Page 40 of A Theory of Dreaming
The library. It had not become a safe place to her, despite her best efforts these past few weeks, but Effy let her determination cleave through her fear. She clambered up the steps, her cheeks pink and stinging from the cold, crammed herself into the elevator, and rose into the stacks. They were as they had always been: nearly as dark as a dungeon, musty, and silent.
Effy made her way to theAsection, stepping through the weak, rheumy pools of lamplight. There, she ran her finger across the spines of the books, organized by the authors’ surnames—Aldrich, Amity, Appleton, Ardor. There were six titles under the surnameArdor.
She had not consulted the librarian before heading into the stacks, so this had been a gamble, but astonishingly, it seemed to have paid off. The very first book was a slim paperback, its maroon cover laminated, like a reading primer. Effy rubbed off the dust with the sleeve of her sweater.
Letters & Annals, read the title,by Antonia Ardor.
Judging by the dust and by the sealed plastic cover, this was a book that had remained untouched for a very, very long time. The library stamp on the title page indicated that it had been brought into the university’s collection nineteen years ago. Since then, Effy wondered, had anyone checked it out? The pages were stiff and unwrinkled, and they stuck together when she tried to flip through them. The spine gave an audible and oddly satisfyingcrack.
The 22nd day of Summer, 79 AD
Dear Diary,
I am thirteen today. A number of ill portent; I know, yet in spite of this, I am hopeful. Perhaps foolishly so. Clementina says that Grandfather’s death has marked our family for further doom, and I came back from our tea crying, but Miss Maud told me that Clementina speaks in superstitions overheard from her parents, and has no wisdom herself. Then Miss Maud made me scones with clotted cream, though I felt too ill to eat.
But that was yesterday, when I was twelve. I am thirteen now and—Mother says—nearly a woman grown. I don’t know if this is true, or what it means, if so. I still have my dolls and my velvet rabbit with buttons for eyes. I still have my book of fairy tales, which is falling apart for how much I have read it. I do so like the story of Ys. The city that fell. Father says I should read theNeiriad(?) if I want the full tale, but when I tried to read the dusty old copy from his library, it made me tired. There are no mermaids in theNeiriad.
For all this talk of being a woman now, Father still tucked me into bed last night. Perhaps it was the last time? I do like it when he reads to me, and there is a quote from theNeiriadthat has been stuck in my mind. “A king can reign a thousand years from a castle built on clouds.” If only girlhood were such a kingdom. Nothing would ever change.
Until next time, Diary
—A.A.
Fourteen
Such a blood-frenzy was the battlefield that the king—in agitation—near turned his blade inside himself.
—from theNeiriad, by Aneurin the Bard, est. 202 BD
Once he had seen Effy off to class, Preston—against his better judgment—returned to the newsstand. Snow had begun to fall, very light and cottony, each flake as white but as insubstantial as a cloud. It was not quite cold enough to stick, but it made the cobblestones damp and slick and dangerous. He walked more slowly than he would have liked, paid the man at the newsstand for a copy of theCaer-Isel Post, then stood beneath the awning to read.
Lord Benedict Byron Southey, 8th Baron of Margetson, has been caught pressuring Dean Fogg to institute conservative reforms at the university, in exchange for a generous endowment. One of these proposed reforms is a university-wide pledge of loyalty, which all students will be instructed to sign,demonstrating their unflinching fealty to Llyr in the face of its ongoing war with Argant.
The article did not say how the paper had come to this conclusion, only that it had been sourced from an “anonymous tip.” It also said that both Dean Fogg and the Baron Margetson had refused comment. No surprise there, Preston thought. And he wished he could feel pleased, even perversely so, that they had been caught out like this. But he only felt a jostling nausea in his belly.
It was not helped by the fact that he would have to face Southey himself very soon. He glanced at the clock above the bank. Twenty minutes until class began. He hoped—prayed, even, to saints he didn’t believe in—that Gosse would show up this time. That he would be a shield, however flimsy, between him and Southey and the other students who were just as eager to smear him, to paint him as a betrayer and an outcast and a saboteur.
A university-wide pledge of loyalty.Preston was the only Argantian student at the university. There was no way to deny this targeted him and him alone.
Preston crumpled up the newspaper until it was small enough to fit into the rubbish bin. Then, his fingers shaking, he pulled out a cigarette and lit it.
As he smoked, and as the snow fell, he saw around him not the gray, banal streets of Caer-Isel but the palace with its great vaulted ceilings, rising up around him. He smelled its sharp salt air. He felt his father’s hand on his shoulder, warm, steady, as real as thesensation of the cold and the wind that made the dead leaves clutch and rattle. He heard the bells. It had been three days since he had visited the underwater world, and it felt both the length of a lifetime and as if no time had passed at all.
You’ll be back.
The cigarette burned to its blackened end.
When Preston arrived in the classroom, Master Gosse was there. Relief filled him, very briefly, and then dissipated again, when he saw his adviser’s dour face. He certainly had not forgotten their experience at the museum. And it seemed he certainly still believed that his failure was Preston’s fault.
“Hello there, young unbeliever,” he said acridly. “Will you finish writing today’s assignment on the board?”
Preston nodded wordlessly and picked up the chalk. He was grateful for something to do rather than standing in awkward silence.Lines 1124–1367,he wrote.Neirin’s first skirmish with—
“Héloury.”
Preston’s head snapped up. “Yes?”
“Tell me something, will you?” Master Gosse stepped closer to him. Uncomfortably close, really. “Is it only darkness that you see when we perform the ritual?”
