Page 60 of A Theory of Dreaming (A Study in Drowning #2)

“You’re not fool enough to think that people will stop believing entirely—despite your best efforts,” Gosse said. “Just because some building has been wrecked... myths and stories can’t be broken down like stone. Would that it were so simple.”

“Of course not,” Preston said. “‘A king can reign a thousand years from a castle built on clouds.’ That’s what faith is—belief in what can’t be felt or seen.

But it’s enough to give their faith a little shake.

Enough to make some of them start to doubt.

The real magic was never the men themselves. It was their stories.”

“You’ll be taking away the only thing that keeps many people alive.

What gets them through the day. All those Southerners in their sad, fish-stinking little hovels, reeling in nearly empty nets, praying to their saints at night.

.. they need Aneurin and Myrddin more than a bunch of snot-nosed university students do. ”

“Then they’ll have to find something else to believe in,” Preston replied, lifting one shoulder in a shrug. “Something that doesn’t justify warplanes and border walls.”

“Ah, so this is clever sabotage from an Argantian infiltrator.”

Preston gave him a disdainful look. “That’s beneath you, Gosse.”

Gosse’s gaze in response was inscrutable. He was silent for a long moment, staring into Preston’s eyes.

“Is this truly what you want?” he asked at last. “You’re Llyrian, too. I haven’t forgotten that. What would your mother think?”

“I’ll have to ask her,” said Preston, “when the peace treaty is signed and I can cross the border freely.”

To Preston’s surprise, Gosse chortled at that. “Very well. It seems you’re outwitting me at every turn.”

“Isn’t that the dream of every teacher? For their students to someday surpass them?”

“I think they say that about fathers and sons,” Gosse replied. “Goodbye, Héloury.”

And then Gosse turned to go. Preston watched as he walked down the boardwalk, his figure shrinking into the distance. But, at that moment, a bit of light pierced through the covering of clouds, surprisingly bright with the nearness of sunset. It outlined Gosse’s retreating back in gold.

Preston remained on the pier as the day died into twilight.

The streetlamps flickered on with a low hum and glow.

Seabirds circled the remains of the Sleeper Museum, occasionally landing on an outstretched piece of ruined scaffolding and then taking off again, dipping and wheeling through the air.

He was reminded of Saltney, of Hiraeth Manor, of the cliffs that looked down into the roiling, treacherous waters below.

When Preston opened his eyes again, they were stinging. He pushed up his glasses and wiped at the tears gathering along his lash line. It had become so easy for him to cry now.

He was distracted, trying to peer through the surface of the water, to see if he could perhaps glimpse Neirin’s palace—so distracted that he didn’t hear the footsteps approaching. He only turned around when he felt a tap on his shoulder.

Effy stood there before him, as impossible as a mirage on the misty horizon.

She wore a powder-blue wool coat and her hair was combed and tied back with a white ribbon.

For a moment Preston wondered if he had fallen into his illusory slumber once again; she was his pipe dream, his castle in the air.

But then he reached out and touched her and she was solid and real.

“Effy,” he breathed. “What are you doing here?”

“Dr. Quinbern discharged me this afternoon,” she said. “I wanted to surprise you.”

There was color in her cheeks, a rosy pink flush from the cold. Her eyes gleamed like green fire. Preston stepped closer, close enough to take both of her hands in his.

“How did you know where to find me?” he asked.

“I thought you would want to see it.” She glanced out over the water, toward the distant ruins where the seabirds were still alighting. “I suppose I wanted to see it, too.”

“It’s all gone.” Preston’s throat grew tight. “The Sleepers, their magic—if you believe in such a thing... it’s been destroyed.”

Effy was silent for a moment, her gaze still fixed on the crumbled building.

“There’s a term in Llyrian,” she said. “I don’t know if you’ve heard it before.

In the Southern tongue it’s tylwyth ynys .

Fairy isle. It means an illusion that you see when you look out into the sea on a misty morning, when the sun parts the clouds in exactly the right way.

Sometimes there appears to be an island on the horizon, rising up amid the waves.

But it’s just a trick of the light. Or so the naturalists say.

Do you have a word for that, in Argant?”

“Fairy isle,” Preston echoed. “No. I don’t think so. But there is another story. It’s about a sunken city that might one day rise again. I’ll tell it to you sometime, if you’d like.”

“I would like that.” Effy averted her gaze from the lake at last, and gazed up at him through her lashes. “But the point is that the fairy isle isn’t real—so nothing worldly can destroy it. It’s a fantasy, which means it always lives on. It’s like a memory that you never lose.”

“If only it were always so easy,” Preston said, “to tell fantasy from reality.”

A smile quivered at the corner of Effy’s lips. “Well, yes, that’s the problem, isn’t it? People lingering too long in their dreams.”

She remembered nothing of the underwater palace, or so she said.

Perhaps none of it had been real to her; perhaps that version of Effy had existed only in Preston’s mind.

He had dreamed her into his world so that he could save her.

And, in the end, perhaps it was better that she would never know.

It would make the dream that much easier for him to leave behind.

Preston tightened his grip on Effy’s fingers, feeling a nervous flutter in his stomach. “Can I ask you something?”

“Yes.” She frowned. “Of course. What is it? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” Preston said, and almost laughed as the nervousness shifted into a shuddery sort of adrenaline. “Don’t look like that. It’s just...”

He kept hold of Effy’s fingers with one hand as he dropped to his knees.

With the other hand, he drew the small box from his pocket.

He fumbled for a moment before managing to open the clasp.

And there, nestled in the bed of velvet and glittering in the rays of dying sunlight, was his mother’s ring.

“Oh,” Effy choked out. “ Oh —”

“Effy,” he said softly. “Will you marry me?”

She had grown tense; he felt her fingers clench and stiffen in his grasp. There was a shimmery wetness in her eyes.

“Is this... is this really what you want?” she asked in a whisper. “You know that I’m not—I can’t even wear that.” The sudden pitch of despair in her voice made Preston’s heart sink.

“It’s what I want, Effy,” he said. “More than anything. And look—” He let go of her hand for a moment to reach into his other pocket, for the second box, which he had just purchased that day. “—you can .”

Inside was that simple chain of silver, and when he held out both boxes together, he hoped Effy would understand. Her gaze ran over them questioningly for a moment, a swallow ticking in her throat.

Then her eyes shifted to meet his, that green-fire shade from the kingdom of his fantasy. He had dreamed her there because he could not live without her. Not in this world or in any other.

At last, slowly— slowly —she nodded.

“Yes,” she said, with a tremulous breath. “Yes. I’ll marry you.”

Preston rose to his feet and caught her up in his arms. He kissed her as the wind picked up and threaded salt water through her hair.

He kissed her as the gulls and cormorants called to each other and as the sea sang in both their veins, the shared memory of their very first meeting atop those cliffs, their very first kiss, in that drowning house on the edge of the world.

But Preston did not hear the bells, as he had at Hiraeth. He only heard the determined pulsing of his own heart, and with each beat he thought, I love you. I love you. I love you.