Re: Dreaming: Billy & Eames
He was prepared for questions. The new ones always had them. Questions, and tears. Anger, more often than not. It was Billy’s job to hear them out, to talk them down and smooth over the rasp of fear and suspicion with his reassurances that it would be easier, better, not to put up a struggle. The Prince explained it well enough — that Billy could help them, if he kept them calm. And that if he did it well enough, he would be rewarded.
It’d started in small enough ways. The Prince would visit Billy in his cell, and each time that Billy had done a good job with the newest arrival, he would bring a gift. Fresh bread, some richer broth than the bowls that showed up on a tray each morning. Real fruit, not the dried apple slices or figs. Books he thought Billy might like. Once, an MP3 player wrapped in a tangle of those cheap, plastic earbuds they handed out on plane rides.
Promises.
The Prince liked to talk. He had a nice voice, and after weeks of bare walls and headaches, Billy had been eager to listen. He would talk for hours about how he hadn’t been the one to bring Billy here, and he was trying to get him set free. How he hated to see Billy locked up, and if he’d known the first time they met that Billy would end up like this, the Prince would have done something more to save him.
Billy cocked his head when the new arrival seemed entirely at ease, wholly unbothered, and he frowned. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. “He doesn’t,” he answered automatically, reaching up again to fiddle with the edge of the bandage. His fingers caught a loose thread of white cotton and tugged. He felt the pull under his skin, deep inside where his marrow lived. “He’s actually pretty nice to me. He wants to help. The thing is, I have something he needs. If you’re here, you have it, too. Once he has enough, that’s when we get to go home.”