Dirk glanced about with him. “Perhaps they are simply very tired,” the cat suggested amiably.
Ben gave him a hard look. “What did you do — employ a bit of magic? Fairy magic? As Questor did with me? You did, didn’t you?”
“A bit.”
“But why? I mean, why bother?”
Dirk rose, stretched, and jumped down next to Ben, pointedly ignoring him. He began to wash himself and continued to do so until he had cleaned himself thoroughly, fur carefully ruffled and smoothed back in place again.
Then he faced Ben, emerald eyes gleaming in the faint dawn light. “The problem is, you do not listen. I tell you everything you need to know, but you do not seem to hear any of it. It really is distressing.” He sighed deeply. “I let your companions sleep to demonstrate to you one final lesson about dreams. So much of your understanding of what has happened depends on your understanding of how dreams work. Watch, now, what occurs when your friends awake. And try to pay attention this time, will you? My patience wears exceedingly thin.”
Ben grimaced. Edgewood Dirk settled back on his haunches. Together they waited for something to happen. After a moment, Questor Thews stirred, then Abernathy, and finally the gnomes. One by one, they blinked the sleep from their eyes and sat up.
Then they saw Ben, and more especially, Dirk.
“Ah, good morning. High Lord. Good morning. Dirk,” Questor greeted brightly. “Slept well the both of you, I hope?”
Abernathy muttered something about all cats being night creatures and not needing sleep anyway, even prism cats, and how it was a waste of time to worry about any of them.
Fillip and Sot eyed Dirk as they would a long-awaited dinner and showed not the slightest trace of fear.
Ben stared in bewilderment, the conversation continuing on about him as if the cat’s presence were perfectly normal. No one seemed surprised that the cat was there. Questor and Abernathy were behaving as if his appearance was entirely expected. The gnomes were behaving the way they had at their first encounter with Dirk; neither seemed to remember what their eagerness to make Dirk a meal had cost them.
Ben listened a moment as the others talked and bustled about, then glanced in confusion at the cat. “What…?”
“Their dreams, High Lord,” Dirk whispered, interrupting. “I let them discover me in their dreams. I was real to them there, so I am real to them here. Don’t you see? Truth is sometimes simply what we perceive it to be — in waking or in dreams.”
Ben didn’t see. He had paid close attention, he had listened as instructed, and he still didn’t see. What was the point of all this and what did it have to do with him?
But there was no more time to consider the matter. A shout from Abernathy — or rather a sort of bark — captured the attention of all. The boughs at the edge of the grove of fir parted and who should appear but Parsnip. Bunion had him in tow, both of them soaked through by the storm, both grimacing ear to ear those wicked, toothy grins. Ben froze. Parsnip was supposed to be guarding Willow! Shaking off his paralysis, he hastened forward with Questor and Abernathy to greet the wiry little creatures, stopped short at the hard, suspicious look directed at him by Parsnip — who, after all, had no idea yet who he was — and finally backed off a step at Questor’s urging. Questor and Bunion conversed briefly back and forth in the rough, guttural language of the kobolds with occasional interjections by Parsnip, and then Questor turned hurriedly to Ben.
“Parsnip has kept watch over Willow since she left Sterling Silver, High Lord — just as you commanded — until yesterday. She dismissed him without reason. When he wouldn’t leave her, she used the fairy magic and slipped away. Even a kobold can’t stay with a sylph when she doesn’t wish it. She has the golden bridle, and… and she searches for the black unicorn.” He shook his owlish features at the look on Ben’s face and tugged worriedly at his white beard. “I know. I don’t understand this last either, High Lord, and neither does Parsnip. Apparently she has decided not to take the bridle to you as her dream instructed!”