Page 54 of A Theory of Dreaming (A Study in Drowning #2)

I have been long at work on the task at hand; longer still have I pondered the true purpose of it.

We are not an inordinately unhappy nation, at least that I can see, though the limits of my position perhaps prevent me from perceiving the grueling indignities and daily turmoils of, say, a peasant in his sinking hovel.

They who know as much of the lives of kings and heroes as a flea knows of the Saints’ liturgies—perplexingly I am told that it is them who I write for, they who cannot even read.

I think I have been misled in this matter.

Those who style themselves kings are the ones who require reassurance of a king’s inviolability, of his immortality.

The aristocrats in their wigs, the princes in their palaces—all the virtues and blessings of mortal life they have attained, and yet still they are so afraid.

I write to reassure them of their own immortality. They are all little men, in truth, frightened of death and more so of insignificance, no different from the peasants they scorn. They are afraid to accept that a king can die. They are afraid to accept that, in the end, all kings must.

“Héloury.”

Preston had barely taken a step out of the chamber before Master Gosse approached him. Some color had returned to his adviser’s cheeks—aided, he was sure, by the cigarette he was now smoking heartily—and his gaze was smug. Proud.

“Master Gosse,” Preston said. His voice was creaky with exhaustion. “I...”

“You don’t have to thank me,” he said, and waved a hand. “This is a matter of principle. Expulsion should never have been on the table.” He rolled his eyes and took a long drag from his cigarette. The smell of smoke curled into Preston’s nose and made his empty stomach churn.

“Well—” Preston began uneasily.

“You don’t have to thank me,” Gosse interrupted, tone still mild. “However, you do have something that belongs to me, and I would appreciate if you returned it.”

Preston froze.

“Come on, then, Héloury. You can’t have believed I wouldn’t notice.”

Skin prickling, Preston dipped a hand into his pocket. His fingers closed around the museum key.

“Give it here,” Gosse said. “You know, I never took you for a pilferer. It was rather bold of you to swipe it straight from my desk. Bolder still to use it.”

His mouth went dry. “Somervell told you.”

“Of course. Since there was no evidence of a break-in, he knew that whoever entered the museum must have had a key.”

Preston’s fingers curled, the metal digging into his palm. “And what did you tell him?”

Gosse smiled beatifically. “I didn’t sell you out. Don’t worry.”

“But—”

“And the news won’t reach the papers,” Gosse went on.

“Somervell will make sure of that. Think for a moment. The public would be horrified and outraged that their precious Sleepers were violated. Somervell would be removed from his post at once. The Ministry of Culture might consider having him killed.” Gosse chuckled darkly.

“No, what you did will remain a secret between the two of us.”

“What about what I found?” Preston asked, lowering his voice. “You saw it, too. Aneurin... unmasked.”

Gosse’s expression became inscrutable. A shadow passed over his face briefly, and the light in his smoked-glass eyes flickered.

“Yes,” he replied at last. “But seeing is one thing, believing another. Are you a believer now, Héloury?”

“I believe that we’ve been told lies all our lives,” he said. “About the supremacy of Llyr and its supposed king. About the bard that wrote songs in his name. And you’ve known all along, haven’t you? That the stories aren’t true?”

“I’m the most celebrated professor of literature in the country,” Gosse said immodestly. “Of course I’m privy to what lurks beneath the lies that our politicians tell to maintain peace and unity.”

“No,” Preston said. “Not peace. They’re justifications for war.”

“Well, in some instances, yes,” said Gosse.

“When the government wants its citizens to rally behind the cause, then it behooves them to paint a certain picture of the island’s history.

A certain picture of its enemy. It can’t come as such a terrible shock to you, really.

The Neiriad is fragmentary. Later scholars filled in the blanks.

It was the third Sleeper, Tristram Marlais, who made some of the very first additions. ”

“And redactions.” Preston’s tone was cold. “The real story of the king’s daughter, the one that lives on in local myths and legends—in Argantian myths and legends—doesn’t make Neirin look very noble and saintly.”

“That sounds like a good topic for a paper,” Gosse said with a thin smile.

“I’m not writing a fucking paper.” The bright lights of the corridor felt like needles jabbed in his eyes. Preston squeezed them shut for a moment of reprieve. “Just tell me the truth. Now. Tell me everything.”

Gosse’s brow raised. “I thought you were first and foremost a scholar.”

Preston didn’t know what he was anymore.

“I’ll tell you what,” Gosse went on. “You give me what I want, and I’ll give you what you’re asking for. An even trade. Doesn’t that seem fair?”

Opening his eyes, Preston drew in a breath. His fingers were still clenched around the key in his pocket. As Gosse watched him intently, he removed his hand, holding the key out flat on his palm.

“Good boy,” Gosse said. “But you know that’s not all I need from you.”

The bells rang richly and sonorously in the back of Preston’s mind. “I know.”

“So let’s go, then.” Gosse snatched the key from him and pocketed it. “No time like the present and all that.”

“Wait.” Preston lifted his head and at last met Master Gosse’s stare without flinching. “I’ll join you at the exhibit. There’s something I have to do first.”

The snow had begun to fall in rushed flurries, carpeting the cobblestones with frost that was too wet to stick and instead melted into a dangerous shine. Floes of ice groaned and cracked on the surface of Lake Bala. And in the distance, the artificial thunder of warplanes and rolling tanks rumbled.

Preston closed his ears to it all and tried not to slip as he ascended the steps to the hospital. They recognized him at the door and let him through, the nurses at their station casting him pitying glances. He shook out his damp hair and turned down the corridor to Effy’s room.

She lay in her bed in that same perfect, suspended stillness. Her eyes were closed, her breathing slow and labored. What little color had remained in her cheeks seemed to have vanished entirely.

Angharad had not moved from her post. She sat at Effy’s bedside, bent over a book in her lap. When Preston entered, she snapped it shut and looked up at him.

“It’s my book,” Angharad said, flushing a little. “I know it seems a bit self-important, but I thought it might help. If she could somehow hear me reading it aloud...”

Preston lowered himself into the chair on the other side of Effy’s bed. “‘I had not known that the seam of the world was not between the living and the dead, but rather between the real and the unknown.’”

Angharad drew in a breath of alarm. “What did you say?”

“Your words,” Preston replied. “From your diary. I understand now. This world isn’t safe. No one can survive reality. We have to find our solace in dreams.”

The corners of Angharad’s mouth turned down and her chin quivered as she swallowed. For a long moment she did not speak, and when she did answer at last, her voice was thick with emotion.

“If only it were possible,” she said, “to shelter in dreams forever. But we have to live.”

“I know,” said Preston. “I understand that now, too.”

The machines connected to Effy’s body beeped their relentlessly steady rhythm. She was as white as marble and, when Preston dared to brush his thumb against her hand, she felt just as cold.

His heart seemed to be sinking slowly down into his stomach. He looked up at Angharad and said, “Do you mind if I have a minute alone?”

“Of course,” she said softly, and rose to her feet. “I’ll wait just outside.”

When Angharad was gone, Preston remained, for several moments, completely still. He listened to the rhythmic pulsing of the machines. He felt Effy’s chilled skin under his palm. Then he scooted his chair closer, until he was near enough to the bed that he could lower his head onto the sheets.

“It’s hard,” he whispered, voice muffled by the fabric. “I know it is. I know. It’s hard holding on. But it’s harder letting go.”

There was no response, of course, from Effy’s unmoving body. Preston curled his fingers around her cold hand. And then, at last, he let his heavy eyelids slide shut.

He tasted the salt and smoke of the air before he even opened his eyes. Briny condensation gathered in freezing droplets on his skin. His knees smarted against the marble floor.

Without any of his earthly unsteadiness, Preston rose.

The walls of the palace erected themselves around him, as if he were building them with his gaze alone.

There were the statues that he recognized: the young man in academic garb, the mermaid perched on her rock, the ancient king slumped on his throne, the knight in armor, and the maiden with seaweed in her hair.

The chamber was just as he recalled it, just as he had always dreamed it.

Except for one thing. Several yards ahead, gleaming in the impossible light that beamed through the windows, was a glass coffin.

His legs suddenly became shaky as he approached it. His heart pounded in his ears, loud enough, for once, to drown out the incessant sound of the bells. He knew what he would find, but the knowledge did not lessen the pain.