Chapter 15
Chapter
Fifteen
It’s about fifteen minutes from Chase’s apartment to the Science Center if you walk like a normal person, but I’m hoping it’s doable in ten for a girl who slept later than she meant to and is now powering across campus in yesterday’s clothes with no makeup, no fresh underwear, and exactly the same hair she had last night—only slightly brushed out to remedy Sex Hair.
It’s not that Chase didn’t try to wake me up. He did. But I told him I didn’t have a morning class, and he was naive enough to believe me.
So now I’m running, our quick kiss goodbye still lingering on my lips, and my hand clutching a notebook and pen Chase gave me because I don’t have any of my school stuff with me.
I’d thanked him, then taken off running. That kiss is now six minutes behind me, and Valdez will be starting class in five. In other words, I need to haul ass.
I jog faster, wishing I could text and run at the same time so I can clue Tia in on my whereabouts.
She probably tracked my phone—we set that up a while back—but our deal is that we call if we’re staying out all night so the other doesn’t worry.
And so that we can do the girly sharing thing if sex might be on the table.
That call is going to have to wait. She’ll forgive me, though. If I’ve learned anything about Tia, it’s that she’s incapable of staying mad about a sex thing. Unless it’s a stupid, idiotic sex thing, but I’m clear there. Chase has the Tia Seal of Approval.
I make it to the Science Center with about ninety seconds to spare, then get stalled by the flood of students moving down the stairs that I’m trying to climb.
I squeeze past two girls discussing their Friday plans and a guy with an enormous coffee.
I manage to duck into Professor Valdez’s classroom just as Steve, her TA, is finishing handing out Pop Quiz packets.
Steve shoves one into my hand right before I slide into my chair. Great.
At the front of the room, Valdez glances at me. Then at the clock. Then at me. “Good morning, Miss Lyte.”
“Morning,” I say, in the voice of a girl who is absolutely on top of things.
“Class, you may begin.”
I break the seal and turn to the first page.
And it goes downhill from there. Seriously, the test is a disaster.
And not the kind where the answer is on the tip of my tongue, and I’ll find it before time’s up.
No, this is the kind of disaster where weeks of schooling have been erased from my brain because all that information got replaced with stuff I saw or learned in a Nightmare Realm.
Which, okay, really isn’t true. But can I really be blamed for not reading the textbook? It’s not as if UPS could have delivered it to Adric’s castle.
Distinguish between NREM parasomnias and REM parasomnias, including which sleep stage each occurs in and the typical age of onset for each.
I should know that.
I mean, I really, really should know that. Two weeks ago, I probably could have answered that question in my sleep. Pun intended. Now my brain is full of dragons and golden-eyed Hunters and silver-eyed kings, and there’s just no room for normal school stuff.
I write something. I don’t know what. I hope it’s in English.
I move to question two. Define hypnagogic and hypnopompic hallucinations.
I stare at it. The words make sense individually. As a sentence, they do not compute.
I tap my pencil for what feels like a year, and then have that beautiful eureka moment. I write, Hypnagogic hallucinations are vivid sensory experiences that occur while falling asleep.
And that’s as good as it gets. For the next forty-five minutes, all I manage to do is fill the pages with words, and I have a hard enough time conjuring those. Maybe I got something right. Maybe. But I’m not holding my breath.
Maybe Adric can give me a note. A note from a king must be worth something.
Valdez collects the tests one by one as the period winds down. When she gets to me, she takes my packet without comment and continues up the row.
When the bell rings, I gather my things and am two steps from freedom when Valdez says, “Miss Lyte. A moment.”
I try to melt into the floor. I fail.
So, yeah. I turn around.
She’s standing at her desk, a test packet in her hand. The other students are filing out around me, and within thirty seconds, it’s just the two of us in the room and the air conditioner ticking on like it always does.
I cross to her desk and see that it’s my test packet she’s holding.
Not really a big surprise…
She studies me over her reading glasses, and I smile politely, but study her right back. I’m guessing mid-fifties, petite, with dark hair streaked with gray, and a quiet authority that she displays regularly in class.
Uncle Finn steered me into this upper-level class as a freshman. Now, I’m thinking that wasn’t such a great idea. Best to just take the easy A classes when your nights are filled with dodging dragons in dreams.
“Not your best work,” she says.
“No, ma’am.”
“You missed last Tuesday’s class.”
“I had a family thing.”
“And the Thursday class.”
“Also, family.” As I volley the lie, I remember how well she knows Uncle Finn. Which means she also knows that he’s my only family. So maybe it wasn’t a lie. I was with him, wasn’t I? Just not in this realm.
“And the Tuesday before that.”
I give up and simply shrug.
She removes her glasses. Folds them. Sets them on the desk. The motions are so precise they make me feel like a mess by comparison. Which, of course, I am.
“Miss Lyte,” she says. “I’d like to offer you a do-over. The same material. Different questions.”
“A do-over?”
“A make-up examination.”
“Professors don’t do that.”
“This one does. Occasionally.”
“Oh.” I frown. “Why?”
She laughs. “Most students take the opportunity and run.”
“I guess most students are smarter than me. That definitely would have been the way to go. So, um, yes, please. I’d love a do-over.”
She nods. I think it’s to hide the hint of a smile.
“As to your question, I believe in giving students the opportunity to demonstrate what they actually know.” A small pause. “Sometimes knowledge gets hidden beneath life’s messiness.”
“Right. Yes. Messy.” I clear my throat. “Thank you. Really.”
“My office hours are Tuesdays and Thursdays. Two to four. The do-over can be at any of those times that work for you.”
“Okay.”
“Miss Lyte?”
“Yes?”
She tilts her head. “Your uncle and I have known each other for many years. Is he well?”
“Oh,” I say, scrambling for a lie, but all that pops into my head is Kali’s smug smile as she tells me he’s fine. “There was a crisis with a close friend of my mom’s. He left to help her.”
“Well, that makes sense. He loved your mother very much.”
I’m not sure what to say to that, so I say nothing.
In the silence, she adds, “He consulted me about her, once. Cassie, I mean.”
My stomach drops to about Australia. “About her dreams?”
“Her sleep issues, yes.” She leans forward in her chair, her elbows on her desk, and her chin tilted up so that our eyes meet.
“There wasn’t much I could do for her. Back then, literature on the subject was quite limited.
But I made it clear to your uncle that if he ever needed to speak to me again, about anything in the same neighborhood, my door was open. ”
She smiles, and the hardened professor disappears, replaced by an almost grandmotherly vibe.
“I’m very glad you’re in my class, Cora.
I think you have real potential. So does your uncle.
When he asked if I would accept you even though this isn’t a freshman class, he told me you were a thoughtful young woman who would benefit from a course in abnormal psychology.
I think he was right. You are a unique young woman. ”
I stand completely still, wondering if I’m hearing what I think I’m hearing—that this woman has just told me she suspects what I am without using a single word that would let me confirm it or deny it.
And I have no idea if she’s Team Cora or Team Kali. For all I know, she’s Team Valdez, and who the hell knows what that means? Still, I won’t know until I know. So I draw a breath of air and pretend it’s courage.
“If I came to your office hours once in a while, could we talk about dreams and sleep things? It’s, uh, well, a special interest of mine.”
She picks up her glasses, then slides them back on. A single moment passes, then she smiles. “Miss Lyte,” she says, “my door is always open.”
I nod. Then leave. And I get all the way to the bottom of the stairs before I collapse onto the stone bench.
Uncle Finn wanted me in her class for a reason.
And unless I’m really reading things wrong, she knew about Mom and figured me out on her own. But Finn only ever thought Mom and I had a sleep disorder. So what does Valdez know? And how?
I grimace as I think about that—and about Finn, who still doesn’t have a clue that it’s not a sleep disorder, even as he’s living in the middle of the Nightmare Realm.
I shift my bag on my shoulder and pull out my phone. Tia answers on the second ring.
“Where are you?”
“On the bench outside the Science Center. Why?”
“Hold on. I’m walking.”
“No, listen—I need food. And coffee. And to bitch about a quiz that I just face-planted.”
“Coffee bar by Whitehall in five.”
“Make it ten.”
“Done,” she says as I jump up and head that direction, hoping the line won’t be crazy, as I need caffeine. And then—when I arrive at the mid-morning lull—I say a silent thank you to the coffee gods.
I get my order—lattes for both me and Tia, plus a croissant to share—and settle in at one of the little tables by the flower garden. Tia arrives a few minutes later, looking annoyingly put-together.
“Someone didn’t get enough sleep last night,” she says. “I’m hoping it was for a fun reason and not studying.”
“Very, very fun,” I say. “And don’t you dare ask for more deets or else I’ll totally bail on telling you about the new stuff that popped onto my Bingo card this morning."
She leans forward. "Tell."