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office for the afternoon, tending to
cleaning supply accounts. She knocked on the open door of the small office.
Mrs. Abeth looked up from her papers.
    Mrs. Abeth was the closes
Adabelle had to a mother. Despite her light skin, and pale brown hair, she
spoke with a rich voice that reminded her distantly of her mother’s. Something
about its depth and rough timbre from years of use gave it an old and friendly
warmth. She had sweet brown eyes, and always walked about with an easy air a
head housekeeper may not normally have.
    “Adabelle,” Mrs. Abeth said,
“did you manage to visit your cousin?” Her head tilted to the side, sympathy in
her eyes.
    “I did,” she replied. “She’s
doing fine. Much better than I thought she would be.”
    “And she spoke to you
about…everything?” Mrs. Abeth’s face darkened with the implication of her
words.
    Adabelle stepped deeper into
the room, closing the door behind her. Once the catch clicked, she said,
“That’s actually what I wanted to talk with you about.” She pointed at the
small chair. “Do you mind?”
    “Not at all,” Mrs. Abeth
replied. “I’d imagine that you’d want to take a seat after the news.”
    “I do.” The seat was
something welcome, a nice moment to feel at ease after following the woman
around the University all afternoon. Something discomforted her about it too.
It was like, while resting, she was placing herself in danger of her father. So
long as she rested, she couldn’t be at peace.
    “I’m sorry that I could not
tell you personally,” said Mrs. Abeth, “but I thought Larraine might be better
suited to giving you that. She’d be able to break it to you, more…err…kindly.”
    There were only so many
ways, she supposed, to be informed that your life was in mortal peril.
    “Well thank you for
considering that.” She didn’t mean to sound sarcastic.
    “Now, as I’m sure Larraine
said, there’s no guarantee. I think it’s possible he’s escaped. My suggestion
would be a visit to the Oen’Aerei, were it not for the fact that you fear them
so much.” Apparently her fear of those great white-walled halls was public
knowledge.
    “I’m not scared of them,”
Adabelle retorted. “I just…don’t like them very much.”
    “You’re scared. You know it.”
That tone reminded her of her mother, a distant, fading memory now.
    She was, in all honesty,
quite terrified. She had never liked the Oen’Aerei building itself, for it was
an imposing stone structure, filled with people like her with the power to
enter dreams. They had entirely too much influence on the city, and were too
powerful for her liking. There were Oen’Aerei in the council building, in the
Seat of Parliament, in government espionage jobs.
    And her father had been
Oen’Aerei. Who was to say, if he had indeed returned, that he wasn’t waiting
for her, expecting that to be her first move?
    The thought gave her chills.
    “I don’t know what to do,
really,” she said, folding her arms in her lap. She reflexively grabbed for her
handkerchief, thinking she might need it at some point soon. “I can’t go to the
Oen’Aerei, as they sided with him when my mother was on the run. It might have
only been some rebel Oen’Aerei, but they assisted nonetheless. Only after he
had been sealed away, too did they amend their intentions. I can’t go to
Larraine, because she’s far too shaken and I don’t want her having to deal with
these types of things. And everyone else is at just as much risk of being affected
by him. The only person who’s even slightly safe is Charlotte, and that’s only
because she can’t dream. The moment he reveals himself in the real world—if he
can…I don’t know, and that’s what’s scary—even she isn’t safe.”
    Mrs. Abeth bit her lip,
pulling her reading glasses off and resting them on the table next to her
teacup. “I wish I could do more, I really do. Maybe speak to one of the
professors. I’m sure Professor Oakley would be