Roman stiffened. He could still feel his own nightmare shadowing him, and he drank a sip of milk, trying to chase away that hint of pond water and anguish.
“When we were young, our powers seemed harmless amongst our own kind and we never worried about them being stolen from us,” Dacre continued. “For gods rarely need sleep, and our bodies can heal themselves. What good are healing and dreams amongst divinity? But it was a much different story when it came to mortal kind. You bleed and break. You crave sleep, even as it makes you vulnerable. You dream to make sense of the world you are in.”
“Is that all it was, then?” Roman asked. “My dream of Del?”
Dacre sighed and leaned closer. “I will tell you what Alva told me long ago. For she has walked many mortal dreams. Sometimes your kind dreams of things you wish had happened. The images are wrapped up in your present emotions, or the troubles you are currently facing. Your envisioning of a little sister is a simple expression of how much you long for family, to be known. But that’s all it is: just a dream.”
Roman swallowed. The god’s words, although kindly spoken, landed like darts.
“You disagree?” Dacre said.
“The dream,” Roman said, but his voice was faint. “It felt real. I saw the house I grew up in. I saw my father, my mother. Heard their voices. Walked through my old room. All the details … I just don’t see how I could make them up.”
“Do you want it to be real?” Dacre countered. “Would it make you feel better about yourself to know you had a sister, but that it was your fault she drowned?”
Roman couldn’t speak. The lump returned to his throat; it tasted sour like guilt, catching his breaths.
“Roman?”
“I’m not sure,” he whispered, clenching his eyes closed.
“Perhaps I should ask you this. Even if the dream was real, which I believe it wasn’t, do we live by our past, or do we live by what is to come? Do we choose to waste time looking behind to things that have already happened and cannot be changed, or do we keep our sight forward on what we can see?”
Roman’s eyes opened. He focused on the candlelight, the glass of milk before him. The shadow of a god, cast over the table. “Forward, sir.”
“Good lad.” Dacre reached for a piece of paper in the stack at his elbow. It looked like a typed missive, crinkled and bloodstained. It took Roman a second to realize that he was being dismissed. “If you have any other dreams, I’d like to hear them, Roman.”
“Yes. Of course, sir.” Roman stood and finished his milk, setting the glass in the sink. But he stopped at the table once more, reaching for the newspaper. “May I keep this?”
“If you want it, it is yours. But I do hope your next article will be ready in the morning?”
Roman tucked the Oath Gazette beneath his arm. “I’m afraid I might need a little more time.”
Dacre was quiet. The firelight flickered across his face, turning his hair a dark shade of gold. “Tomorrow, then. Have it ready for me to review by sundown.”
“Thank you, sir.” Roman began to leave but paused on the kitchen threshold to glance behind him. A god sitting at a table, sipping ale, reading a blood-splattered page. This honestly felt more like a dream than the one about Del.
Dacre felt the draw of Roman’s stare and glanced up. “Is there something else?”
“No.” Roman gave a hint of a smile. “Thank you for the milk, sir.”
* * *
It didn’t hit Roman until a few minutes later, when he was back in the safety of his room. He lit a candle and sat at his desk again, studying his headline in the Oath Gazette.
Roman C. Kitt.
He had remembered his first and last name days ago, but his middle initial? He hadn’t included it in his typed article. He hadn’t known his middle name at the time. Someone else had added that C. to his byline, whether it was Dacre or a newspaper employee. Someone else. Roman felt tension coil in his stomach until he heard Del’s sweet voice echo through him.
This way, Carver.
Slowly, his hands found their place on the typewriter keys.
Once more, he tried to type for Dacre. The article he wanted Roman to spin about his healing mercies and powers. And once again, different words flowed out.
My name is Roman Carver Kitt, and this is a dead man’s story.
{7}
Every Lost Letter
Iris crouched in the boughs of an oak tree, waiting for Attie. It was one in the morning, and a cool mist spun through the night, turning the lamplights below into hazy rings of amber. The city felt strangely quiet, although if Iris held her breath, she could hear faint conversation spilling from a pub a few streets over, and the occasional clop of horses’ hooves as constables rode their sleepy rounds.
She carefully shifted her weight to keep her feet from going numb, mindful of the leather bag she carried on her back. The tree bark was slick from the mist, and Iris had just discovered she wasn’t keen on heights, or scaling trees in the dark. But this was the only way to gain access to the museum without setting off the alarm. Or so Sarah Prindle had said, and she had taken two full days to come up with a watertight plan.
Iris frowned and felt the mask stick to her face. She resisted the temptation to scratch her nose through the damp fabric and sighed.
She had been waiting in this oak tree, staring at the back wall of the museum and its third story window, for what felt like an hour now. Sarah and Attie had been waiting for much longer within, entering the museum as unassuming visitors and then concealing themselves in the lavatory before the doors magically locked at dusk. There they would hide until midnight, when the two of them would catch the night guard by surprise on his security rounds. Only then would Attie be able to open the window for Iris to climb through.
“The museum is an enchanted building,” Sarah had said at breakfast that morning, when the three girls had gathered to solidify their plan. “Once the doors are locked and bolted at nightfall, there is no opening them without setting off a horrendous alarm.”
“So how do we do this?” Iris set down her toast, stomach churning. “Is it even possible?”
“It’s possible, thanks to a window that was added to the third floor a few decades ago,” Sarah explained. “One of the museum’s best-kept secrets is that that window isn’t enchanted like the original windows and doors are. As long as we don’t trigger the alarm, it will be our way out.”
“How did you discover this, Prindle?” Attie asked.
“My father knows one of the guards,” Sarah replied with a shrug. “They’ve been friends since childhood. And men like to talk when they get drunk.”
“Is this particular guard going to be on watch tonight?” Iris said.
“No.” Sarah smiled, wrapping her fingers around her teacup. “Grantford is on duty tonight, and he’s renowned for his laziness. It’ll be perfect.”