ONE
In the dream, Matthew was walking across green grass, under a sun the color of iced lemonade. It was a park: Hyde Park, possibly, or Kensington Gardens, though there seemed to be no trees. Only the wide expanse of green stretching to the horizon.
In the distance he could hear the voices of boys calling back and forth energetically, as if engaged in a game. Matthew began to hurry. It seemed suddenly very important that he catch them before they moved beyond his ability to hear.
He raised his voice to call out to them, but his shout made no sound. The distant laughter sharpened, and something came bouncing across the grass toward him. Matthew bent to retrieve it. It was an old-fashioned sort of children’s ball, rather lumpy from use, with the stitching becoming unpicked on one side.
“That’s mine,” said a boy’s voice.
Matthew looked up, and felt his blood chill. In front of him stood Christopher. A rather younger Christopher Lightwood than he recalled, but utterly familiar, with his brown hair and awkward stance. His sleeves a little too short, and burns on the lapels of his Norfolk jacket. His dark lavender eyes were wide, trusting.
“Kit,” Matthew said softly. The chill in his blood was rapidly sharpening into something more poignant. A sorrow that bit like teeth.
He ached to see Christopher smile, but the other boy was expressionless. He held out his hands, and said, again, “That’s mine. You took it away from me.”
“It’s yours,” Matthew agreed, and tossed the ball carefully. It fell at Christopher’s feet.
Christopher did not bend to pick it up. The wind had picked up with a biting cold and clouds had come to scud across the sun, turning its pale yellow to gray. Christopher did not move, only looked at Matthew across the rapidly darkening space that divided them.
“You left me,” he said. “You all went on without me. You left me here alone.”
“Kit,” Matthew whispered, and held out his hands. He knew he ought to go to Christopher, try to comfort him, but there was something about the other boy that stopped him. Something in his sharp, almost fleshless bones, in the hollow sockets of his eyes, in the nearly lipless grin that spread across his face…
* * *
Matthew sat up with a gasp. The afterimage of the dream still burned in his mind: the long grassy meadow without features, the boy in the grass turning slowly into a skeleton. He kicked his covers back, hunching over, his hands pressed against his stomach, which ached as if he’d been kicked.
He felt as if he might be sick, but knew he wouldn’t be. It wasn’t the first time he’d had the dream. Nor the fourth or fifth. He had it nearly every night, and had since a few weeks after Christopher died. (At first, there had been shock, and terror and danger; there had been no time to properly mourn. But grief could not be skipped over, like the dull part of a play. It rose as shock receded, all the bitterer for being made to wait.)
There was a softwhump, and something landed on his bed. A moment later a warm, furry shape was burrowing into him, and he could hear a worried tail thrashing back and forth.
“Oscar, you twit,” Matthew said, and reached to stroke his dog’s head. Oscar’s tail thumped again, now with pleasure. It didn’t take much to make a dog happy.
One hand on Oscar’s head, Matthew reached over to turn on the bedside lamp, flooding the room with warmyellow light. He glanced around—it was only his second night on theMajestic, and he wasn’t familiar with his cabin yet.
He could have just Portaled from Greece to Constantinople, but this was the last leg of his yearlong journey, and he wanted to do it in style. He’d splurged on a first-class stateroom, which resembled a Parisian hotel room: blue and gold furniture, flocked wallpaper, a marble washstand, a capacious wardrobe, and plush settees for relaxing. Several porthole windows gazed out upon the sea, although when Matthew looked at them now, he could see only darkness spangled with a few dim stars.
“This is it, Oscar,” he said, looking into his companion’s dark brown eyes. “Our final voyage before we meet Cordelia and James. And then, back to England.”
Oscar blinked intelligently.
“Fair point,” said Matthew. “I’m not sure I’m ready to go back to England either.”
Oscar sighed and lay down.
“Travelingistiring,” Matthew agreed. “I can’t argue with that. But when I set out at first, it was to findsomething. And I just can’t say I’m sure I’ve discovered it yet. Not just the thing itself, but what it is I was searching for in the first place.”
Oscar began to snore.
Matthew stifled a laugh. “That is unhelpful, Oscar,” he said. “You know that I do not want to disappoint James by telling him I intend to keep traveling. I know he misses me and—I miss him, but I cannot picture going back to London yet. Not until I have found what I need to find.”
Oscar twitched an ear, but did not otherwise react. With a sigh, Matthew reached over to turn out the light, and though he was afraid sleep would be hard to come by, Oscar’s gentle snoring, coupled with the faint sound of water slapping against the ship’s sides, soon lured him into the dark.
* * *
“And where did you say you were from, Mr. Worthing?”
Matthew set his wineglass down. He hadn’t drunk any of the wine, of course, but he found that simply twirling the stem between his fingers and occasionally gesturing with the glass was enough to fool most people, which avoided annoying questions about why he was abstaining.
