The Children of Hypnos

[Vol. 2] Chapter 30: Sorry

When Wes came back to himself, the Witch of the Wood was fleeing to the waking world with Klaus in tow, and Wes couldn't even lurch to his feet before they were gone. He staggered to the center of the room, a terrible hollow space opening up in his chest. The ceiling had frozen in place, no longer churning out nightmares. Emery, Morrigan, and Klaus were all gone. The sounds of combat ceased outside, and then Marcia charged through the door, bloody and bruised but still on her feet.

"Pestilence went to the waking world. What happened?" she asked, but Wes found he could no longer speak.

He opened his gateway, and they left the Dream.

Trevor van der Gelt's house was empty except for a scared Coop, and harsh winter daylight streamed through the windows. Both Van der Gelt and Mr. Lowe must have been out. There, finally free of the castle, Wes held Coop in his lap and explained what had happened, and Marcia listened through all of it. She did not rage, like he expected her to; all her energy seemed to have been used up.

They simultaneously and without speaking aloud decided to return to Fenhallow. With no other means of transportation, they walked. Their feet dragged through the snow. Somehow, the silence of the world under all that white was comforting; it made Wes feel as if nothing more could happen to him, as if life had been put on pause for their long march home. There was nothing waiting for them there but more horror. He didn't know which one of them reached out first, but he and Marcia held hands for most of the walk, both squeezing as hard as they could.

The police found them before they ever reached Fenhallow's gates. They were escorted back to campus, where they were met by the dean and no less than five high-ranking members of the Hypnos State, people whose names and faces Wes didn't care to remember. They found Coop in his bag, but let Wes keep him while he was questioned.

He tried to explain the story, but details slipped from his grasp like water. He remembered the big things—the pile of body parts, Ridley, the witch, Death, Emery—but everything else slid away. When they asked about Ridley, they tried to take her pick hammers, but he wouldn't give them up.

It was Dean Ashworth who convinced the State members to allow Wes to keep them.

"They were his sister's," Aldrich said. "He's the only one who can use them now."

Then Wes sat for a long time in the same room where they had once been tried in front of a jury. That felt like a lifetime ago. His head now swam with the small catches of what he could remember from the Dream, things he knew to be true but now felt only like nightmares. He was no dreamhunter. He couldn't save anyone.

Coop was curled in his lap, asleep. It was the only comfort in the room, the weight of a small thing that still needed him.

When Aldrich Ashworth returned, he was alone. Wes could feel it in his eyes whenever the dean was nearby, that very subtle resonance of a dreamform coming near its dreamer. The dean's face was weary but closed off; he perched on the edge of what had once been the jury box and took his glasses off to clean them.

"Did Moxie and Temper make it back?" Wes asked. Even to himself, his voice sounded dead.

The dean nodded. "They exited the Dream when the castle began to disappear. They're in the sleep clinic infirmary now, recuperating. Mr. Temper lost an arm and part of a foot. Moxie avoided most injuries due to her long range and crowd control abilities. Neither suffered bad poisoning, thankfully."

"That's good."

Dean Ashworth took a hard look at him for several long moments and finally said, "Edgar has come out of his coma."

Wes looked up.

"I just spoke to him," Aldrich continued. "For the first time since Fenhalloween. He's groggy, but awake. It will take time for us to know the ramifications of him killing his doppelgänger so early, and of the blockage Morrigan created in his dreams." He paused, looked down at his hands. "He wants to speak to Emery."