Everything seemed real. She reached under her pillow for her leather-bound journal. It was exactly where she’d left it.
They’re coming for us, she wrote, her eyes straining in the darkness. She pressed her fingertips to her throat and used the ticking of the pendulum to monitor her pulse, her breaths per minute. She recorded all her vitals and details of her dream, just in case anything escaped her the more time she spent in the waking world. Her final note read:
Startled awake for the first time.
She slid the lock into place on her journal when she was done, sealing it with the key that always hung around her neck, and then she lay back down.
Professor Nayamor would want to know about this. Her star pupil, fit and fearless, being startled awake as though nightmares were a thing that rattled her. She had heard of children being startled awake by their nightmares before, of course, but she had never understood why a dream would be frightening when it had no true power to hurt the dreamer.
Though, this never seemed to reassure Artem.
She would of course have to write a full report in her journal, as she always did, especially when things were strange.
Sleep didn’t come, no matter how still and quiet Plum lay waiting for it. By morning, when the dormitory began to fill with the sleepy glow of dawn’s light, Plum was uneasy. Gwendle was still sleeping, quiet and calm, but something wasn’t right about any of this.
At six o’clock exactly, the alarm on Gwendle’s nightstand trilled out its pleasant but aggressively loud melody.
Gwendle’s arm reached out from its pile of blankets to silence it.
Plum sat up for the first time in hours. Across the room, Gwendle did the same; her fine blond hair formed a static halo around her head. But she wasn’t wearing her usual sleepy, cheerful face. She didn’t say “good morning” or reach under her pillow for her journal.
Instead, she blinked at Plum, her face puzzled. “You were gone last night. You wandered off into the tall grass, and then we couldn’t find you.”
Plum glanced to the closed door of their tiny dormitory. It was a heavy, dark oak that muffled sounds, but even so, Plum felt that someone might be on the other side of it, listening.
She moved across the room and sat on Gwendle’s bed. They crossed their legs and scooted closer to each other.
“What happened after I was gone?” Plum’s voice was a whisper.
Gwendle squinted as she tried to remember. “I found Vien in the grass. It kept growing taller and taller until it blocked out the sun. We tried to find you and Artem, but the grass became heavy, until we couldn’t push it out of our way.”
“And then what?” Plum asked.
Gwendle blinked. “I don’t remember.” The words seemed to frighten her as soon as she’d said them. “I’ve never not remembered a dream before.” She lifted her pillow, but before she could reach for her dream journal, Plum grabbed her wrist.
“Don’t,” she said.
“Don’t?” Gwendle asked. “I have to. We have to write everything down. It’s the rule.”
“Something strange happened last night,” Plum said. “We should talk to Artem and Vien before we do anything.”
Gwendle hesitated, but then she put her pillow back in place.
As they got ready for their morning, Plum retrieved her own journal and laid it open on her mattress. With great care and precision, she tore her page of notes from the binding.
An hour later, when the breakfast bell chimed through the speakers, Plum was beginning to feel sleepy. She stared at her reflection in the mirror that hung on the wall over her dresser and made sure that the pleats of her skirt were sharp and that her hair was combed. Dark circles were appearing under her eyes, but they were hidden when she smiled.
She made a note to smile as much as possible today.
“Ready?” Gwendle asked. She looked prepared, as always. Even the papers in her folder were neatly arranged so that none of their corners peeked out.
“Yes,” Plum said, and smiled.
Artem and Vien were waiting for them at the breakfast buffet. Vien looked well rested, Plum thought, but Artem seemed tired. He also had bags under his eyes, and even his brown hair seemed limp and wilted against the sides of his face.
Plum had no appetite, but she assembled fruit and toast neatly onto her plate. Vien was beside her now, and she heard the concern in his voice when he whispered, “What happened last night?”
Plum shook her head. Across the room, Professor Nayamor stood in her starched uniform, observing the children as she always did. Plum straightened her spine. “I don’t know,” she whispered back.
When the four of them sat at their usual table, they leaned close to one another. “What did you write in your journals this morning?” Gwendle asked, her eyes wide.
Artem and Vien looked at each other, hesitant. “We didn’t,” Vien answered. “We wanted to wait until all of us spoke.”
“We didn’t write anything, either,” Plum said, and she found herself grateful that Vien’s practicality once again matched her own. She didn’t bother to tell them about the notes she’d torn from her journal that morning. They were gone now; on her way to breakfast she fed them into the fireplace that burned in the dormitory’s foyer.
“Let’s compare what we remember,” Vien said. As he went on, his story was very similar to Gwendle’s: he lost Plum and Artem in the tall grass and never found either of them again.
“I woke up after that,” Artem said.
“Me too.” Plum squinted, pondering. “And you couldn’t get back to sleep either, could you?”
“No.” Artem’s expression turned nervous. “We should tell Professor Nayamor. What if it means something bad?”
“It’s only dreaming,” Gwendle reminded him. “We’ve all lost legs and fingers and woken up just fine.”
“Your leg was injured last night,” Vien said to Plum. “We couldn’t get the bleeding to stop even once we were safe. That was new.”
“It’s better now,” Plum said. “A dream injury can’t hurt us.”
“Do you remember what happened after we lost Plum and Artem?” Gwendle said.
Vien shook his head.
“We have to write something in our journals,” Artem insisted. “Otherwise it will look too suspicious. What if there’s an inspection?” Inspections were frequent, and never announced in advance. Students were never given time to prepare; otherwise their instructors would have no way of knowing if they were being genuine.
They spent the rest of their breakfast agreeing on a dream. They kept the alligators, but embellished on the details. It was not the first time that the four of them had ever conspired, but it was the first time they’d ever conspired to lie. The ease of the lie frightened them just a bit—the way it all came to them as easily as truth, the way their conscience didn’t feel one bit bothered although to lie about their talents was the biggest crime a Brassmere student could commit.
It just felt right somehow, in a way that none of them could explain. Not that any of them tried to.
CHAPTER 4
Plum heard the music while she was staring up at the half-moon through her window. It was nearing midnight, and she had yet to fall asleep. Gwendle had nodded off hours ago, her cheek pressed against her sketchbook. The flashlight in her hand had long since died and gone dark.
It wasn’t like her to be so late. Plum was known for her punctuality, and surely her friends were wondering what was taking so long. Gwendle might try to wake up and check on her, but waking from a tandem dream was no easy task. They often felt themselves fading from their shared dream at the same time. One would disappear, then the next, and the next, as though they had planned it that way. Their recorded waking times were usually within one to two minutes of one another’s.
Plum thought about this as she lay trying to return to her dream. They were so in sync, the four of them. So very different and yet so tightly connected, like strands in a braid forming a rope.
/> The music broke through what had been hours of silence, and Plum held her breath to listen for it. To call it music at all was generous. First there was one high note of a piano, then another, then a crash of keys, as though a herd of raccoons had crashed through the ceiling and landed on the piano.
It was coming from the grand foyer.
Plum climbed out of bed, curious. She counted the ticking of the clock, and noted the shadow of the skeletal tree painted against the wall, taking in all the details of reality to be sure this wasn’t a dream. Things had felt very strange all day, and even with her reminders, she didn’t feel certain that any of this was real.
The heavy oak door of her dormitory creaked as she pushed it open. The hallway was dark, all its dozens of doors closed. Plum heard someone’s gentle snoring, but otherwise all was still.
Then, more piano keys being played, absent any rhythm.
She followed the sound to the grand foyer, which was also dark. But the moonlight spilled in through the high, arched windows, painting everything a ghostly blue.
Melinda stood over the piano in the grand foyer, in her red Brassmere nightshirt. Her fists were clenched at either side, and her eyes were a vacant, hollow gray. Her pupils were all but gone.
There were four students at Brassmere who could bend metal, but Melinda was easily the strongest among them, and the only one with enough concentration to bend piano strings.
Plum kept to the shadows as she approached, watching.
Melinda’s hair was messy, as though she’d been sleeping. Her skin was paler than usual. Her expressionless face was pointed at the piano as one clumsy note preceded another.
Then, all at once, a song began to play. It was frenzied and beautiful and unlike anything Plum had ever heard. Her skin swelled with goose bumps.
The song went on for several seconds, until Plum was sure that it would wake everyone in the dormitory.
But as the song went on, none of the doors opened. Not even Professor Lillyn, who slept in the room at the end of the hall, came to check on the commotion.
Plum moved closer. The song ended, and the silence was startling. “Melinda?” Plum said. She was careful not to make any sudden moves. She had heard that it was dangerous to frighten someone if they were sleepwalking, and it was apparent now that Melinda was not awake.
Melinda raised her head. She looked through Plum, and then she looked right at her. It was a piercing gaze.
“They’re coming for us,” she said. Plum’s blood went cold. It was the same thing Artem had said to her in their dream.
They’re coming for us. Melinda’s eyes were big and earnest now.
Plum knew that she was not dreaming. She looked at the windows that made up the entirety of the southernmost wall to be sure. Far beyond the trees, she could just make out the spiked tips of the iron fence that surrounded Brassmere. This was one of her reality points. There were never fences in any of her dreams.
She looked back at Melinda, steeling herself. There was nothing to be afraid of, she reasoned, and fear was useless, anyway. She told Artem this all the time. “Who is coming?” she asked.
Melinda pursed her lips, and it looked as though she was going to speak. But then a look of fear washed across her face and she gasped. A line of blood dripped from one of her nostrils. She wiped at it with one hand and stared at the red smear on her fingers.
Plum recognized the look on her face. It was fear. Melinda’s pupils expanded, and she drew in a breath.
“Don’t,” Plum started to say. But it was too late. Melinda was already screaming.
Doors opened and footsteps creaked against the boards. Plum stepped backward into the crowd, immediately blending in with the rush of students who had just been roused from their sleep.
Professor Lillyn was running toward Melinda now, shouting directives to the children, saying, “Out of the way, file up against the wall.”
If Melinda hadn’t been awake moments earlier, she certainly was now. She looked up at the foyer full of classmates, her eyes round and startled. She didn’t know how she had gotten there, and probably didn’t realize that the blood was just a nosebleed.
“All right, all right.” Professor Lillyn drew the bench from the piano and guided Melinda to sit so that she could inspect the damage. “Are you hurt? Let me see your hands.”
“Plum,” Vien whispered. He was standing beside her now. “What happened?”
Students were crowded all around them, all eyes on Melinda and Professor Lillyn. Bloodshed wasn’t uncommon at Brassmere, between the rope burns and skinned knees on the training courses, and soon everyone would realize that a bloody nose was hardly worth staying awake for.
Plum craned her neck and made sure nobody was paying her any mind. “Come on,” she said, and led him down the hall and back to her room.
Gwendle’s bed was empty and the room was quiet, save for the ticking of the clock. Plum closed the door.
“Plum?” Vien said. “What is it? What happened?”
She stood close to him, so that she could make out the details of his face in the moonlight. “This is real, isn’t it?” she said. “We aren’t dreaming, are we?”
Vien inspected himself, and then his eyes did a sweep of the room, analyzing the details just as they’d been trained to.
“It doesn’t feel like a dream to me,” he said, and Plum felt some reassurance at that. He was never wrong about things like this.
“Something is happening,” Plum said. “I don’t know what it is yet, but I think something is trying to warn me.”
Vien furrowed his brow. “What do you mean?”
“I sensed it in my dream last night. Artem was trying to warn me. He said that someone was coming. And then this morning he didn’t remember any of it. Just now, the same thing happened to Melinda. She looked right at me and said, ‘They’re coming for us.’ ”
“ ‘They,’ ” Vien echoed. “Who is ‘they’?”
“I don’t know yet.” Plum gnawed her lip, something she hadn’t done since she was very small, back when she still used to get nervous about things.
Vien noticed, and his eyes filled with concern. “You’re serious about this.”
“What were you dreaming about before Melinda’s screaming woke you?” Plum asked.
“The school was filled with dragonflies,” Vien said. “Nothing too strange.” The divot between his eyebrows deepened. “Gwendle was with me, but we couldn’t find Artem, or you.”
“I haven’t been able to sleep at all,” Plum said, “and I would be willing to bet Artem hasn’t, either.”
“We need to find Gwendle and Artem and figure this out,” Vien said. “Our dreams have never meant anything before, but this time you were awake when Melinda tried to warn you about this.”
He didn’t suggest bringing this to the attention of their professors, or Dr. Abarrane, and Plum was grateful for that. It meant he shared the same inexplicable, nagging sense that this was meant to be a secret.
They didn’t have to go far to find Gwendle. She was already on her way back to the bedroom. But Artem wasn’t in the thinning crowd. He wasn’t in his bed, either.
And after a thorough search of the dormitory, it seemed he wasn’t anywhere to be found at all.
CHAPTER 5
It was eight o’clock in the morning exactly. Plum sat on the leather couch outside Dr. Abarrane’s office, tallying up how many hours it had been since she’d slept. It had been nearly two o’clock in the morning when she woke up from the dream about Artem in the tall grasses, and she hadn’t slept a blink since then. It was a very unusual sensation.
“Thirty hours,” she muttered to herself. “That can’t be right.”
Vien and Gwendle sat at either side of her. The three of them were holding hands, something they often did without realizing it. Dreams weren’t the only thing they shared. Despite their vastly different personalities and interests, they often seemed to have the same thoughts.
Right now they were all
thinking about Artem, who hadn’t turned up since the incident with Melinda screaming at the piano.
Plum in particular was thinking about the thunder that growled and erupted outside, and the rain that sounded like an unsteady round of bewildered applause.
They had been waiting for more than twenty minutes to speak to Dr. Abarrane. Plum could feel each second blurring by. Seconds that were being wasted. She was frequently frustrated with Brassmere’s rules about order and calm, but today it felt especially dire. Every second wasted here was a second that should be spent looking for Artem.
He couldn’t have gone far, Plum reasoned. There would be no way through the gate without a key. And nobody else would have found their way inside to hurt him, because the gargoyles had been known to eat anyone who might try.
But he could be hurt. Or frightened.
The next clap of thunder made Gwendle flinch. She looked as though she might cry.
Vien was composed, but that didn’t mean he was calm. He kept looking at Plum, no doubt fretting about the increasingly dark circles under her eyes. Plum knew how awful she looked—she’d caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and cringed. But there had been more important things to contend with.
She was the first to speak, in a whisper so low that Gwendle and Vien had to lean close to her to hear. “What will we tell him?”
“The truth,” Vien said. He had been giving this a lot of thought, Plum could tell.
Gwendle shook her head. “No. I can’t explain it, but I have a sense that we shouldn’t.”
Gwendle was always very intuitive. Perhaps even a bit psychic, Plum had often thought.
They couldn’t come to an agreement on what to tell Dr. Abarrane, but it turned out not to matter, because when the door opened and Dr. Abarrane invited the three of them into his office, he didn’t ask for an explanation. Instead, as the three students sat in the chairs on the other side of his desk, he looked at Plum.
“How long has it been since you’ve slept, Plum?” he asked. He was not a large man. He was short and round, with a thick head of hair so gray that it was almost blue. But his voice was very big, Plum thought. The voice of a giant. The voice of a warrior going off to battle. Sometimes he took the form of these things in her dreams. Several students at Brassmere appeared in their tandem dreams, always in some new form, such as a spider or a kangaroo. Once there had even been a pink lake that had somehow resembled a girl with pigtails and freckles who nearly outran Plum on the track.