Chapter 191: The Dream World
Aveline looked at him for a long moment, and then her expression shifted into something softer and sadder, the smile thinning until it seemed almost transparent.
"Because this is a dream," she said quietly. "You are not real. I am making you up."
Her words struck him with odd force.
Aveline looked down and away, her shoulders tightening just enough to show how much she was trying not to be disappointed.
In her mind, the real Theron would never have said something like that. The real Theron would not have looked at her and called her beautiful so easily. Not in waking life. Not when it mattered. Not when her heart was so foolishly ready to believe him.
And so, she turned away from him again, walking more slowly this time but walking all the same, as though she had already accepted that even this moment would not stay.
Theron stood frozen where he was.
For a moment, he could only stare after her, utterly baffled by the strange ache in his chest and by the even stranger sense that he had just lost something he had only begun to find.
Just what was my relationship with her?
The question rose in him with an intensity that made everything else in the dream feel distant.
He did not know.
He only knew that she mattered too much for someone he supposedly did not know, that her sadness felt too personal to be a stranger’s, and that the more she tried to convince him she had made him up, the more fiercely his heart insisted that she had not.
He hurried after her and caught up in a few quick steps, slipping neatly into her path before she could drift away again.
"Why do you think this is a dream?" he asked, and for the first time there was no playfulness in his tone, only a quiet insistence. "Do you not feel the difference between this dream and your other dreams?"
Aveline frowned slightly, the question catching her off guard. "You think this is not a dream?"
Something in his expression steadied her. She did not know why she trusted him so quickly, only that she did. His certainty reached her in a way that felt strangely natural, as though it were guiding her toward a thought she had already half-formed and never dared to hold.
There were too many things in her life she could not explain. Too many strange threads pulling in different directions. Perhaps there really was another world where this could happen, where she could stand before Theron and talk to him as long as she liked, without waking up before she was ready.
"How are you so sure?" she asked.
Theron’s eyes lit with immediate triumph. "That pill. You talked to me about the pill to shrink Hamilton in the dream, and then I made it in real life. You saw that, did you not?"
Aveline’s eyes widened.
He was making sense.
Too much sense.
A small gasp escaped her before she could stop it. "So you are real?"
Then, with sudden delight, she threw herself at him and hugged him tightly, as though the answer had already been waiting somewhere inside her all along. She buried her face against him for a moment, then pulled back just enough to sniff him with complete seriousness.
"You smell the same too," she said, as if that settled the matter entirely.
Theron stared for a beat, then let out the softest breath of relief. She was truly adorable, almost unbearably so, like a little hare that had just decided the world might not be as frightening as it looked.
He stepped back just enough to give her space, then extended his hand with a flourish that was absurdly princely and entirely deliberate. "Hello," he said, voice warm and formal at once. "I am Prince Vaelor Theron Blackwyre."
He bowed dramatically, though inwardly his heart was pounding so hard he could barely think.
Please, he thought. Tell me your name, little hare.
He had the strange feeling that this might be the only way to coax it from her, the only way that would feel natural to her.
"Nice to meet you here, in Dreamland, gorgeous," he added, still holding out his hand.
Aveline stared at him.
There was something odd about the way he carried himself now. He sounded too refined, too composed, too much like a prince and far less like the strange, infuriating man she had come to know.
And yet, despite that, her heart still gave a small, foolish skip when the wind shifted, and a lock of his hair fell across his forehead. He looked unfairly handsome like that, and she hated herself a little for noticing.
Then she lifted her chin and placed her hand in his with all the grace of a lady raised properly enough to know how to accept an introduction, even when she was about to be terribly smug about it.
"Lady Aveline Willowgrave of Aurelmont," she said, her voice smooth and clear. "Nice to know you, Crown Prince Theron."
Theron looked at her.
And then his lips curved.
Aveline.
Aveline.
Aveline.
The name repeated in his heart over and over, and each time it settled more firmly into place, as though the world itself had finally remembered what had been missing.
It fit her so perfectly it almost hurt. Of course, it did. Of course, that was her name. He could not imagine any other name belonging to her now.
His fingers trembled as he closed them more firmly around hers, trying very hard not to show the depth of his happiness.
Then, with a gentleness that held far more feeling than his face revealed, he asked, "Care for a dance, Lady Aveline?"
She smiled, still unaware of how much that simple offer had already shaken him. "Why, of course, Your Royal Highness."
And so they danced. They danced while talking and laughing.
To Aveline, it was only a dance in a dream with Theron.
To Theron, it was his first dance with a woman.
And not just any woman.
With... His little hare.
With Aveline.
------
Meanwhile, at Aveline’s window, a shadow lingered in the dark.
It did not move at first, only hovered there with quiet stillness, half-hidden against the night as though it had no intention of announcing itself. Hamilton was the first to notice. He peered out from beneath the blanket with one round, wary eye, spotted the shape beyond the glass, and immediately ducked back under the covers.
The shadow slipped inside without a sound.
It crossed to the bed and sat down beside her, the mattress dipping slightly beneath its weight. For a moment, it remained there in silence, looking at the sleeping girl before it with an expression too unreadable to name.
Then, slowly, it lifted a hand and rested it against her forehead.
The touch was gentle.
Almost reverent.
And when it spoke, its voice was low, quiet enough to seem like something meant only for the sleeping room and the breathing girl within it.
"I need to know who you are..."
