The Children of Hypnos

[Vol. 2] Chapter 11: The One Who Watches

It took exactly a week for Klaus to become the most well-liked teacher at Fenhallow. Dreamforming, a subject that had been difficult for most and impossible for others, was quickly overtaking weapons training as the subject of choice for most of the dreamhunter students, and Klaus wasn't even teaching their official dreamforming class. He might as well have been teaching all their classes, for as much as they were learning from him.

Four days in, he gathered up the Class Eighteen students and took them to Marcia's empty gymnasium in Hothram Hall. He had Emery, Wes, and the others stand in a large circle, and he took up a post in the middle.

"I'm here to teach you all to be better dreamhunters, but I need to get an idea of what I'm working with." He rolled his sleeves up to his elbows and pushed his hair back as he looked around at them all. "Your task today is simple. We are playing a game, and to win, you have to touch me."

A few people laughed.

"Touch you?" Veronica said. "Like where?"

"Wherever you can."

"Just touch you?" said Isaiah. "We don't have to take anything from you or beat you in a fight or something?"

"No, no fighting."

"It's too easy," Emery said. "There has to be a catch."

Klaus turned toward her, smiling. He held out his hand, fingers up, palm out. "No catch. Come try."

With the eyes of the class on her, Emery started toward the center of the circle. There was a catch—she'd seen how fast Klaus could move—but he wasn't moving at all now, and kept his hand out flat in the air, like he was waiting for her to put hers against it. She stepped within arm's reach, close enough that she could've pressed her cheek to his palm. She raised her hand, a single finger out.

Where she should've touched skin, there was only air; Klaus didn't appear to have moved, but now he stood two inches farther away than he'd been before. Low whispers broke out around the room, mixed with the hint of more laughter.

Emery snatched for Klaus's wrist. Now he was two inches to the left. More laughter. His green eyes sparkled with mirth.

"Alright then," Emery said, and lunged for Klaus's left side in one swift movement while she reached for his right. He did move to the right—and Emery saw him this time—but he seemed to move around her hand, twisting in a way that defied the human body. Both his hands were tucked in his pockets now, but the smile hadn't left his face.

The circle broke behind Klaus as Veronica crept forward. Emery kept her eyes on Klaus and made sure he kept his on her. Veronica darted forward, soundless.

Klaus moved again. Again, Emery barely saw it, and again it seemed to defy physics. He slipped over and around Veronica's outstretched arm, and Veronica stumbled forward, pushed. Klaus stood behind where she'd been, holding a long, nondescript dreamform stick. He'd used it to nudge Veronica off balance.

"Any other takers?" Klaus called.

Veronica spun, threw herself at him, and missed by a mile. Klaus was already jogging off, the dreamform stick tucked behind his back, laughing a little as the other students shuffled in surprise and confusion.

Isaiah and Samuel were the next two out. The two brothers—dreamhunting partners—usually managed to catch anything between the two of them. Klaus let them flank him before slipping out of their grasp like an eel. Two more students came from the other side, and three more from behind Emery, and soon the class became a giant game of tag. Klaus slid and danced his way around arms and through bodies, sometimes darting within easy range, sometimes turning into a blur of movement and reappearing farther away. He flipped back on his hands a few times when he wanted extra flourish, and just when they thought they had him surrounded, he shot up into the air, pulled toward the ceiling by dreamform cords wrapped up around his torso and legs.