Chapter 5: Nightmare
FALL TERM - DAY 9
I've been able to go this long without mentioning Lady Ianthe Hart, but I should have known it was only a matter of time before she'd worm her way back into my life. She appeared in my dreams last night and made me think for a moment that I'd never left the Stag's Court. We were in her parlor. A nervous minstrel was strumming something delicate on the harpsichord. The poor man was sweating already. That didn't bode well for him this early in the evening.
But Ianthe hardly noticed. Her head was on my lap. Her long white hair poured down across my knee. It was long enough it nearly fell to the glassy black marble floor.
It was a dream, yes, but this was really her. She was there, dreamwalking. I know this because of the feeling. The air is always heavier than normal dreams. There's a strange static. I can tell the dream is manufactured. I hate it when she's in my head.
The other thing - I can never quite remember what I've said or haven't said. What I did, or didn't do.
We were at the Stag's Court because we could only be at the Stag's Court - Ianthe can only make me dream of places she has already been.
She held a goblet of blood loosely in one hand. A stain darkened her lips.
"Where did you go, love?" Her voice echoed inside of my head, melodic as a songbird. "Won't you tell me?" Words don't always make sense in a dream. They can be hard to remember, especially my own. I don't know if I answered her.
That's the part that's dangerous. This was the way she'd managed to ferret out what few secrets I'd had over the years. It was its own terror to think there was nothing about me she couldn't already know.
"I thought for a moment we might have had something real. Apparently, I'd thought wrong..." I felt her hand graze my cheek - it should have been undead cold but this was a dream. Her hand was neither warm nor cold. It was only the memory of touch.
Then, she dabbed her lips clean on my shirt collar. I was speaking again, though what I said came out garbled. She didn't want me to remember this part. It was one of the few tricks she could manage - minor memory manipulation.