Page 49 of A Theory of Dreaming (A Study in Drowning #2)

There are versions of the story where you save her.

You climb the ivy to her tower and she follows you down again—neither of you look back.

When the waves drag at you and the storm beats down, you keep hold of her hand.

You escape the flooding city moments before it crumbles into the sea.

You kiss her and she wakes. You find a horse, a carriage, a ship, or even just a hatch in the floor.

But the versions where you lose her are the oldest stories in the world. The ones where you fall, where you drown, where you let go of her hand. Where you kiss her but she remains as cold and still as stone. There are no horses or carriages or ships to bear you away. There is no hatch in the floor.

The nighttime sky was cloudy, charcoal gray and starless. As Preston hung up the phone and exited the booth behind Effy, he felt a slow sense of dread unfold from him. He was not naive enough to believe that Effy had not heard every word her mother had spoken.

He had managed to get the doctor’s number from her, eventually.

Her mother’s voice had grown slightly slurred by the end—she was drunk, but what did it matter?

Preston had been drunk enough times to know that honesty came most easily three glasses deep.

He was also not naive enough to think that her mother had not meant everything she had said.

Just because you love her doesn’t mean you can save her.

Preston had stammered his way through the rest of the call, his tone low and unabashedly furious. If her mother noticed, she didn’t comment on his vitriol. Perhaps it had been too subtle after all. But what else should he have done? Cursed her? Slammed down the receiver in furious protest?

Maybe. He looked at Effy, standing still in the street, her lips nearly blue. He wanted her to know it wasn’t true. That he would never believe it. And yet when he tried to speak, he found the words strangled.

His vision suddenly blurred, as if from tears, though none were pricking his eyes.

He wondered briefly if he had begun to need his glasses again after all.

But it was merely the underwater world, surging up in place of the real one, marble walls rising around him, statues arranging themselves in their niches.

In that world, Effy was safe. In this one—

I’ve wrecked it , he thought. When the glass of Aneurin’s coffin had shattered under his hands, he knew that he had ruined everything.

If the police did not find him then he would still have to face Master Gosse.

If Master Gosse decided he had gone too far then he would be expelled, arrested, deported, even, torn away from Effy and thrust over the unbreachable border fence.

Yet he feared more than these mundane, mortal consequences.

The stories of the Sleepers might not have been true, but they were real, at least in the ways that mattered.

They were the magic that gave the ordinary world its protective luster.

The people needed them as much as Effy had once needed the Fairy King.

Perhaps still did. He had destroyed it all in pursuit of the truth, to sate his own desperation, to quell his own terrors.

Selfish , a voice in his head whispered. You don’t deserve her. It would be better if you stayed away.

Preston squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again. The dream world vanished. Effy reappeared before him: thin, shivering, and so very, very fragile.

He swallowed hard to clear his throat. “You’re not a burden,” he said at last, weakly.

Effy didn’t reply. Her eyes were hollow. He heard the faint sound of her teeth chattering.

“Why don’t you go inside? It’s freezing.” Preston reached out and rubbed her arms briskly up and down, at least to generate some superficial heat. “I’ll be there in just a moment.”

Still, Effy did not speak, but she went back toward the building without hesitation. Preston watched her until she vanished through the door. Then he let out a breath, which plumed white in the winter air, feeling just the smallest measure of relief.

Relief that she was safe, at least for now. And relief that he could have just a few moments for himself.

He felt ill, almost to the point of retching. Her mother’s casual cruelty had infected him like a fever. And there was a small, shameful part of him—the same small, shameful part that had shown itself the night of the Midwinter Ball—that was pure rage, that wished Effy’s mother physical harm.

Preston leaned against the building and took a cigarette out of his pocket with shaking fingers. He lit it and inhaled. At the very least, it settled his stomach.

Then he tried to force his mind to make a plan, but it was like revving a cold engine.

His thoughts would not order themselves.

They floundered and scattered. He had the doctor’s number, etched hastily in ink on his palm.

It was too late to call tonight, but tomorrow he could wake up first thing.

He had checked; Effy had more than enough pills to get through the night.

The memory of her statue kept returning to him—its time-whitened, water-stained, algae-covered face.

The evidence of the slow wearing-away of the stone.

The danger was deep enough to penetrate his dreams. The fear was so real that even that meticulously crafted fantasy world could not keep it at bay.

He had done it himself—shattered Aneurin’s coffin and, with it, the refuge of magic.

He might as well have plunged the great city of Ys into the ocean with his own hands.

Preston listened for the bells. They were duller now, as if slightly removed, but still unmistakable. And somehow, strangely, they had become a comfort.

He finished his cigarette, stubbed it out, and then went inside.

Lotto stood in the corridor, arms crossed and gaze downcast. When he heard Preston come in, he pushed himself off the wall and, with his dark eyes flashing, asked, “Are you all right, mate?”

“Fine,” Preston lied hopelessly. “Where’s Effy?”

“She came in a few minutes ago. She went to her bedroom, I think.”

Preston nodded. He felt too weary to speak, so he merely left Lotto there by the door and continued down the hall, on the way to Effy’s bedroom. But he paused as he passed the door to the kitchen.

Rhia and Maisie were still inside, huddled by the stove. Maisie had her arms around her, and Rhia’s face was half-hidden against her chest. Maisie spoke in words Preston could not make out, but the tenor of her voice was soft. Comforting. And Rhia only whimpered in reply.

They had not noticed him there, and Preston did not announce his presence. He felt as if he had intruded on an intimate moment, especially when Maisie bent down and took Rhia’s face gently into her hands. She murmured more unintelligible words of comfort, and Preston felt his throat grow thick.

This was too much for them, too. And it was his fault—he had let it get this dire. Shame heating his cheeks, he turned away from them and continued down the hall.

The door to Effy’s room was open just a crack. He stepped in, expecting to see her curled on the bed, or perhaps at her desk with Antonia Ardor’s book, but she was not there. The room was empty.

Preston was too bewildered to be immediately concerned.

Lotto had seen her come in. She was here somewhere—his body, seemingly untethered from his mind, carried him back down the hallway to the kitchen.

Rhia and Maisie were still speaking in hushed tones, and when they saw him in the threshold, both of their heads turned. Rhia’s cheeks were shiny with tears.

“Where did Effy go?” he asked. His voice was more tense than he had meant it to be.

Rhia blinked. “Isn’t she in her bedroom?”

“No.”

“She must be in the bathroom, then,” Maisie said. Yet for once, she didn’t scoff or roll her eyes.

Right. Preston turned, still feeling oddly bodiless, almost numb. He came to the bathroom door and put his hand on the knob.

It was locked.

He tried the knob several more times, then knocked urgently on the door. “Effy? Effy?”

There came no reply.

Panic remained at the edges of his mind, but it was closing in faster and faster.

There were no thoughts at all, only the shuddery adrenaline of fear.

Preston rattled the doorknob with greater ferocity, and when that did not give, he thrust himself bodily against the wood, jamming his shoulder so hard that the door seemed to shake on its hinges.

He felt no pain. Again and again he thrust himself against it, and the sound brought Lotto, Maisie, and Rhia all bustling into the corridor. They were speaking, but the words just ran over and around him, like water, nothing penetrating.

At last, the wood cracked and the door gave way.

Preston could only take in bits and pieces of the scene before him: Effy’s hair spilling out across the tiles. Her fingers still clenching weakly at the empty pill bottle. Her face drained of all color, her eyes closed, lashes not even fluttering.

Yet he could not have mistaken her as sleeping—it was nothing so peaceful as that.

He dropped to his knees. He shouted for Rhia as he gathered Effy’s cold body into his arms. He couldn’t even hear himself, and he was only vaguely aware of Rhia’s own cry of horror as she came into the room.

Lotto was stammering something out, too, wordless sounds that again couldn’t pierce Preston’s mind, but had the same tenor of horror and panic.

It was Maisie who kept herself composed enough to race for the phone.