Chapter Text
The Star’s hands were on his waist, and they were spinning with all the force of refracted light, a thousand particles swaying in concert to the tune of the ever-expanding edge of the sky. The Star’s hands were impossibly warm, burning through his skin and yet cool as they grasped his face, holding him close and—
“Dream!”
Overlooking all of them, the Moon, for who could she be but the Moon, a lady pale and blue with dark eyes and a cold countenance, ruled from her perch on the dias, watching him and the Star dance.
The Star’s eyes were so dark, like his own, and it smiled with radiant joy, because of Dream, with Dream, because he was smiling too, and so happy to be here—!
Dream burrowed his head further into the pillow, half-encased in the warm embrace of the Star, but the outside presence was not going away. It seemed even featherdown could not keep him fully entranced in the Hall of the Sky. The image of the lady on the dias—the Moon—burned into his eyelids. How comforting the Star had been…
“Dream, you’ve got to get up,” Jessamy said. Her tone was cloaked in concern. Worried, even.
Dream heaved a sigh into the navy pillowcase and rolled away from the sound of her voice. He heard Jessamy inhale quickly. He wanted to sleep. Not do whatever it was Jessamy and the rest had decided he must take up his time with. The mattress held him warm and sated and calm, like a creature in its burrow, like a babe in the womb, like the night sky blanketed a candle at night. Dream listened to Jessamy sigh, followed by the soft creaking of the floorboards as her stockinged feet travelled from one side of the room to the other. It was blessedly dark. Dream pulled the blankets and quilts further up to his nose. He’d take a few more minutes of his dreams where he walked with the stars and wove light with the gods over whatever chore Jessamy had decided to tackle today.
“Where is the—Ah!” Jessamy said, followed by a horrible screeching, yanking sound.
Bright sunlight flooded into the room with all the grace of a slap across the cheek. Despite his internal protests, Dream opened his eyes against the onslaught of light and twisted over to glare at Jessamy.
She was standing, hands on her hips and piebald hair unbound over her shoulders, in front of the wide window. If she was glaring at him, her face was eerily concerned. Dream squinted against the yellow light. When was the last time he had seen sunlight? Dream wanted to go back to sleep. The Star had been… he blinked a few times, and glared back at her.
“Come on, Dream,” Jessamy said, as uncaring about his mood as she ever had been, going on for years now. She marched towards the bed, and Dream knew what she was going to do a split second before she did it. He didn’t get a grip on his bed linens quick enough to stop her.
Jessamy grabbed the corner of the covers and yanked them back, throwing them all to the end of the bed and exposing Dream’s naked body to the crisp air and the light. Jessamy didn’t even blink as she pushed the linens off the end of the bed, signalling the final end of Dream’s slumber.
Dream lay there, one hand tucked under his pillow and the other resting against the mattress, and sighed. Well. He was fully awake now.
“Did he wake up today? Have you gotten his sorry ass out of bed? It’s been a while!” Cori’s acrid voice preceded the man as he stepped inside Dream’s bedroom.
Dream closed his eyes. It could not have been a terribly long time—his aspect dreams never took him out too long. He had gone out to be in the Jewels, made a quick visit to Tarrow, then had come back and went for a small rest… he yawned, rolling back over.
“He’s awake!” Jessamy cried back, with far too much emotion for such a morning. Dream could feel her shadow across his skin. He wished she’d move a little to the left, and block out the sun.
“Barely. But he’s not actually left the bed,” Cori said. His voice didn’t move any closer as he spoke, so Dream was safe for another few minutes. Dream grasped the threads of his dream, where he had been dancing in the hall of the sky… resting. He had been so at peace.
“Like I would be the one to move him. I trust that he can get out of it on his own,” Jessamy said. What faith in him she had! It warmed Dream’s heart.
“I don’t,” Cori said flatly.
Dream opened his eyes as his apprentice approached the bed. Cori had cut his hair. The sunlight illuminated the golden strands which had been cropped short to his skull. Cori met his gaze once before stopping just shy of the edge of the mattress. For all his blustering, Cori would not cross that boundary. But he’d get close, just to see if he could. Push the boundaries, as he was always doing. And he was good, so Dream let him. Tenacity was good, if you wanted to do magic—which Cori did.
Dream pulled his mind from dreams of stars and gaping pits and gentle waves lapping upon the seashore and sat up in the bed.
“You have such little faith in me, Corinthian,” Dream said. He extended his hand, and Cori’s wrapped around it, helping pull him off the bed and stand.
“But it got you up, didn’t it?” Cori asked, putting a steadying hand on Dream’s other elbow as Dream wobbled in place.
He was so weak. He should not be this weak, Dream thought, as his knees began to tremble from mere standing. He had not only been dreaming. How long had he been asleep?
Cori’s belief had gotten Dream out of the bed, indeed. Dream let go of Cori’s hand and brushed away hair from his cheeks and tucked it behind his ears—behind his ears? He pulled the ebony strands forward and stared at them. His hair had been shorter than this when he went to sleep.
“How long have I been asleep this time?” Dream demanded, whipping his head up to look at the two of them. “When was the last day I was awake?”
“Um,” Jessamy said, turning her face away.
Dream looked at Cori. The man’s eyes were hidden by his obsidian frames, but Dream knew when his gaze wasn’t being met.
“Tell me, one of you,” Dream said with authority he did not feel this body entitled to.
“Almost three years,” Cori said after a moment.
Dream shook his head, causing the hair to untuck itself from his ears. He crossed the room and slipped on a nightshirt, and then wobbled between his two apprentices to head downstairs.
This was not good.
Almost three years. Asleep. Long sleep was not unusual for Dream; his aspect dreams were part of his magic and staying in them for extended periods of time did not harm him. At most, he slept a few days at a time at random. More, if he had exhausted himself. But to sleep not only a year, but three of them consecutively, was not only no good—it was unheard of. Dream would have duties he had neglected and people he needed to see. Cori and Jessamy trailed behind him as he took the asymmetric staircase down into the hall, and past the library, into the kitchen. Dream opened the icebox and found an inordinate amount of cheese inside it.
Dream looked at this, and selected one which looked open and spreadable. He got a knife from the drawer and watched how his hand shook from holding even the weight of it, and sat at the long table. He reached for the breadbox and dragged it closer.
“How could I have slept so long? Three years is inexcusable. I have duties,” Dream asked of no one in particular. He understood the question was vicious; they could no more wake him than he could wake himself.
The bread in the box was already cut, and Dream plucked a slice out and began spreading the cheese over it. Jessamy had rounded the table, and was filling a glass from the tap. She set this next to him.
“We tried, it’s not like we didn’t,” Cori said sharply. He was still leaning against the doorway. “We still couldn’t wake you.”
Dream paused mid-bite, absorbing this information into the marrow of his bones. Dream glanced at Jessamy, who had taken the seat beside him. She nodded. Dream swallowed, the bread tasting of ash in his mouth. He wanted to vomit. Nothing had compared to what he had eaten in the hall of the stars…
Dream rested his head against the table, suddenly staving off a pounding in his head and a weariness in his bones. Right. He had been asleep for three years… his body would be adjusting to being here in the waking world.
“Cori,” Dream managed, “find Lucienne. Tell her I am awake. Have her prepare a list of all the things I must do. I have been lax, in my care for you and also for my duties. I have to…”
He fell back asleep.
⬙
Dream woke propped up on the fainting couch in Lucienne’s workshop. Rising around him were the ceiling-height cabinets with the tiny drawers labelled in Lucienne’s neat script. Each drawer held the components of her potion and spell-work, carefully bundled away until needed. Two of the walls held these massive wooden cabinets, and along the other two walls there were bookshelves. These nearly groaned under the weight of Lucienne’s desire for reading material, and avid collection thereof. The floor had a thick woolen carpet, which had taken the two of them a great deal of energy to bring back to the house, back when it was only them and the dream of being unbeholden to anyone else.
Dream grew aware of a faint scratching noise behind him, and he carefully twisted around to see Lucienne sitting at her desk, writing a missive. She peered at him over the edge of her square-framed spectacles.
“What day is it?” Dream asked, growing worried once again. Lucienne would not handle him with kid gloves. She would tell him the truth.
“Calm yourself, you’ve only been asleep for a few hours since you woke. Your body is taking time to adjust,” Lucienne said, setting down her pen.
Dream sank back into the velvet cushions. Someone had laid a blanket over his bare feet.
“What did you dream about?” Lucienne asked.
Dream wanted to cry. Of course, she knew him so well, that when he had an aspect dream there was nothing he wanted more than to share it. He had wanted to speak about his dreams, but his apprentices could not understand. Dream tugged the blanket up to his chin.
“I spent time in the hall of the Sky, and danced with the Stars and drank with the Moon,” Dream said. “It was very beautiful. The hall glittered like it was made of ice and silver, and the Stars held these elaborate balls where I knew all the dances, and I was an honored guest. They were very beautiful. I was so happy.”
Dream closed his eyes as the images arose in his mind’s eye, of blue and black and silver light and the twinkling eyes of the stars, which had mirrored his own and which Dream had never seen the likeness of in the waking world.
Of course, it was a figure of speech to say Dream had been dreaming. He had not been dreaming. He had been having an extended vision, as he was prone to do and always had been, ever since he was young. When he had gone to study magic in the capital, everyone had thought he would become an oracle. He had not. All of his teachers had not known what to do with the student who fell asleep and would remain in stasis for longer than a night, or for a few days at a time. No one had any explanations for him, except that it was magic and thus must have a purpose. Dream only had visions, and whether any of them were true or held deeper meaning was argued about in halls until Dream had had enough and left, purpose unfulfilled. Meaning unclarified. Dreams had, remembered, and then tucked away, to rarely be thought about again.
None came after Dream, for after years of his schooling, his visions were widely regarded as fantasy, and hardly understood even by himself. He remained a witch at the edge of the kingdom. He spent time building his abode, and performing small magics for his few neighbors and the town a few days’ journey away. People left him alone, and that suited Dream just fine. It left him time to his own devices and magics and abilities.
That Dream could transmute himself into a raven and fly across the Jewel Lakes or that he was the sole person keeping the enchantments on the wood spikes keeping the town of Tarrow from crumbling into the embrace of the water or that he had dreams which kept their hold on him for longers longer than a mere man—nobody cared about that any longer. It was just him and Lucienne, his roommate who had become his friend, and Jessamy, who could also transmute her form but had no other internal magic, and Cori, who had eyes that scared everyone who looked upon them and hungered for magic even though he did not possess a drop of it in his blood—it was only them four. Here, in the house at the edge of the lakes, crowded between the edge of the Murtledge Woods and the expanse of the Jewels.
It was far enough away from the capital that people forgot about Dream. The king’s messengers never came riding this far.
“For three years?” Lucienne prodded him gently.
“I do not control it,” Dream said, which she knew. She was asking if there had been anything different about this vision, which there was not. Each one was fantastical; that did not make them coherent or noteworthy in the waking world. They never had been.
Lucienne pursed her lips, but said nothing. Then, she pulled a stack of papers from the side of her desk, and pushed them away from her, towards him.
“These are all the requests that came in. I simply told everyone to write down their problems and when you came back you’d get to them.”
Dream rose from the couch and walked on unsteady legs to look over the papers. There were perhaps a dozen requests. Less than two thousand people made their home in the Lakes, so the number made sense. He thumbed through them, noting the requests: protections against rot from the village speaker, problems with the web-footed cavi which the people here bred for their waterproof, downy hides, things of that nature. Many of them were dated from over two years ago.
“Have they stopped coming?” Dream asked, glancing back at Lucienne. The most recent missive had been just under two years ago.
“Yes.” Lucienne did not hedge her words.
Dream did not allow himself to dwell on what that meant for his reputation and relationships with the villagers and the other assorted people who called the Jewel Lakes home. Not that he had had any particularly close relationships, but it still meant well that people were unafraid of him.
“And how are we faring?” Dream had not managed to check the pantry or the yard or the well or any of the other accoutrements that their house had.
“Cori and Jessamy went down the river a year ago and brought back supplies from Keepgood. They were going to go again soon. But everything else has been provided for. I’ve kept in contact with the villages,” Lucienne said.
“Good.” Dream picked up the papers and held them in his hands, before folding them in half. “I will begin these once I am certain my body will be able to handle it. I fear I may have exhausted myself too close after waking.”
“Mm.” Lucienne rested her chin on her hands and looked up at him. That was what had drawn Dream to her in the first place: the fact that she was ready and willing to meet his eyes, which he had never covered.
“Pay more attention to Cori, too. He’s being really bitchy about it, but I know he cares for you. He’s worried about his studies,” Lucienne told him.
Dream sighed. “Yes, I will talk to him too.”
That was going to be a whole other ordeal. Dream looked beyond Lucienne’s shaved head and out the window. There was still white ice at the edges of the lake closest to their home. It was cold in the house; Lucienne could write spells and create potions, but she had no aptitude for warmth, and the fireplaces only sat on the first floor. Dream shivered underneath the thin linen of his bedshirt, and left to find more suitable clothes and the water closet.
⬘
Cori was waiting outside the door, like a loyal dog, when Dream finished in his bathroom.
“Cori,” Dream greeted him, sidestepping around his lean frame, which was directly in the line of Dream’s wardrobe.
“Dream,” Cori returned. Then: “What did you see? When you dreamt?”
A long time ago, Cori would have been the first to ask when Dream opened his eyes after sleeping.
Instead of answering, Dream opened the doors to the wardrobe. All of his blacks stared back at him. The textures and cuts and fabrics were all different; some embroidered, some not. All of them were fantastic, and felt like a second skin to Dream. The choices were suddenly overwhelming. Dream slumped against the right-hand door, steam still rising from his skin after the bath, and sighed for what felt like the hundredth time.
“Do you want me to choose for you?” Cori asked, coming up to his side.
“Yes,” Dream said, hating how much the admission weakened his spirit.
Cori stood next to Dream and rifled through his clothes, before landing on a robe with tiny stars embroidered at the hems. Dream wanted to laugh at the imagery, but instead he stepped back and let Cori hold it out for him. Dream slid his arms into the sleeves of the cloak, and felt the brush of Cori’s fingers against his shoulders.
“What did you dream of?” Cori asked again, turning Dream bodily so he could do up the buttons in the front.
“I dreamt I was in the hall of the Sky,” Dream said quietly. “It was very beautiful.”
When Cori bent down to start at the buttons at the hem, Dream could just make out the light flash of his eyelashes behind the frame of his glasses. Cori was methodical; he did not speed or skip a single button.
“For three years?” Cori asked, his face hidden by the angle.
“It felt like a single night,” Dream replied. The fabric fluttered by his knees.
“You had just come in from something before you went to lie down, I remember,” Cori said. Dream did not remember what it was that he had been doing in the Jewels before he laid down to sleep.
“I do not control it,” Dream said for the second time.
“I know,” Cori said, his fingers still threading silver buttons through black wool. The air was quiet. Dream looked across his bedroom, and found that all the surfaces were clean. They must’ve kept up after him, dusting and drawing the curtains around his slumbering frame. His heart swelled at the gesture.
Cori’s fingers fumbled over a button, and then he had worked his way up to Dream’s chest. Dream folded his hands in front of him. There truly were many buttons on the robe. Dream wondered if Cori had chosen it so he could remain closer for a few more seconds, like Dream did not indulge him every single day with his presence. It was like Cori to do such a thing. Always wanting more of what he couldn’t have.
Cori slid the last button into its place, right over the juncture of Dream’s collarbones.
“I missed you,” Cori said. His breath was warm against Dream’s face.
What would he say to that? Dream forgot about his waking life when he was in his dream-visions. Everything was so simple there…
So Dream did not respond, and Cori turned away.
“You and Jessamy should accompany me when I leave to check on the villages,” Dream said, brushing his hair back from his face.
“Of course,” Cori said. And left.
⬙
The mirror on Dream’s desk in his workshop was glowing with blue light. He crossed the room as quickly as he could, before picking it up and murmuring a few words under his breath. In the mirror, his sister’s face became visible.
“Dream! You’re awake,” Death cried. Her hair was askew and bobbing in the wind, and Dream surmised she was no doubt walking from one part of the capital city to another.
How she had known this so quickly was another internal blooded magic, one that each of the seven siblings had. But Death was the only one who made intentions to contact him.
“It’s been a while!” Death said, avoiding the whole three years or more it had been since they last spoke.
“I have awoken, yes. Just this morning,” Dream said, collapsing into his chair and cradling the mirror against his knees.
“Has Lucienne come up with any theories about why this one was so long? I got really worried for you, but she had assured me by letter that aside from the duration, this dream was just like all the others, or I would’ve come up,” Death told him.
“I have yet to ask her. I am still recovering. Is there any news I should be aware of?” Dream asked.
“Mm. Politics rolls on. People need healing. No new wars or anything like that, thankfully. But people are people.” Death grants him a large, gummy smile.
Death worked as a healer in Temor’s largest hospital. Name aside, she was one of the best. Her magical aptitude had been natural for working with flesh and diseases.
“Good. I would not like to have been called away,” Dream admitted to her.
“Oh, Dream, I think I’m one of the only people you talk to that you don’t live with or see every other month all the way up there,” Death said, not unkindly.
“Good. I would like to be forgotten,” Dream said petulantly.
“Brother.” Dream’s voice was soft.
“I do not mean it,” Dream said. “But I am glad the world will not fall apart in my brief absence from public life.”
“I still miss you—I will come visit soon. I must go now, but expect me! Don’t fall asleep before I get there!” Death laughed. Her black curls bounced with the throw of her head.
“I will try,” Dream said.
“I know. I love you,” Death said, sobering.
“I love you also. Goodbye, sister,” Dream said. Death waved, and the connection fuzzed out.
Dream set the mirror back on his desk. The world had spun on in his absence… Dream had not reflected on the time, but it would have to be at least twelve years since he had last been in the capital. And three of those years had gone by in an afternoon’s nap. Dream picked up the mirror again, which was nothing more than a tool without the incantation, and appraised his face. He did not appear any older: no new wrinkles or spots or hint of stubble. His slightly curled hair was a mess. The glowing centers of his eyes and black sclera stared impassively back at him. He did not look anything close to his nearly thirty-seven years of age. Dream frowned at his reflection.
A light rapping on the door to his study startled him.
“Enter,” Dream called, laying down the mirror.
Jessamy poked her head inside, her face lighting up in a smile when she spotted him at his desk.
“Dream!” Dream did not miss the relief present in her voice when she crossed the room to stand beside him.
Dream’s desk chair was not wide enough for both of them, but Jessamy squeezed her arse down beside him, nearly crushing Dream into the arm of the chair. He did not mind one iota. Jessamy slung her arm around his shoulders, and Dream took in her apron and the smear of some kind of pink jelly that was on it.
“Were you baking?” Dream asked her.
“I was. Tarts. They’ll be ready soon,” Jessamy said. She smelled of flour. “I’ll call you down.”
“Thank you,” Dream said, meaning every piece of it.
“Of course. I missed you,” Jessamy said. Her fingers gripped his shoulder.
“I did not mean to be gone so long,” Dream said helplessly. Now that he was awake, he missed her presence terribly.
“Oh, Dream. Stop beating yourself up—I know you can do nothing about it. I had Cori and Lucienne to keep me company. And we have a bunch of new goats. But I disliked flying alone.” Jessamy’s dark eyes glittered at the mention of flying.
“Soon, perhaps. I am still—” Dream held up his hand and showed her how his fingers shook. “Tired, I suppose.”
“Of course you are. You’re pushing yourself,” Jessamy said quietly.
“I have been asleep for three years,” Dream said. “It has not happened. The longest was two months, nearly eight years ago, right after Lucienne and I came here. I was stressed, and the house was not raised, and—” It had made sense at both of those times, that some latent part of him had wanted to shut down.
Dream had never forgotten how he had left Lucienne to build part of the house herself. Even though she had protested.
“And?” Jessamy prompted him.
“Nevermind. I dislike leaving you,” Dream said honestly.
Jessamy smiled at that, and brought her hand up to thread through the hair at the nape of his neck. When Dream leaned into the touch, all his old hurts resurfaced.
Three years. His mind circled that fact like carrion birds. Nothing could outweigh it. One day, Dream knew, he was going to fall asleep and never wake up. Stuck in his fantasies forever, without an explanation for why they occurred or by what blood they had been caused.
“I know that look. You’re brooding. Come on, I’ll cut your hair. I know you don’t like it like this,” Jessamy interrupted his thoughts by tugging at the long strands.
“Alright,” Dream relented, and followed her down the stairs to the kitchen.
It was not as cold outside as Dream had expected it to be. The air was chilly, but a hint of spring could be felt in it. Dream sat upon one of the kitchen stools, wrapped in one of Jessamy’s brilliantly knitted shawls, as she took to his hair with the shears.
Black locks tumbled onto the ground, and Dream watched them fall with a lightly dozing eye. The back of the house had the patio and the firepit, and space where the herb garden and flower gardens were in the warmer months. Beyond that, Dream could hear the chickens clucking in their house, cooped up for the winter. The goats roamed in the pasture space in front of the house, but the small shed for them rested at the edge of the land, right before the evergreens of the forest. In the far distance, the purple ridges of the Trealop Mountains rose up, kissing the evening sky and bounding the kingdom.
It was peaceful, and set apart. It was the perfect abode for a witch like Dream, and for Jessamy, who had wanted space and peace for her research, to say less of the Jewels, which hindered most casual travellers.
The sharp snipping of the shears kept Dream from drifting off. Then, his nose began to pick up on the scent of strawberries and crust, and he raised his head towards the back door.
“They are nearly done, and so are you,” Jessamy said, running a hand through his hair, dusting off the last flyaways.
“Thank you,” Dream said. He did not bother with running for the mirror to see what he looked like: Jessamy had been cutting his hair for years, and he had not changed his fashion.
“Up you get,” Jessamy said, and as soon as Dream slid off the stool, she grabbed it and lugged it inside with her.
Dream lingered in the kitchen, watching her slide on thick wool mittens and open the oven door. A waft of heat and cooked pastry filled the kitchen and Dream’s nose, and he drifted closer as she pulled the tray out.
Each tart was a perfect crimped circle of dough with a reddish center. Jessamy had hardly found a trivet and put the tray down when Lucienne entered the kitchen.
“You’re just in time,” Jessamy exclaimed.
“I wasn’t going to let Cori get the first one,” Lucienne said.
“What about me?” As if summoned, Cori appeared in the doorway right on Lucienne’s heels.
“Dream is getting the first one,” Jessamy said.
It was her kitchen, her territory, so Jessamy’s word was law. Dream was incredibly pleased. Cori rounded the table and counter space to stand next to Dream. His body was radiating heat.
“But you all have to wait for them to cool! You’ll burn your tongues,” Jessamy said, as if none of them had burned their tongues for being too impatient to eat her food a hundred times by now.
“Put the tray outside, then,” Lucienne suggested.
“Oh!” Jessamy said, and did that.
A few minutes later, Dream was burning his tongue on strawberry jam all the same. He ate slowly, savoring every bite. He had never been able to stomach a full meal a day in his life, and after waking he usually ate almost nothing. But for Jessamy, he would be patient and consume.
After the last crumbs were licked clean, Dream stood from his perch on the stool and announced:
“I am going to go to bed.”
A pin could’ve been dropped in the room, and it would be heard. Dream knew the tension would begin.
“Hopefully,” Dream continued, “when I sleep, I will wake in the morning. Goodnight.”
He went to bed, and despite the pounding of his heart, he slept.
He did not dream.