"Yes, Father, I do."
Garcia said in the dream.
"In the na of the Righteous God, the Spirit of All Things, do you, Yura Anke Rick, take Mr. Alan Goodbyer Garcia to be your husband?"
"I do. I do."
Miss Rick's face was aglow with happiness. If no one had interfered, it would have been a perfect dream.
"In the na of the Twelve Orthodox Gods, does anyone object to this union?"
The old priest raised his hands and asked. Judging by his vestnts, he belonged to the Church of Creation and Machinery. It was a continental custom for the officiating priest to be invited from the groom's church, which ant that if Jenkins were to get married, then...
"Damn it, what am I thinking?"
He slapped his forehead, and then he heard soone shout:
"I object!"
Of course, it was the clown who shouted.
"Oh? Please state your reason!"
the priest demanded. The clown imdiately dropped what he was holding and walked down the red carpet to the bride and groom, while the seated guests showed no strange reaction.
"I object to their union because I, too, am deeply in love with Alan Garcia!"
The clown was male, and Miss Rick naturally understood what that implied. She looked at her groom with shocked eyes. He lowered his head in embarrassnt but did not shake off the clown's hand.
"Oh, by the Sage!"
Jenkins never imagined the story would take such a turn. He was already regretting wasting his precious sleep on this.
"My apologies, Miss Rick."
He first apologized silently in his mind, since his next actions would likely leave a deep impression on the dream's owner.
"No, how could you be so cruel to !"
A guest in the front row suddenly stood up—by custom, it should have been soone closest to the bride or groom. A balding man in a gray formal suit shouted as he rose and hurried over to the clown, grabbing his hand:
"Were you lying to ? You said the one you loved was..."
The clown shot a shocked look at Miss Rick. This wasn't in his script; he took it as an unconscious counterattack from the dream's owner. In reality, Miss Rick was just as clueless, not yet grasping what was happening.
"Oh, no!"
Another man cried out mournfully and jumped up to grab the clown's arm. Following his lead, nearly all the guests did the sa, countless hands reaching for the clown.
The clown could only dodge clumsily, using his own hands to block the grasping limbs. Suddenly, the touch of one hand felt different. An intensely cold sensation shot up his arm to his head, instantly freezing even his ability to control the dream.
He struggled to escape the wretched dream but was yanked toward the sky by an imnse force.
"Got you!"
Jenkins grunted and shot out from under his quilt, his hands clamped tightly around a multicolored puff of smoke. It looked like a gas but was actually solid, feeling like jelly when he held it.
"So it wasn't a nightmare, but a dream sprite! You damned thing, you really put through it!"
As he spoke, he grabbed an empty teacup from the side, shoved the thing inside, then picked up the teapot and poured in so water. With a flick of his finger, he froze the water, sealing the mouth of the cup.
Dream sprites are incredibly powerful in dreams, but pathetically weak in reality. It couldn't even break through a thin layer of ice.
"Hathaway! Hathaway!"
He didn't even bother with his cat, rushing out the door in his slippers. The cat let out a low ow, boredly watching its own twitching tail.
"Hathaway! Hathaway!"
Jenkins hurried into the hallway and glanced around, finding Hathaway wasn't in her bedroom. That was for the best, since Jenkins had no idea how he would explain such a late visit to Miss Mikhail.
He walked down the corridor toward the stairs and, just as he expected, found the red-haired girl at the landing. Neither of them had a light; only faint moonlight pierced the clouds and windows to illuminate the villa's interior.
The girl had her back to Jenkins. A breeze from an unknown source lifted her long hair from her shoulders. Jenkins guessed it was coming through a broken window in Miss Mikhail's old bedroom.
Hearing footsteps behind her, Hathaway turned. When she saw Jenkins in the darkness, clad in his pajamas and grinning, her face flushed red again.
"What... what are you doing?"
"Look!"
He was as excited as a child, stepping forward and holding the cold teacup up for the girl to see.
"Look what I caught!"
Hathaway squinted at the teacup, peering below the layer of ice. Though she didn't have any ability like Dark Vision, she could just barely make out the multicolored blob.
After a mont's hesitation, she asked, "A dream sprite?"
As the words left her mouth, she suddenly realized why Jenkins had said such strange things earlier. Besides this possibility, she couldn't imagine him ever saying sothing so forward.
"Yes, a dream sprite. This thing invaded my dream just now and made dream of so... strange things. And now I've caught it!"
"Is that so? Still, it's quite remarkable that you were able to detect the dream sprite's manipulation."
Her enthusiasm suddenly waned, and she felt like a complete fool. To think she had been so flustered by his words just now—words that could never have truly co from this man's mouth.
Hathaway recalled the beautiful dream she'd been having before hearing the strange noises from Jenkins's room. If it hadn't been for that dream, she wouldn't have woken up and foolishly believed his words.
That dream must have been caused by this dream sprite as well.
"Let's interrogate it together! A dream sprite appearing here can't be a coincidence!"
Jenkins suggested.
"Alright."
Her voice was a little low. She was furious, but she didn't know who to direct her anger at, so the thing in the teacup beca the perfect outlet.
The two of them found an empty room down the hall. Jenkins flicked his hand, lighting the candelabra on the table. They pulled out the chairs in front of the desk, sat down, and stared at the teacup.
"Be careful it doesn't escape."
Hathaway warned.
"I know."
Jenkins nodded, then extended the index finger of his right hand, which was wreathed in fla, and poked a round hole in the layer of ice over the teacup's mouth.
The dream sprite imdiately "squeezed" out of the hole. But when it saw the man standing before it, it silently retreated back inside and remained perfectly still, as if playing dead.
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