Chapter 26:

26 — Consciousness Refinement

The (Cursed) Potential Witch

I didn't sleep that night.

Not because I couldn't. Because I wouldn't.

I lay in the infirmary bed with my eyes open and my hands folded on my chest and I stared at the ceiling and I counted the cracks in the plaster. There were seventeen. I had counted them three times. I was going to count them a fourth time.

You should sleep.

Felice's voice. In my chest. Quiet.

You need to practice.

I didn't answer.

Clara.

"I heard you."

Then why aren't you sleeping?

"Because I don't trust you."

Good.

I blinked.

You shouldn't trust me. I killed your parents. I consumed people. I tampered with your fox. I framed you for murder. You should never trust me.

"Then why are you telling me to sleep?"

Because I'm not asking you to trust me. I'm asking you to use me.

I stared at the ceiling.

Isabelle said the power lives in dreams. She said you have to train. She said the Kingdom is dreaming itself to death. She said the only way to save it is to learn to hold the dream.

"I know what she said."

Then why are you counting cracks in the ceiling?

I didn't answer.

You're scared.

"Yes."

Of what?

"Of becoming you."

Silence.

For a long time.

Then:

That's the smartest thing you've said since I met you.

* * *

Isabelle came at dawn.

She didn't knock. She just opened the door and walked in and looked at me the way she looked at everything — like a problem she was trying to solve.

"You didn't sleep."

"No."

"Why?"

"I was thinking."

"You were spiraling."

"Same thing."

She pulled a chair to the side of the bed and sat down. She took out the notebook. The yellowed one. The one with the diagrams and the cramped handwriting and the names.

"The Kingdom is dreaming," she said. "Not metaphorically. Not poetically. Every citizen. The same nightmare. The same fire. The same church. The same silence. People are waking up screaming. People are collapsing in the streets. The hospitals are full. The Church is calling it a plague. The Kingdom is calling it a curse."

"How long has it been happening?"

"Three days."

"Since Felice died."

"Since you displaced her. She was the one holding the dream. She was the one keeping the nightmares contained. Without her, the dream is leaking."

"And I'm supposed to hold it."

"You're supposed to be the new container."

I stared at her.

"The Sleepwalker is not a killer. The Sleepwalker is a vessel. It holds the dreams of the Kingdom so the Kingdom doesn't have to. Dream was one of the Four. Dream was the one who held the nightmares. Dream was the one who kept the Apocalypse contained."

"The Apocalypse."

"Not a monster. Not an event. A condition. It's what happens when the dreams of a nation become unbearable. It's what happens when the truth a Kingdom buried becomes too heavy to carry. It's what happens when the nightmares stop being nightmares and start being real."

I sat up.

"So the Apocalypse is the Kingdom dreaming itself to death."

"Yes."

"And the only way to stop it is for me to dream instead."

"Yes."

"And if I sleep, I might not wake up."

"You will wake up."

"You don't know that."

"No. I don't."

She closed the notebook.

"That's why we're going to train."

* * *

She made me lie back down.

She put her hand on my forehead. Her palm was cool. Not cold. Cool. Like the inside of a stone that had been sitting in the shade.

"The dream is not a place," she said. "The dream is a mind. Your mind. Felice's mind. The Kingdom's mind. All of them overlapping. All of them touching. When you sleep, you enter the overlap. When you wake, you leave it."

"I know."

"You don't know. You've been in the dream twice and both times you were reacting. You weren't in control. You were being pushed around by whatever was there."

"Felice was there."

"Felice was waiting. She was waiting for you to arrive. She was waiting for you to react. She was waiting for you to do what she wanted you to do."

"And now?"

"Now you go in on your own terms."

She took her hand away.

"Close your eyes."

I closed them.

"Breathe."

I breathed.

"Don't fall asleep yet. Just breathe. Feel your body. Feel the bed. Feel the sheets. Feel the weight of your own arms."

I felt them.

"Now imagine a door."

I imagined a door.

"What does it look like?"

"Old. Wooden. Iron hinges."

"Where is it?"

"In the infirmary. At the end of the hall."

"Open it."

I opened it.

"Step through."

I stepped through.

And nothing happened.

* * *

I opened my eyes.

Isabelle was still sitting there.

"What happened?"

"Nothing."

"Exactly."

She wrote something in the notebook.

"You're trying to force it. You're trying to make the dream happen. That's not how it works. The dream doesn't respond to force. It responds to permission."

"I don't understand."

"I know. That's why we're going to try again."

* * *

We tried again.

And again.

Day one was a failure. Every attempt ended the same way: I imagined the door, I opened it, I stepped through, and nothing happened. No dream. No courtyard. No Felice. Just the inside of my own eyelids and the sound of Isabelle's pen scratching against paper.

By the evening, I was exhausted. Not physically. Mentally. The kind of exhaustion that comes from trying to do something you don't understand and failing at it over and over.

"You're trying too hard," Isabelle said.

"I know."

"You're still trying too hard."

"I know."

"Then stop."

"I can't just stop."

"Yes you can. It's the easiest thing in the world. You just have to let go."

"I don't know how."

"Then we'll try again tomorrow."

---

Day two was worse.

I made it through the door on the fourth attempt. I felt the dream starting to form — the edges of the courtyard, the color of the sky, the weight of the air. And then it collapsed. Just collapsed. Like a building that had been built on sand.

I woke up with a nosebleed and a headache and a taste in my mouth like I had been chewing on coins.

"What happened?" Isabelle asked.

"I almost had it."

"You had it for half a second."

"That's better than nothing."

"Barely."

She handed me a cloth for my nose.

"The dream doesn't like being forced. Every time you push, it pushes back. Every time you grab, it slips away. You have to invite it."

"How do I invite a dream?"

"By wanting it."

"I do want it."

"No. You want to save the Kingdom. You want to stop the Apocalypse. You want to prove you're not a failure. But you don't want the dream. You're still afraid of it."

I didn't answer.

"Until you want the dream for its own sake — until you want to be in it, not just use it — you're never going to hold it."

* * *

Day three was the first sign of progress.

I made it through the door on the first attempt. The courtyard formed around me — the stone paths, the flower beds, the banners, the stage. It held for three seconds. Then it dissolved.

But it held.

For three seconds.

I woke up with a nosebleed and a smile.

"Three seconds," Isabelle said.

"Three seconds."

"That's progress."

"That's barely anything."

"It's three seconds more than yesterday."

She wrote it down.

"Tomorrow we'll try for five."

---

Day four was when I tried the spells.

I don't know why I tried them. Instinct, maybe. Or habit. I had spent a year studying magic I couldn't cast. I had memorized every incantation in the standard curriculum. I had practiced them in my dorm room until my throat was raw. And when I entered the dream, some part of me reached for them automatically.

Familienähnlichkeit.

Ad Memoriam.

Aperi.

Revela.

Nothing happened.

The words came out of my mouth, and the dream didn't respond, and the courtyard stayed exactly as it was.

I tried again.

Lebensform.

Ad Intelligentia.

Aperi.

Communica.

Nothing.

I tried Lily's spell.

Rota. Aqua, fer!

Nothing.

I tried Lara's spell.

Luft… der Donner.

Movere…

Ducite animas ad Infernum!

Nothing.

The dream didn't care about my words. The dream didn't care about my memorization. The dream didn't care about the year I had spent learning a language that had been designed to shape reality.

Of course it doesn't work.

Felice's voice.

The dream doesn't obey language. The dream obeys intention.

"What does that mean?"

It means the words are scaffolding. They're useful in the waking world because they help you focus. They give your cognition a shape. But in the dream, there's nothing to focus on. The dream is already inside you. The words are just noise.

"So I should stop using them?"

No. You should stop needing them.

---

Day five was when I understood.

I stopped trying to cast. I stopped trying to shape the dream with words. I just stood in the courtyard and let it be.

The stone paths stayed. The flower beds stayed. The banners stayed. The stage stayed.

And then I let go.

Not of the dream. Of myself. Of the edges I had been holding. Of the need to be Clara, and only Clara.

The courtyard dissolved.

The stage dissolved.

And I was the dream.

Not in it. Of it. I was the stone paths and the flower beds and the banners and the stage. I was the students in their dorms and the professors in their offices and the cooks in the kitchen and the guards at the gates. I was the Church and the academy and the Kingdom and the fields and the mountains and the sea.

I was everyone.

I was no one.

I was Clara.

I was Dream.

And for the first time in a year, I wasn't afraid.

Three seconds.

Five seconds.

Ten seconds.

I held it.

And then I let go.

* * *

I woke up in the infirmary.

It was evening. The light through the window was orange. Lily was asleep in the chair beside me. Myra was curled up on the windowsill.

My nose was bleeding. My head was pounding. My hands were shaking.

But I was smiling.

Isabelle was standing at the foot of the bed.

"You did it," she said.

"How long?"

"Twelve seconds."

"That's not long enough."

"No. But it's longer than yesterday."

She wrote something in the notebook.

"Tomorrow we'll try for twenty."

* * *

Day six was the day the Kingdom started to notice.

Lily told me. She had been in the courtyard when it happened. A group of students had collapsed. Not fainted. Collapsed. One moment they were walking to class. The next they were on the ground, screaming, clutching their heads.

"They're saying it's a curse," Lily said. "They're saying the Church is investigating. They're saying it's connected to the massacre."

"It's not a curse."

"I know. But they don't."

She looked at me.

"How long do we have?"

"I don't know."

"How long until you can hold it?"

"I don't know that either."

She took my hand.

"You're bleeding."

I touched my lip. My fingers came back red.

"I know."

"Does it hurt?"

"Everything hurts."

"Then stop."

"I can't."

"I know."

* * *

Day seven was the day I stopped counting.

I didn't count the seconds anymore. I didn't count the nosebleeds. I didn't count the cracks in the ceiling. I just slept, and woke, and slept again.

Felice was there every time.

She didn't teach me anymore. She just watched. Sometimes she walked beside me through the dream. Sometimes she sat on the edge of the stage and waited. Sometimes she was the courtyard itself, and I could feel her in the stone paths and the flower beds and the banners.

You're getting better.

"I know."

You're almost ready.

"I know."

When you're ready, you won't need me anymore.

I didn't answer.

When you're ready, you'll be able to hold the dream alone.

"I know."

When you're ready, you'll wake up and the Kingdom will be saved and everything will be different.

"And you'll be gone."

She didn't answer.

Yes.

"Where will you go?"

Nowhere. I'll still be here. In the dream. In you. But I won't be a voice anymore. I'll just be a memory.

"A memory of what?"

A memory of a woman who killed your parents and taught you how to sleep.

"That's not a good memory."

No. It's not.

She stood up.

But it's the only one you'll have.

* * *

I woke up on the morning of the eighth day.

The sun was coming through the window. Lily was asleep in the chair. Myra was curled up on the windowsill.

My nose was bleeding. My head was pounding. My hands were shaking.

But I felt something I hadn't felt in a long time.

Ready.

Isabelle was standing at the foot of the bed.

"Twenty seconds yesterday," she said. "Forty the day before. Today we try for a minute."

"No."

She looked at me.

"No?"

"I'm done training."

"Clara—"

"I'm ready."

"You're not ready. You've held the dream for a minute at most. The Kingdom needs someone who can hold it for hours."

"Then I'll learn in the dream."

"That's not how it works."

"It's how it has to work."

I sat up.

"The Kingdom is dying. People are collapsing. The Church is calling it a curse. The Council is calling it a plague. And the only person who can stop it is me."

I looked at her.

"I'm not going to wait until I'm ready. I'm going to go now."

Isabelle stared at me for a long time.

Then she closed the notebook.

"You're going to die."

"Maybe."

"You're going to die, and the Kingdom is going to die with you."

"Maybe."

"You're not ready."

"I know."

She sighed.

"Fine. But you're doing it my way."

"Your way?"

"You're going to sleep. You're going to enter the dream. And you're going to hold it for as long as you can. And when you can't hold it anymore, you're going to wake up. And we're going to try again tomorrow."

"No."

"Clara—"

"I'm not waking up until it's done."

"That could be days. Weeks. You could starve."

"Then I'll starve."

"You could die."

"Then I'll die."

She stared at me.

"You're insane."

"Probably."

"You're the most stubborn person I've ever met."

"Probably."