Read Online Dreamquake: Book Two of the Dreamhunter Duet by Elizabeth Knox - Free Book Online

It had to be endured for six to eight nights at least. The dreamhunters were waiting to be escorted out to the Regulatory Body’s dream retreats—cabins on the near slopes of the Rifleman Mountains. They were “guests of the Body,” detained and guarded by rangers.
    The Chief Ranger appeared to explain the delay. He was having trouble finding volunteers. Rangers were not normally so skittish, but the combination of newspaper reports on the riot and the sight of these dreamhunters emerging from the Place with freshly bleeding mouths had proved a little too much for some. “They’re behaving like novice dreamhunters with superstitious tales of fatally indelible dreams.” He spread his hands, made a gesture of helplessness. “I’m sure you’d rather
not
be escorted by men I had to force.”
    Grace asked if she’d have time to send another wire.
    “Certainly, Mrs. Tiebold.”
    Sandy asked if he could go with Grace to the telegraph office, then said, as he fell into step with her, “I want a word with you in private.”
    Grace pulled a paper from the pocket of her long silk coat and handed it to him. It was a message she’d received earlier. Sandy smoothed the paper out against his chest. He read, LAURA IN MARTAS CARE STOP SHE DID NOT SLEEP STOP ONLY FRIGHTENED STOP ROSE.
    Sandy read the telegram twice, then hurried to catch up with Grace. “Where is Mr. Tiebold?”
    “I don’t know,” Grace said. “And Rose didn’t bother to tell me where
she
is—though I’m told she’s back at school. Still, that is what you wanted to know, isn’t it? Where Laura is?”
    “When I found Rose outside the Opera, I could see she hadn’t slept. She said Laura hadn’t either. I guess they were talking.”
    The telegraph office was brightly lit. There was one key man and two clerks in the booth. Grace stood at a counter in the center of the room and wrote her message. “Do you have any money on you?” she asked Sandy.
    “Yes.”
    “Have you wired your parents? They might be worried. They’ll have seen your uncle George’s name in the papers.”
    Sandy shrugged. He said, “I’m reluctant to wire my parents. My father’s attitude will be that, since I’ve decided to take up a ‘frivolous and unproductive’ life, I deserve any difficulties my decision brings me.”
    “He’d really say that?”
    “Probably.”
    “We’ll be detained for a week,” Grace said. “Or, at least,
you
will.” She went up to the cage and pushed her message and money under the bars. Then she and Sandy trailed back to the others.
    Maze Plasir’s apprentice was sitting on the steps, rocking back and forth, his face wet with tears. George Mason leaned toward Grace and said, “If I was Plasir, I’d be on my way here already to protect my investment.” He nodded at the weeping boy.
    “Plasir seems to go through apprentices pretty quickly.”
    “Do you think he will come?” said Mason.
    “I’ve offered him a lot of money,” said Grace.
    “For what?” Sandy was bemused.
    His uncle said, “Several of Plasir’s dreams are master dreams. He can catch—say—Secret Room and overwrite this nightmare. Would you like me to send him on to you, Alexander? I’m splitting Plasir’s fee with Mrs. Tiebold, though obviously she’s first in line.”
    “Plasir might not agree,” said Grace.
    “Well, if he does decide to, you’d better make sure our guards know to direct him to us,” said Mason.
    Grace nodded and went indoors in search of the Chief Ranger.
    “I can’t contribute anything toward Plasir’s fee,” Sandy said. The idea of being alone in the forest with Maze Plasir made him feel queasy.
    Plasir was a Gifter—he could take his own memories of real people’s faces and manners and graft them onto the characters in the dreams he caught. He was often employed by people who wanted what they couldn’t have, and his dream repertoire included dreams that weren’t at all respectable. Plasir wasn’t respectable, though he did