“Because now we can have a dreamer any time we like, can’t we?” Zoë grinned with delight. She sat on the floor, leaning against the bed next to Valerie’s, running her hands over her hair. The top part was an electric teal blue. The rest was still the yellow pattern from the walls of Beaumont. “That could make such a difference! Now we can go exploring during the middle of the day, instead of having to wait for people to sleep. Though it still would not have helped us get out of Transylvania.”
Rachel nodded. “We should zap one of us with Bedazzlement. Then, Zoë steps into that person’s dream and sees if she can wake that person up in dreamland.”
“Sweet as!” Zoë grinned. “Absolutely sure I can.”
Valerie sat cross-legged on her bed, with Payback on one side and Lucky on the other. Siggy pulled up a chair and sat beside her.
Valerie said, “Right! And we should test to see if you can put the dreaming person in a bag, like the princess’s purse, and take them with us. That would make traveling much easier. We’d never again be stuck, like we were at the castle!”
“Great idea!” Siggy said. “I volunteer to be knocked out and bedazzled, so long as Valerie is there to make sure that no girls take advantage of me in any way she objects to.”
“What if she doesn’t object?” purred Salome, looking at her long nails, which were currently painted like strawberries, green at the base and then red with white spots.
Siggy shrugged. “Then, why would I?”
Valerie and Salome both giggled. Joy looked on, her expression torn between jealousy and eagerness. Perhaps she was hoping she would be invited to join in on the Siggy defiling.
“There are so many destinations I want to visit!” Wanderlust made Rachel’s voice thick. “We could go to Zoë’s world, or Valerie’s, or…”
She thought but did not say, Gaius’s.
She let her imagination free, picturing the distant places, the marvelous vistas, that might now be open to them. The desire to see these places burned in her and shone through her eyes.
“That would be wicked cool!” Siggy’s face had taken on a similarly rapt expression. “We could go to the Moon! To Mars! We could visit other solar systems! Maybe even other galaxies! We could meet Metaplutons in their native environment! We could go beyond Pluto and become Metaplutons ourselves! Loot their technology! Steal their warp drives! Drive their steel warps! Warp their drive steels! Where are all these worlds the princess keeps visiting? Are they circling Alpha Century? In the Andromeda Galaxy! Lucky, we could visit your world!”
“I am from here,” Lucky frowned. “You hatched me from an egg.”
“But…before that!” Siggy insisted. “That Japanese place the princess saw with the river and the cherry blossoms and the floating masks.”
“I don’t care about the before-you.” Lucky shrugged.
“Who’re we inviting?” Valerie leaned toward her friend. “Can Salome come?”
“She is welcome.” The princess inclined her head toward the other girl. “Anyone who wishes can join us.”
“Can I bring Gaius?” Rachel blurted before she could stop herself.
“Certainly not,” replied the Princess sternly. “We cannot trust him. Or, at the very least, we know Dread is untrustworthy. Remember, the prince forced me to disobey my father, after I had explicitly instructed him not to.” She paused and then added with a thoughtful frown. “Does your family approve of you dating a commoner?”
Rachel pressed her lips together and did not reply. Her family did not approve of her dating, though commoner was possibly lower on their list than such issues as older or thaumaturge. Father had married a commoner, so it was unlikely that he would make a fuss about Gaius’s lack of nobility.
Ironically, it irked her slightly that her family was not more concerned about her boyfriend being a commoner. Not because she wanted them to give her more grief over dating Gaius, but because she knew how disappointed her grandparents would be by their lack of concern for propriety. Rachel sighed.
Life. Never as simple as one might like.
“Who is coming aside, these experiments sound like they might be interesting,” Zoë mumbled around her bite of egg burrito. “I wouldn’t mind knowing more about what I can do with my sandals.”
“I can’t wait!” Joy’s feverish cheeks glowed with a rosy hue. “This will be so much fun!”
“These are some good ideas,” the princess acknowledged. “I would like to find out about other worlds, too. I think we should tell people about them. I would like to open trade.”
“We can’t do that,” Rachel said wistfully. “It would damage the Wall.”
“I hardly think a Wall that keeps us from other worlds could be a good thing,” said Nastasia. “We should endeavor to take it down.”
“But…” Rachel was so alarmed, she jumped forward. “The Raven told us…”
She thought of the great shadow dragons who would have done just that the previous night—had she not stopped Azrael.
“I do not trust that creature.” The princess drew herself up and settled her blanket over her shoulders. “I believe it may be evil. Remember, the Raven let the Lightbringer come into our world and pester me. And we know he is wicked. We cannot trust anything it says.”
Thanks to her mother’s dissembling techniques, Rachel was somehow able to nod calmly. Inside, anguish wracked her heart. She could not tell the others that merely hinting to Sakura Suzuki had been enough to cause her to remember her past and instantly grow into an adult. Or that this alone might have been enough to spark other people’s memories and upset the delicate balance that kept the Wall in place. Or that the Raven had been forced to take from Sakura the power that had allowed her to disrupt the appearance of her being a teen. Or that the Raven had wished to remove Rachel’s memory of the incident, as he removed Sakura’s, Joy’s, and Zoë’s, but that this would have damaged Rachel, turning her into someone else—basically killing the person she was now, so he had spared her.
She felt strongly, as well, that she should not let on that Enoch had actually been dead.
So how to convince Nastasia of how horribly wrong she was about the Raven? Because what she had just said was so unfair.
Rachel blinked.
When had the Raven become so tremendously dear to her?
“That is what we will do,” Nastasia stated quietly. “As soon as we are well, we will do some experiments with Zoë regarding dreamland.”
“Great ideas, Princess!” Joy’s eyelids were starting to flutter close, but she gazed at Nastasia’s face fondly. “I knew you would know what to do. You’re the best leader ever.”
“Three cheers for the princess!” shouted Sigfried.
Rachel rubbed her temples and sighed.
• • •
The nurse returned with a music stand. On it, she placed sheet music that read: A Curative for Those Who Have Inhaled the Kelpie’s Miasma. Rachel, who had been up in the air on her broom—and thus away from the foul fog—took leave of her friends. As she turned to go, Sigfried fell in step beside her.
“Not going to hang with your girlfriend?” she asked, as they walked toward the door.
“Nah, she’s got Salome to pal around with,” Siggy splashed his hand through the fountain, disturbing its rushing beat. Cold water splattered across Rachel’s face. She licked some of it off. It tasted cool against her tongue with the slightest touch of sweetness.
He said, “Besides, I need to be about my secret mission.”
“A secret mission?” Rachel asked, curious.
Siggy looked right and left. He leaned toward her and whispered, “The Lf-ea…Elf-lay? How do you say elf in Pig-Latin? Anyway, the…you know who I’m talking about…came into my dream last night and asked me to do a task for her.”
“Truly?” Rachel’s jaw gaped, envious that Sigfried had received secret communications from their elf friend. “What did she want?”
“She wants me to make an elixir for Zoë’s friend, M
isty Lark—the one who saw her family get killed? She says it will help her with her grief.”
“What a lovely idea,” marveled Rachel.
“If you trust her,” said Sigfried, holding the door. Rachel ran down the stairs and waited for him at the bottom. “Otherwise, I could be about to poison the poor girl. Do you trust her?”
“Who, the Elf?” Rachel thought about this. “Yes. I do. She had ample opportunity to hurt us, if she wished to. Instead, she risked a great deal on our behalf.”
“She said I need a couple of herbs I don’t have yet: yarrow and goatweed, which she first called St. John’s wort. I remember yarrow from detention. How do I get a wart off St. John?”
Rachel giggled. “It’s a plant. Well, goatweed is. It’s also called rosin rose—which I’ve always found rather hard to say. Not sure about St. John’s wort. Saint is one of those orphan words. I think they might have something to do with Outside.”
“The wort or the word has something to do with Outside?” asked Siggy. “Never mind. Do you know where I can find some?”
“Certainly.” Rachel gestured to the east. “The alchemy herb gardens are along the path that leads from the infirmary to Staff Village.”
“Staff Village?”
“It’s a little community down by the creek,” explained Rachel. “The tutors and proctors live there. There’s a dorm for the single folk and thatched-roof cottages for the married couples. I see it when I fly down that way.”
They walked along the wood-chip covered path through the feathery hemlocks. The gymnasium and the track stretched to their right. The eastern dorms—Dee, Raleigh, Drake, and De Vere—were to their left. Fog lay low over the campus, its touch damp against their cheeks and clammy down the back of their necks. Tree trunks more than ten feet away loomed ominously, blurry and indistinct.
To either side, herbs grew: mint, basil, and anise, rosemary, and thyme. In the autumn drizzle, the freshly-washed plants smelled heavenly. Rachel spotted the herb Siggy wanted, with its long slender leaves with translucent white dots, growing beneath a cinnamon tree. As they squatted down to pick some, a familiar voice rang out through the trees.
“Rachel!”
She glanced up, startled. An older boy ran through the fog toward her—a very cute older boy, his face a mix of concern and delight. His robes were old and worn and bore several patches. His wand, which hung from a lanyard, clattered against his hip. His short chestnut ponytail flew out behind him.
“Gaius!” Rachel leapt to her feet.
He reached her and pulled her to him. His arms closed around her. As she wrapped her arms back around him, a slow, joyous smile crept across her face.
After over a month of dating, her boyfriend had finally hugged her.
Chapter Ten:
“Don’t Ever Give In!”
Rachel sank into Gaius’s arms, her eyes half-closing, her cheek resting on one of the patches on his robe. She leaned against his chest, luxuriating in the warmth and strength of his body, breathing in the scent of him. Gaius gently rocked her back and forth. He kissed her on the top of her head.
“Lucky and I are off to the alchemy lab,” Siggy called over his shoulder. “See ya.”
Rachel waved without moving anything but her hand. The rest of her stayed pressed tightly against her boyfriend. With the fog so close around them, it was as if they were in their own private world.
“Are you okay?” Gaius murmured into her hair, squeezing her tightly. “I heard you were kidnapped by crazy cultists!”
“Wha…? Oh!” Rachel brushed a stray lock of hair out of her face and straightened her cap. “Oh, was that only yesterday? Yeah. I’m okay.”
Gaius drew back and peered into her face, searching it. “Has something else happened?”
“Yes, last night…” Rachel began eagerly. Then, her voice went flat. “The princess doesn’t want me to tell you.”
Gaius’s whole face fell. He looked utterly crestfallen. “I rather don’t blame her. Of course, she’s angry with us. After you trusted us, and then Mrs. Egg died? Vlad is really upset about this. He and his father are working to find the leak. He wants you to know that when they find the culprit, the person will be suitably punished.”
Rachel stared at Gaius, who looked much more sincere than his normal casual demeanor. He had not turned the accusation on her. The heat of embarrassment moved slowly through her cheeks. How could she have thought so badly of him?
Wait!
She did have proof!
“Gaius!” Rachel grabbed his shoulder. “It’s not Vlad’s fault!”
His whole face became alert. “Why do you say that?”
“You weren’t the only person we told,” explained Rachel. “The princess told the dean. The dean told the Agents.”
“You think the Wisecraft is compromised?”
Rachel took a deep breath, sorting her thoughts. She spoke rapidly. “Do you remember what a short time it was between when you and I told Vlad about Juma O’Malley’s mom, and when that plane nearly hit the school?”
“Do I remember? I was standing dead center, in the dean’s office, watching the Giant Silvery Jumbo Jet of Winged Death come right for me! Vlad said he could see you and Sigfried. That you saved us.”
Rachel blushed deeply. She had hoped no one would find out about her part. She had not thought about the fact that some people could see through chameleon elixir. Lucky had even warned them that Von Dread could see through the dragon’s invisibility.
“That’s neither here nor there.” She hurried on. “The point is: you showed me the picture. You and I told Vlad. We all went to meet Juma and escorted him to the dean’s. The dean called the Agents. The Agents took him off campus. And the plane showed up just afterwards.”
“Right. I remember. Is there a connection?”
“That plane went haywire because Juma’s mother made it do that. Serena O’Malley’s a technomancer.”
“Serena O’Malley?” asked Gaius. “The same woman who murdered Mrs. Egg, right?”
“Yes. Exactly.” Rachel pressed. “And she had to be on campus, to control the plane.”
“So…you’re wondering why she showed up right then?” Gaius’s mind leapt rapidly. “Right after the Agents were called to talk to her son?”
“Exactly!” Rachel nodded. “Even if no one at the Wisecraft offices is voluntarily working for Veltdammerung, someone could be geased.”
“Vlad certainly didn’t have time to tell his father about Juma!” Gaius continued, excitedly. “You can’t call people off campus except in the Glass Room downstairs. So, that leak couldn’t have been from his father’s people! So, the first time probably wasn’t them either—considering that it was the same person, Serena O’Malley, who received the secret information!”
“Exactly!” Rachel repeated, smiling.
Gaius let go of her and grabbed her shoulders. “I’ve got to tell him! Right now.”
“Oh. Okay.” Rachel’s voice sounded thin and tinny.
“Afterwards, I want to hear all about last night! Oh, and I need your help!”
Four more glorious words had never been spoken.
“You need my help?” breathed Rachel.
“Definitely! If you’re willing. Meet me in our hallway in about twenty minutes!”
• • •
Rachel ran eagerly through the fog toward Roanoke Hall and her favorite abandoned hallway on the fifth floor. Our hallway, he had called it. The thought glowed like a warm coal inside her. She spun around for joy in the midst of the fog-covered commons.
Too late, she realized she was not alone. The first person she saw, Agravaine Stormhenge, looked entirely charmed by her fey behavior. The college senior, who was the Dare Hall Senior Resident for the boys’ side—and whom Rachel secretly thought of as “Sigfried grown-up and calm”— was walking across the lawn with his fencing helmet atop his sandy curls, and his gear bag thrown over one shoulder. The whiteness of the bag glowed against the dimness of the fog
. He winked at her.
Her elation was short lived. Agravaine was not the only one on the commons. A group of older Dare upper school students were making their way to the gym. They regarded her with mocking grins. Rachel recognized Claus Andrews, Arun Malik, Katie Thebes, Lena Ilium, and John Darling. They chatted loudly as they headed across the grass, their voices carrying through the fog.
“Did you know that little girl is actually like eleven?” asked Lena, a slim young woman with auburn hair and a model’s symmetry to her features. Rachel happened to know that Lena was her brother Peter’s secret crush.
“They shouldn’t have let her come to the upper school so young,” scoffed the super-athletic Katie Thebes, the girls’ champion for the upper school at Track and Broom. She wore her arm in a sling, the result of her latest daring stunt. Rumor had it she had been injured so many times that the nurse was reluctant to further enchant her. “She should be in the lower school with other children her age.”
“Peter and Laurel are idiots for letting their little sister date that idiot Valiant,” said Arun, a tall Arabian boy with jet-black hair wearing dark glasses, who spoke with an Egyptian accent.
“I know!” cried Lena. “What are they thinking?”
“Peter and Laurel?” smirked John Darling, running a hand across his short, unruly, black hair. “What’s Valiant thinking? I realize he’s a first-class jackass, but who’d want to date such a short scrawny thing? It’s disgusting! She doesn’t even have breasts.”
“Yeah,” Claus Andrews’s mop of white-blond hair shook as he laughed. “When he cops a feel, what’s there to feel up?”
Their mocking laughter rang in Rachel’s ears. She ducked her head and ran. Her face remained calm, until the fog had closed in around her like a protective cloak. Then, she stopped holding the pain at bay.
It struck her like a stallion at full gallop.
Darling was such an eejit! The others did not bother her so much. Lena had sounded concerned for her, and Claus Andrews was his class’s clown—hardly even worthy of her contempt. John Darling’s words, however, reverberated in her thoughts over and over.
Rachel and the Many-Splendored Dreamland (The Books of Unexpected Enlightenment Book 3) Page 12