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. 

The minstrel in the corner had stumbled through a few wrong notes. It was enough to catch my ear. Part of me knew that he was sweating too hard. He wasn't really here. Not now. He was a memory of Ianthe's. Though I imagine she'd chosen this one for a reason. 

"Zephyr, my sweet. You're sounding pathetic. Stop. I can still forgive and forget. And all you'll have to do is come back to me. Come home. And when you do, come groveling on your hands and knees and I'll know just how much you mean it. Now, if you'll excuse me, there's a better way I might enjoy our musician." 

I woke before I saw what happened to the minstrel, but what happened was never a secret. His presence at all was only a reminder of who she really was. A beautiful monster. I could be sure her next offer would not be quite so lenient. Return to the Stag's Court now and things might go back to how they were. 

At least for a while. 

How long a while might last was still highly precarious. I was aware of that, though some idiot part of my brain still lingered over the woman with her hair draped across my lap. 

It hadn't been real. That version of Ianthe that was sweet to me was hardly ever real to begin with. I knew that. It was manipulative. I told myself that. She was sweet at first. A long time ago, but she's long since dropped the act and now, she was mostly just terrifying. Of course she was, she was a vampire. 

I'd been younger and stupider and full of myself when I first met her. Ianthe might have looked like she was twenty-two, but she'd been twenty-two for over thirty years. Even if she'd played the role of Lord Hart's doe-eyed ingenue, she was nothing of the sort. She had sharp teeth and a quick temper, and I'd seen her sour on enough acquaintances over the years, it was only a matter of time before she soured on me too. 

Obviously, I couldn't go back. I had to hope I hadn't mentioned Mesym. There really wasn't any way of knowing. And even if I had told her I'd escaped to Mesym, what was she going to do? Travel all the way here and drag me back? I doubted it. 

It took her three weeks to figure out I'd left the Stag's Court. That was fairly quick for a vampire. Lord Hart had an especially loose perception of time. I don't even know if my father ever even was formerly named his advisor, only that he took over the role one day from his father, who took the job from his father. Lord Hart referred to them all by the same moniker Vitore, which was either the name of a long-dead ancestor or a title. No one remembered which. 

Ianthe was not her father though. Even if time moved a little funny at the Stag's Court, I knew her ignorance wouldn't last forever. I still at least had a few secrets left. She probably didn't know I was at the Midnight Court. Wouldn't know I was a mage. And then there was the whole deal with Orendell. She would have acted a lot differently had she known about that.

I tried to carry on with my day and put her out of my mind. She wasn't really here, even if I had seen her. 

I took a nap during the lunch hour on a bench in the courtyard where the sun shone on my face. Aisling said she didn't mind and when I woke, she was gone, but I found a sketch of my sleeping likeness pinned to my bag. On the back, in her looping hand was written: Grumpy even in sleep. 

I was groggy for combat lessons, though luckily, I could get away with doing less. I didn't need to waste my energy casting today. We'd practiced our way through a few additional spells - conjured frost was on the list for next week and Blackclaw had the last few students who hadn't had the opportunity to duel go up against his teaching assistant. Allegra hadn't returned for this lesson, instead we got a new volunteer, Caelum Malgath, a scrawny upperclassman who might have only been as old as I was. He struck me immediately as bookish and awkward. 

"Looks like some formidable competition," I muttered to Aries. He was up last to duel after Noodle, now that he technically knew enough spells to give it a try. Aries laughed a little awkwardly, attempted to say something but got tongue tied and trailed off. It seemed that even my mild teasing might have actually hit way harder than I'd meant it. 

With all the remedial lessons, he was casting more accurately, but from what I could tell, he still just wasn't quite getting it. Blackclaw had decided he was ready though, so maybe he'd gotten a little better? 

No. He really hadn't. 

In lieu of pestering me throughout class, Aries busied himself practicing the casting gestures under the desk. He was working on slow. He'd managed to get his hands into the right positions - he clearly had studied the diagrams well. But the motions between the two positions - the essence of the gesture - was disjointed and clumsy. 

This was a practice duel that disallowed combat spells. Aries had wanted a learning experience, I could have held my tongue and watched it happen. The worst that could happen was that Aries would be hit by silence or slow, advantage would go to Caelum and Blackclaw would declare Caelum winner. End of story. This was how all of the duels after mine went. We weren't supposed to win. 

But as I watched him red-in-face, trying to make this spell work that just clearly wasn't going to. This was a duel that the rest of the class will have forgotten about by dinner. He was staring so intently at his hands he nearly went cross-eyed. And it was still wrong. Can't you feel it when a spell stops working? 

At the front of the room Blackclaw was trying to get Noodle ready to begin. "Dueling is serious, even in practice, you really can't be wagging your tail." 

I grabbed one of Aries's hands under the desk. He attempted to pull away, until I leaned closer to whisper, "Just let me show you. Alright?" 

From the way we were sitting, I couldn't see his face, but stopped resisting. Instead he shuffled on the desk bench and leaned into me. It might have been a little awkward, but both his hands were in mine. I could at least see what he was doing. 

He was too warm already. Sweating palms. The heat of his shoulder against my chest. His thigh on the bench pressed against my own. His breath hitched, but before he could back out, I ducked my head to whisper, "You were mostly there. I think you just got lost somewhere in the middle. It's a motion, not a pose." 

It was easier to focus on just the casting. I walked him through the gesture three times over. Each time, I let him take more and more control of the movement. I could feel the start of the spell – something like static, or potential. I think Aries could feel it too, because he suddenly pulled his hands away. He bumped against me awkwardly, trying to make space between us. 

"Wouldn't want to cast just yet…" he said. "Thanks though."

"If I'm going to duel you, I at least want a fair fight." 

Aries laughed. "That's your excuse for helping me?"

"It's not an excuse." He was still the same brat that had destroyed Aisling's flower crown the other day, but that didn't mean I wanted to watch him flunk out, annoying as he was. 

He'd at least stopped practicing his spellwork, just in time for us to see Noodle to block a spell for Caelum. Duels when we were this green were usually over pretty quick. Noodle actually managed to get shot back at Caelum - be still? It was hard to tell. Noodle's casting was almost as bad as Aries's, though somehow the spell still worked. 

Caelum blocked it, of course, but quickly returned with another attack. Noodle leapt forward to avoid the blast, but then, suddenly didn't stop. Noodle was in motion. He lunged. 

Blackclaw shouted over the match and Noodle was frozen in the hold spell before any of us could really tell what had happened. 

Caelum shrieked. "He almost bit me!"

Noodle was frozen still in mid-air, jaw locked in place, still open. I didn't like the feeling of this spell just standing in place, Noodle's position had to be far worse. Though, looking at it, he probably could have gotten Caelum's arm if Blackclaw had been a moment slower. 

Aries almost laughed. He clasped a hand to cover it, then coughed. I ducked my head and held my breath. Caelum was still near hysteric. "I could have lost an arm!"

Blackclaw was still focused on Noodle, letting him drop from the hold spell. "Mages do not use their teeth! Not in a duel, Noodle." Noodle collapsed onto the hardwood floor. He rubbed his snout with his hands while Blackclaw went to go deal with Caelum. 

"I'd bite someone in a duel," Aries muttered. "If the opportunity presented itself." 

I laughed - I thought he was kidding, but his brown eyes narrowed on me, fully serious. 

"Mages die in duels. If I can't get a spell to work, I'd do it," he said.

Even if he was serious, it was still kind of funny. "Yeah, I bet you would. Let's hope it doesn't come to that." 

Aries grinned to himself and let the conversation die. 

Blackclaw and Caelum had disappeared out into the hall. He wasn't coming back to duel against Aries. That much was a given. He'd have at least until next class to get the rest of his spells prepared. Noodle was already picking himself up. He might have been looking a little sorry but he perked up when he looked my way. He had to have heard Aries. 

But Aries had already moved on. He was looking at something spread on the desk. I didn't recognize it right away. Just the looping script, Grumpy even in sleep. 

Aisling's sketch. 

"Shit. Wait. That's mine, Aries. I'm way too tired for this right now." 

Maybe it was a mistake to try to help him… He dangled the page out in front of me. 

"Your girlfriend kept you up?" 

I shuddered. In a flash, I was back at The Stag's Court with Ianthe again. I could almost hear her voice still ringing in my ear. 

Aries noticed none of this. He was still prodding at the sketch. "She really took so much time to get the details right." 

He means Aisling. That alone was enough to pull me back to the moment. "She's not my girlfriend. She's my friend. And I'm sure she'll be sad to know that everything she's ever given me gets immediately destroyed by some ass in my combat lessons." 

"How many friends watch you sleep, dude?" 

I rolled my eyes. "I took a nap in the courtyard. I really didn't sleep last night. So just give it." I snatched it back, even if one corner of the page tore in his grip. I got most of it. The part that mattered. 

"So why didn't you sleep?" he asked. 

"You don't get to make assumptions and then get a real answer." I folded the page and tucked it away between the pages of my textbook. 

"Give me one anyway?" he asked. He shot me a way too cocky grin. I had to remember he was a prince in Fel. Stupid tricks like this probably worked. 

"No."