Visioness (23 page)

Adabelle lifted her head,
staring directly into Detective Olin’s eyes.

“I will tell you exactly
what I have said before. I have no idea what my father is planning, or what he
is doing, or how he is going about things. These fires have nothing to do with
me; whether real or invented I cannot say, because I do not know. My father, as
far as I am aware, is trying to get to me. Why he would be doing that, I do not
know, because I am avoiding his presence in the Frequencies. What he has
planned for when he gets to me, I am lost because I am not in cahoots with that
horrible man. I will remind you one last time that he killed Larraine and he
killed my mother, as far as I am aware. Why would I fight on the side of the
man who killed one of the few good things in my life? Lady Morphier, it seems,
is being entirely useless at proving my innocence, for whatever fool reason she
has, so I won’t recommend going to her again.”

Detective Olin took notes
all the while Adabelle spoke. “Is there anything else you wish to say.”

“No,” Adabelle replied,
almost spitting the words out. “Nothing.”

“Very well. You may leave.
Until we see each other again, Adabelle.” He extended his hand.

Adabelle rose from the
chair, glanced at the man’s hand, and then left.

She returned to her bedroom,
shaking and huffing, unable to contain her fury. She threw open the door,
slammed it shut and flopped onto the bed with a loud sigh.

“Meeting with the detective
not go well?” asked Charlotte from her bed.

Adabelle shook her head,
face still planted deep in the pillow.

Adabelle rolled over just
enough to show her face and to have her mouth move. She explained from that
vantage point the discussion she’d had with the detective, focusing in on how
poorly it went. She sighed at the end.

“They think it’s me,” she
said, “and father knows if he can make me weak, I become an easier target.” She
paused, looking away from her sister. “And the evidence is slowly stacking up
against me. If it keeps going like this, I could be before a court within the
month. Father knows how to influence people’s minds, how to control from the
shadows. He made his life out of doing that, and now he’s doing it to hurt me.”

But why?
she added, leaving those
questions for herself and herself alone.

“Anyway,” she went on, “I
have to get ready for work now.” She rose from her bed, sluggish and listless.
“I suppose it’s something to keep my mind off things for a while.”

That evening, Adabelle
brewed a cup of Slugleaf Tea, reminding herself that she’d have to buy some
more soon as the jar was beginning to run low. Charlotte was already asleep, so
Adabelle did much of this by the light of her reading lamp. She poured the cup,
sweetening it with honey, and drank it in one.

She curled up on her bed,
pulled up the covers, and switched off the lamp. There, in the darkness, she stayed
for a time, staring at the wall. Her eyes seemed to adjust to the darkness, as
the room gradually became easier to see.

But that was odd. The walls
were turning ivory, the window nearby shining with a light more brilliant and
white than the sun. Adabelle rolled over in her sheets and found herself in a
realm of stark alabaster.

What am I doing here?
she thought. She clambered
from her bed, staring about herself at the way everything seemed to shine with
a brilliant white glow. It seemed false, dreamlike.

I’m Dreaming,
she thought, suddenly reaching
lucidity.

But how? She had taken her
tea! It was meant to stop her from dreaming. A single mental image kept at bay
by this strange substance. And it had failed.

She pushed herself away from
the Dream world, but couldn’t. Something was stopping her. Something kept her
under.

A scent of cologne wafted
into the space, joined by the gentle tinkle of ivory piano keys. The Dreamer’s
Lullaby sounded gently, almost an ethereal afterthought in this space of light
and white.

And then her father
appeared.

“Hello, Adabelle,” he
whispered.

“Father,” she replied. Now
was not the time for conversation. Now was the time for action, for questions.
“I know you put a mindlock on Charlotte,” she said.

“How did you piece it
together?” he asked.

“Well I was thrown off when
it seemed you didn’t know of any sister when you first met with Larraine and I.
But I visited Lady Morphier and she was able to show me what I needed to know.”
She paused, taking in Count Therron’s concerned gaze. “What is so secret you
had to hide it in your daughter’s mind?”

“If I told you it wouldn’t
be a secret,” Therron replied. “Everyone’s entitled to their privacy.”

“But in your daughter’s own
mind? She can’t dream, now. She can’t think through the seal.”

“But it had to happen, Adabelle.
The alternatives were unthinkable.”

Adabelle closed her eyes,
disbelieving. “What was the alternative!”

“That needn’t concern you,”
he said, angrily, like a harried father more than a furious tyrant. “What
matters is that you and I are here, and we can talk.”

A table appeared, Therron
taking a seat across from Adabelle. He gestured to the seat cordially, a soft
smile playing about his face. Adabelle shifted uncomfortably into the seat
across from her father.

“See, that wasn’t too hard,
was it?”

“What do you want?”

Count Therron looked
entirely shocked. “Can a father not just talk to his daughter?”

“Not you,” she said.
“There’s never
just
a talk.”

Count Therron smiled. “Well
maybe for once there is. I wish to know why you run?”

“I want to know why you’re
after me?” she asked. “Why you killed Larraine…why you’ve sealed my sister,
your
daughter’s
mind.”

“Can a man not desire to see
his family?” he asked. “Can I not request a chance at redemption? At freedom?”

“No,” Adabelle replied. “If
you were seeking freedom and redemption you would have come quietly. You would
have approached me in my dreams as a kindly figure and gradually unveiled
yourself as my father. You wouldn’t have killed Larraine and somehow framed me
for her murder.”

He smiled a sickly grin.
“You’re a smart girl, Adabelle,” Therron said. “You know that? But you’re
passionate and strong, too. You never feel emotion in half-measures. It’s all
or nothing with you.” He laughed quietly. “You got that from your mother. Do
you know it was only after our first meeting she said she loved me? She was so
quick to fall, so quick to make me her everything. You’re the same. You feel
things so wholly they consume you; take up all your thoughts until there is
nothing else there.” A glass of water appeared at the table, and he sipped from
it. “I look at you and I see her.”

Adabelle shivered. “Then why
do you pursue me as you do? What is it about me? Why now?”

“I have been in the Dream
Frequencies for the longest time, Adabelle. Do you know what that does for a
man? I haven’t tasted real water, or eaten real food, or felt real sun on my
face for what seems like an eternity. Time runs different here, Adabelle. In
the time we’ve been talking, seconds have passed in the real world. Or maybe
days. It modulates and changes and we can never be sure. Regardless, it’s been
an eternity for me.”

Adabelle leaned forward in
her chair. “So you want freedom. You want to escape the dream?”

Count Therron nodded slowly.

“No, you don’t. You want
something from me, from my sister. You killed our cousin! There’s more to
this.”

“There really isn’t.” He
seemed almost of the verge of laughter as he shook his head.

“Then go to Lady Morphier if
you seem so set. She seemed completely besotted by you. I’m sure she’ll do
whatever you wish.”

“It cannot be her,” he said,
“it has to be you.”

“Why?”

“It just does.”

“Then tell me, why did you
kill Larraine?” she asked.

Therron paused, expression
shifting momentarily. He seemed annoyed. “She discovered something I didn’t
want her knowing. She had to go.”

“What?” Adabelle asked.

“I can’t tell you.”

“But I’m your key out.”

“Then we are at an impasse.
We can go no further. You have something I need. I have something you need.” He
rose slowly, releasing the glass. It faded into oblivion. “But before I go, I
do have something else I wish to ask.”

“Yes?” asked Adabelle.
“Since you’ve come quietly I will answer a question, within reason.”

He smiled. “That boy you’re
with…Rhene? I’d keep an eye on him. A face like that…I’d hate for something bad
to happen to it.” His smile sharpened. “Think about it. Goodbye.”

And then he was gone.

Adabelle shot up in bed,
soaked in sweat, breathing heavy and ragged.

He knows about Rhene!
she thought.
He isn’t
safe.

It was morning, sun falling
through the window onto the blankets of a sleeping Charlotte. Adabelle glanced
over at her cup of Slugleaf tea—the cup that had failed—and burst from her bed.
She washed her face, dressed into the closest dress she could find, and marched
out into the halls.

She arrived at Berne
Oakley’s office, still bleary eyed and tired. The hour was late in the morning,
so students were up and about, and she was sure she’d find the Professor in his
office.

Sure enough she knocked, and
his balding head appeared.

“Miss Blaise,” he said,
looking surprised. He glanced down at her cup and then up to her face. “You
look…terrible. What’s happened.”

“The tea failed,” Adabelle
said. “It didn’t work. Therron found me in the Dream. He spoke to me. He
knows…things. And he’s out to get me. I need to talk to someone about this.
Lady Morphier, it seems, has taken her side in this war. Now I need to start
making mine. No one’s mind is safe. But I trust you. Can I come in?”

“Of course,” Berne said,
stepping aside to allow her into his messy office.

She took a seat, not waiting
a moment longer to explain everything that had happened. It was nice to offload
to another person, as if by sharing her troubles she was sharing a burden, and
thereby lightening the load they weighed upon her.  She spoke of her
father framing her, of him appearing in her dreams, and also of his knowledge
of Rhene.

“He needs me to get him out
of the Dream,” she said. “He needs me to release him, and only I can do it. He
knows he can’t harm me—of that I’m sure—but he can get to those around me.
That’s why he spoke of Rhene. Charlotte is, thankfully, safe, but I cannot
protect Rhene. He’s just another person out there, yet somehow Therron has
found out about him and has him targeted.” She sighed. “And now the tea isn’t
working.”

“It’s not that it’s not working,”
the professor said. “It’s that you need a higher dose of it now. Your body will
begin to build a resistance to it, like anything. Have an excess and you’ll
only worsen matters. The best thing for you to do right now is to increase the
potency.”

She nodded. “You’re probably
the only person I can ask about this. Why would he need me for
his…task…whatever it is? Why is he trying to scare me into releasing him from
his Dream. I’ve already spoken to Lady Morphier, and I am definitely not a
Sturding. I can’t draw him out. We’d both fall into Oblivion together.”

“Very true, very true,”
Professor Berne replied. “You’re certain you’re not a Sturding?” he asked.
“You’ve never drawn something from a Dream before, not even accidentally. It’s
not unusual to blossom later in life, and you are the daughter of two of the
most powerful Somnetii of all time.”

“Not once ever,” she
replied, taking only a moment to think back. If that had ever happened, she
would have remembered.

“Unless he’s mistaken,”
Berne said, rubbing his chin. “He’s been stuck in the Dream for so long, one
can only assume he might be unaware of certain matters. He might assume that
you are a Sturding like he and your mother were. I’m honestly shocked you
aren’t, but I suppose odder things have happened.”

“This is true,” she replied,
thinking on all of the aspects that made up these actions of her father’s. The
sealing of his sister’s mind, the re-emergence of his presence, the fact that
Lady Morphier was being entirely one-sided in her discussion. Adabelle had
already decided by now that the lady was surely working for Therron, whether
directly or indirectly.

“While I’m here,” Adabelle
continued, “I was just wondering, is it possible to break a mindlock without
the key present?”

“No, sadly,” Berne replied.
“A single mind with a key, and a mind as the seal must be in a close vicinity
to each other in order for a mind to unlock. The key is released without any
control and the mindlock broken.”

“So Therron would have made
sure whoevers mind he placed the key in would not come into contact with
Charlotte too easily.”