The Children of Hypnos

[Vol. 3] Chapter 9: Pinkney

Fenhallow's old world of classes, exams, lunch periods, and student heirarchy was gone. In its place had grown a vital system of intelligence, data-gathering, and hunter deployment. Its position in the city made it the ideal place for quick dispatch of hunters to rifts between the waking world and the Dream where nightmares slipped through, growing more numerous day by day as Klaus and the witch weakened the veil. The Sleeping City had its hotspots like any other urban area, but now the entire downtown and much of its surrounding suburbs pulsed with the breath of the Dream, inhaling fear and anxiety and exhaling nightmares.

Fenhallow's upperclass dreamhunters had been temporarily promoted to full-time service. Day students were exempt from classes and participated in "internships" where they filled posts or acted as assistants to full-time employees in their concentration, be it clean-up crews, the research division, medical, or administration. Younger students, including dreamhunters who hadn't yet formed their weapons and armor, continued classes in abbreviated format, their content slashed from semesters of history and theory to more practical, immediate-use information that would allow them to quickly step into positions to help if necessary in the future. No one knew how long this would go on, but it seemed to Emery that the new governing hands behind Fenhallow were plotting a course for the long haul.

And how could they not? Even after Klaus was gone, the effect he'd had on the city wouldn't disappear. People would still be afraid, paranoid, angry. The rift between the waking world and the Dream would still exist.

After her first day back, Emery didn't wander much farther than the front walk of the Asha Gilani Sleep Research Center. She was allowed to go wherever she wanted—"I don't have the time or energy to stop you, to be honest," Lana had said when Emery had returned from Trevor's—but staying at the research center gave her access to news from the outside, a barometer for the wellbeing and thoughts of campus, and kept her close to Edgar.

"I am fine, really," he said, the fourth time in as many hours, as they ate dinner together at a small table in the center's lobby. Dinners were sparse, a pork chop and some asparagus, but that was fine with Emery; she hadn't felt hungry since she'd returned from the Dream. Edgar hadn't touched his at all. "I guess I'm just tired. Growing up this quick takes it out of you."

Emery didn't completely believe that. She could feel the Dream surrounding him like any dreamkiller, because he was one, and dreamkillers didn't get tired. Maybe it was different for him because killing his unformed doppelgänger was unlike any other dreamkiller's experience, but he didn't seem tired, and it wasn't why Emery had asked him if he was okay.

"You keep staring at the door like you're waiting for someone to come through it," she said. "Am I missing something?"

"No, not at all. I'm sorry, I didn't realize I was doing that. I'll stop."

Lie. He had realized he was doing it. He may have looked older, but he still had his tells, and Edgar averted his eyes when he lied. He'd gone to the asparagus on his plate, suddenly engrossed in cutting it to pieces with his fork. The tendons in his long, bony hands flexed in very normal ways that Emery hated. She hated that he had a man's knuckles, a man's fingernails. A man's dark, thick hair coating his forearm. A rope of unease squeezed her insides every time she looked at him.

"Edgar," she said. He looked up, his smoky blue eyes a match for hers, his black curls swept cutely across his forehead. When he looked at her like that, she could still see the eleven-year-old in him. He and Lana and everyone else claimed he'd mentally aged after he'd physically aged, but Emery knew better.

Fear and trauma had aged him, not some Dream mumbo-jumbo with his doppelgänger's death. He acted older because it was no longer safe to be a child. But he couldn't pretend with her.