn’t speak; he simply reached out and laid a hand on Preston’s shoulder.

He squeezed it, and they both stood there in silence, in the star-pricked darkness, in the swirling flurries of snow.

Lotto’s touch was solid and warm. Preston breathed in deeply.

“All right,” he said at last, straightening up to his full height. “Let’s go.”

Lotto hesitated a moment more, and then his hand dropped from Preston’s shoulder.

Snowflakes had lilted gently into his dark hair, and his gaze was steady, almost serene.

It was precisely what Preston needed it to be.

He wished he were not so far gone to voice his gratitude.

But for all that he loved literature, loved language, words seemed to be failing him as of late.

And so he turned toward the dormitory without speaking.

Together, they entered the building and climbed the stairs to Effy and Rhia’s second-floor apartment. It would have been wise to take a key, but as it was, Preston had to knock. His rapping against the wood was weak. He felt very, very tired.

It was Maisie who answered the door, her mouth set in the same humorless line. Preston had never seen her smile. But now, there was something slightly panicked in her gaze, just a flare of worry in her blue-gray eyes.

“What is it?” Preston asked. “What’s wrong?”

Before Maisie could reply, Preston heard it. Muffled but unmistakable. Effy’s low, soft weeping.

Unconcerned with rudeness, Preston pushed past Maisie and hurried down the hall.

Effy was still in the kitchen with Rhia, in the same spot where he’d left her, Rhia still holding her hand.

Only she was curled up in her seat, knees against her chest and chin wedged in the crevice between them, tears streaming down her cheeks.

“It’s all right,” Rhia was saying. “Really, it’s not the end of the world.”

When Effy saw him there in the doorway, she looked up. Her cheeks were flushed, and her green eyes were made even brighter by the glaze of tears. There was none of the frightening hollowness in them that he had witnessed earlier. Instead they were alert, and fearful.

Preston approached her, his own fear rising in him. “Effy, what’s wrong?”

“I ran out.” More tears fell in shiny rivulets. “Of my medication, my sleeping pills. Or—I’ve almost run out. I’m so stupid. I only just realized.”

“Oh.” Preston blinked. “Well, that’s not anything to worry about. Surely you can get more—”

With a shocking suddenness, Effy burst from her seat, almost exploding into a standing position. Rhia jerked backward in surprise.

“I can’t ,” she cried. “I don’t know how. My grandfather always got the prescription for me. From my doctor in Draefen. I don’t have a doctor here, in Caer-Isel. I can’t sleep without them. I don’t know what to do.”

She began to weep heavily then—but weeping felt like an insufficient word.

She was inhaling in strained, gasping breaths, choking out the sobs, her whole body shuddering with the exertion.

Quickly, her breathing became even more labored, to the point where Preston feared she was not managing to get enough air in at all.

And, for a moment, he was frozen where he stood. His mind could not think; even the panic passed through him, like air through a clutch of dead leaves. He did not know what to do.

All he could do was this: he approached Effy and took her into his arms. It was unexpectedly difficult; her whole body was tense and taut with her despair.

It was like holding a statue of marble. She wept inconsolably, burying her face against his shoulder, until her tears soaked his shirt.

Time dragged past, every second an agony. And then finally—finally—she went limp.

Preston slid to the floor, still holding Effy against him. Her tears began to subside to whimpers. He held her there, without words, one hand braced around the back of her head and the other around her waist.

Lotto had come to stand in the doorway. He stared in silence, his face grown pale.

Maisie’s expression was remarkably solemn, and she did not speak, either, though there was a slight tremor in her chin.

And Rhia—ever cheerful, ever easygoing Rhia—watched from her chair without words, looking as if she might come to weeping, too.