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“You’ll find what you need. We all do.”
“Yes,” Oliver said, and tried to breathe. The party below, the celebrations out on the Lawn, continued. He did not feel like joining in, not now.
“Well, then.” His mother got up briskly, waved at the door. “Don’t let me keep you. I’m sure you’ve got evening plans. I think Cedric said something about a tavern?”
“He usually does.” Tir had one hand unobtrusively at Oliver’s elbow. “He’ll be finding all sorts of means of entertaining himself; he won’t notice we’re not there. Thank you, Ellie. Oliver, come with me.”
“Where’re we going?”
“Finding your shoes.” Tir’s hand nudged them down the stairs, into a hall, across a passage. “One of the staff will have put them back in your room by now. And I know your toes must hurt.”
“Tir,” Oliver said, stopping in place. By a large arched window, a line of glass, the glint of the autumn sun into a wide empty hallway. In his palace; in his family’s palace. “I think I’m going to have to go on a Quest.”
Tir drew a breath, let it out: almost noiseless. He had a hand on Oliver’s shoulder; his eyes were serious as stone and winter sky. Late-afternoon amber light slid through the smooth black of his hair. “Yes. But not alone.”
“I’m not sure I can.”
“Of course you can.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I know you. But listen, Oliver—not tonight. Tonight we’re going to change clothes and be anonymous, and we’re going to find one of the celebrations—not necessarily the one your brother’s found—and we’ll cheer for ale-drinking competitions and toast the new museum and I’ll sing if someone asks and you’re going to bring your sketchbook and turn the night into art, because I know you’ve been wanting to draw something, to sketch, all day.” Tir’s face was intent, close, lovely. His eyelashes were long and soot-dark, when he blinked. That wasn’t an odd thing to notice; Oliver had to notice. As an artist.
Tir said, “Tonight, we’re just us. And nothing’s changed. Tomorrow it will. But—tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow,” Ollie said. Tir’s determination caught him, pulled him in. “But—even tomorrow—you’ll be here. With me.”
“I promise,” Tir said. “Whenever you need me, Oliver. I’ll be here.”
Chapter 2: A Dream
The day burned with heat. The sky hung low and bronze and implacable. Oliver did not know where he was—mist at his back, a flat road ahead, a taste of blood and salt on his face—and he turned, searching.
A stone wall met his fingertips, when he put his hand out. He knew it was his home, his castle; knew it in the way of dreams. Because it was a dream, and he understood that; but he didn’t know how to awaken.
The castle, the sky, were home but wrong. The wrong colors, edges askew. Everything changing, shifting, when he wasn’t looking. A feeling of something scuttling behind his shoulder.
He was looking for Tirian. Of course he was. Tir would know what to do.
Tir must be inside the castle. But Ollie couldn’t find a door, a gate—only stone, heavy and grey, no matter how far he walked—
And that was worse than wrong, that sent a chill down his spine, because he had to get in, had to save Tir, had to find Tir. Because everything was different and he needed Tirian at his side, but this time Tir needed him, the kingdom needed him, Oliver, to set this all right again—but he couldn’t, he couldn’t, he didn’t know how, he wasn’t good enough, not on his own—
Oliver slammed a hand against the stone. It hurt, because even dream-stone hurt.
He wasn’t magic, he wasn’t a hero, he’d never done anything special—he wasn’t his parents, he did not have his mother’s confidence or his father’s gentle patience; he didn’t have Tir’s fairy blood, whatever that might do—
He was only Oliver, just himself, and his hands ached from beating against stone, because he did not have any better ideas, because he wasn’t enough—
He woke up not exactly screaming, not exactly sobbing: gasping, wrung out with emotion.
He sat in his bed, among rumpled linen and heavy feathered coverlets and tall hangings, and felt the tremble and the prickle of sweat along his back.
The darkness took all his recognizable shapes—bookshelves, easel, wardrobe, bed-posts—and made them over into unknowable monsters, for an instant.
Oliver scrubbed his hands over his face. Felt the rasp of stubble; he needed to shave.
His bedroom door opened, noiseless.
