After a week, Miriam gave up nagging Key, especially since he was spending less time with Jo anyway. She hoped the issue had taken care of itself. He was still distance from her and the other girls, but they were also fast approaching the end of the first quarter, and they were all worried about their first round of exams. Tilli had schedules time in one of the magic practice rooms to prepare for "whatever Theelnin will throw at us," and Ayan's copy of Laura Pfieffer's travel journal was marked with so many extra pages, Miriam was surprised it closed. Key went everywhere with the trousers she had made, carefully embroidering the hems and pockets in her spare time, and Mat read. All day long.
"What is it you've been reading, anyway?" Miriam finally asked as the two of them arrived, along with Ayan, in their history class.
Mat had the decency to look up as he took his seat. "It's um..."
"Hang on." Reed, already sitting up, lifted the cover of Mat's book. "Are you reading about dream nets?"
"What's a dream net?" Miriam put her bag down and sat at her desk.
"It's kind of like a fishing net, only it's supposed to catch dreams instead of fish. You usually hang it near your bed." Ayan blushed when Reed gave her a surprised glance. "I'm sorry, you could have answered that."
"Not at all. I didn't realize you were Vitnu."
"I'm not. I just know about it."
"So... it's a Vitnu thing." Miriam didn't know much about the religion. Even in Harthang, which maintained religious freedom, people didn't talk about things like that openly.
Reed nodded. "They're everywhere in Suxad."
"Do you have one?" For the first time, Miriam heard Mat speak directly to his roommate.
Reed himself made no show of this being unusual. "Since I was a baby. But I didn't bring it because it's really delicate."
"Does it work?"
"Absolutely. I used to have this nightmare about being kidnapped. And one day, there was a piece of paper stuck in my dream net. I didn't know where it had come from, so I pulled it out. Had the same nightmare the next night, and the next morning, the paper was back. This time, I realized it was the dream, so I left it there, and I haven't had that nightmare since."
"How do they work?" Miriam asked, "some kind of dream magic?"
Ayan shook her head. "Dream magic's too rare. There's no way there would be enough people who know how to do it."
Reed answered the question. "You know how binding magic works by making particular patterns? Dream nets are the same. You tie the net using a pattern of knots. Knots are important in Vitnu. And if you tie the pattern right, the net doesn't just filter out bad dreams, but bad thoughts. If you don't tie it right, well..."
"If it's like binding magic, is there more than one pattern?" Miriam asked.
"I think so, yeah."
Mat leaned forward in his chair. "Do you know how to do it?"
Reed shook his head. "Nah. Our temple leader tried to teach me--said I should be good with cotton cord--but I just made a mess of it." Mat deflated a little at this, but Reed continued. "See, one of the knots you use actually allows the net to break. That's because nightmares used to hitchhike on owls, and we only wanted the to catch the dreams, not the birds. Anyway, if you don't tie the knots exactly right, the net just falls apart." Reed paused and looked between the other three. "Sorry, I didn't mean to ramble."
Ayan's voice rang with a perfectly true chord. "Not at all. It's very interesting. There aren't that many people in Antarand who make dream nets."
"Not just anyone can do it. It's a real artform." Reed turned to Mat. "Anyway, why the interest?"
"Something Antony said to me." Miriam once again heard an odd chord in Mat's voice. She thought of what Jo had said to her, but the chord was not the same as what signified lying. She didn't know what to make of it.
From the way Reed eyed his roommate, he also thought Mat wasn't truthful. But if he was going to say anything, he missed his chance as Mr. Connor walked in.
"Good afternoon. Today, we're heading into the northern desert. What do you know about the Huxoth people?"
"Thieves and murderers?" Reed muttered."
What was that, Reed?" Several students in the front row turned around.
After a moment's hesitation, Reed met their gazes and sat straighter in his chair. "They're thieves, sir. They've been known to steal magic from people."
Miriam was appalled. For all Reed's talk of nets that caught bad thoughts, he seemed to have quite a few of them. "And did you get this information first hand from the Huxoth?"
Reed looked as surprised by her comment as she had been about his. "No, but I don't need first hand information from a Linakran to know they hate magic."
Mr. Connor cleared his throat. "Actually, our understanding of Linakra's anti-magic laws are based primarily on first hand accounts. The first hand accounts from the Northern Desert show that while the Huxoth approach magic differently that we do, their practiced are wholly consensual. And as with many of the things we have discussed so far in this class, I believe the Huxoth are a good example of how fear stems from misunderstanding."
Mr. Connor held Reed's gaze before turning to Miriam. "And what do you know about the Huxoth people, Miriam?"
"Nothing, sir," she said.
"Nothing?"
"Well, I've never been to the Northern Desert, and I've never met any Huxoth people, as far as I know."
Mr. Connor seemed to accept this explanation because he turned away from Miriam. "Anyone else?" he scanned the class before settling on their corner again. "Mat?"
Mat stared, wide-eyed, and shook his head so slightly that Miriam wasn't sure she saw it. But it must have been enough for Mr. Connor because he turned away from them to address the class as a whole. "For those of you from the southern hemisphere, the Huxoth people are sometimes compared to the Thisaazhou. They are artisans and while not wholly nomadic, travel between desert villages is an important part of their religious practice. But upon close inspection, the similarity fades fast...."
