An Ornamental City

Gwynn craves the company of his violin, and the openness of the streets of Venice an hour earlier today that he did the day before.

Gwynn’s fingers are weary from wiring the strings on numerous violins, and gripping the tools too tightly in his fingers. Gwynn has thought that once he began working in the workshop full-time he would be accustomed to the calluses and squinting. But his eyes are still sore and his hands are red.

The violins had been especially difficult today; the tuning imperfect despite his best efforts, and his resorting to threats of violence, pleading, swearing, the last of which led to chastisement by his father.

Gwynn considers turning in early, retiring to his room with a cup of tea and a compress for his fingers, but the sky is speckled with stars, and the warm weather has drawn out nighttime crowds who like to hear some music.

Gwynn retrieves his violin from the wall and calls out to his father. “I’m going to go play for a while,” he says.

His father’s response from the other room is a simple, “Don’t be too late.”

Gwynn leaves quickly, before his father can interpret “too late” as a more specific time.

Gwynn takes a deep breath as he steps onto the cobblestones, into the steady stream of people rushing home beneath a darkening twilight sky.

The transition from the scent of sawdust and metal to marine water is increasingly welcome, recently.

Gwynn holds his violin carefully, keeping the case close to his side as he weaves in and around the crowds. The shop and the workshop above which he lives – owned for generations of violin makers and players before him – is pleasant in the dying day, and the morning, full of dust motes caught in the sunlight. He knows each corner and niche, each facet and stand by the wall, the register of each violin displayed in the shop window and on the walls.

Yet lately there has been a growing discontent in Gwynn. Whereas before the knowledge that he would continue the family business was comforting, now it leaves him unsatisfied.

He feels only hollow when thinking of staying and making violins in Venice until his old age.

He envisions a life outside the city. He envisions life in cities exotic and impossibly beautiful. Gwynn wonders how often Isabel does the same.

Gwynn and Isabel have discussed travel, and leaving the city, multiple times. Isabel is interested by his unrest, and they have planned many imaginary adventures with such detail that they could carry them out, from practical details to fantastical ones.

Gwynn often insists he will not leave Venice without Isabel. She lets him plan their most vivid adventures in his head, and listens as he regales her with escapades and heroism. Perhaps their plans of travel and adventure were merely a childish fancy to her, or maybe she was just humouring him. It would be silly to believe she remembers their conversations at all.

Gwynn stops on a corner with a steady flow of Venetians passing to and fro. The setting sun paints the canal with liquid gold, and the star above is fading to muted violet, dusted with stars.

Gwynn sets his case on the corner, opens it and removes his violin. Beneath his fingers the wood is smooth as glass as he rests it on his shoulder and strokes it with the bow.

In the time that passes the sun dips below the horizon and the frosted glass lamps on cobblestone corners cast fractal patterns across the water. The windows festooned with paper lanterns.

This is an ornamental city, he thinks, as he lowers his bow between songs.

Gwynn glances toward the violin case, glittering with silver coins. A small crowd has gathered on the corner, to pass the time in musical appreciation as the moon rises higher over the city.

Gwynn hefts his violin onto his shoulder and tucks his cheek against it. As he lifts the bow, glancing into the crowd, he pauses. And then the pause lengthens.

Isabel greats him with a warm smile. She wears a coat in a shocking shade of violet, and the hands that hang by her sides are covered in silver gloves.

The city around her, the avenues slick with rain and canal water and the drifting fog is a haze of silver lamplight and purple shadows. Yet still, Isabel looks out of place.

She is dressed too oddly to pass unnoticed on a deserted rain-damp street. Her violet gown has too much lace; her boots are too pristine and lined with fancy buttons.

Ever seeing Isabel reminds Gwynn of the first time he had seen her. Gwynn had thought her beauty was a trick of the light, that she was pretty and fascinating in the shadows and lamp-lit street. Then, in the pale dawn, when they had talked until morning and he had played violin into the early hours, he could properly see her sphinx-like expression and dark eyes.

Gwynn gives her a smile, feeling his ears go hot as he raises his bow again and begins to play, watching the crowds response, though his eyes return, frequently, to Isabel’s.

When he is finished, Gwynn gives a small bow of his head to some light applause and returns his violin to its case, after collecting the coins into a bag in a sewn side pocket lined with silk. The modest audience disperses, and soon it is only late-night walkers and couples on the streets, and Isabel in front of him.

“Good evening,” Gwynn says as he straightens, the violin case in hand.

“Hello, Gwynn,” Isabel says.

She is visibly agitated, but before Gwynn can ask her what is the matter, she says, “Would you come with me? I want you to see something.”

“What is it?”

Isabel seems to hesitate, glancing down the street as though to check for someone there. “I want you to meet my father.”

Gwynn must hold back his surprise. Isabel always remains purposefully vague when Gwynn asks her about her family. She evades questions easily and distracts him well enough that though Gwynn is sure he knows more about her than anyone else, she may come from the stars, for all he knows.

“Now?” Gwynn asks.

Isabel watches him nervously, biting her lip. “I had something to ask you. I wanted to give you time to think about it, but its getting late and I’m not sure how much time you’ll have.”

While Gwynn has a number of questions on his tongue, only “Yes, alright,” seems appropriate.

Isabel nods and turns down the street, and after a moment, Gwynn follows.

Isabel leads Gwynn around the labyrinth of cobblestone streets, beneath frosted street lamps casting ray-like patterns of light across the streets.

When they come to a stop, beside the bridge that arches over the widest part of the canal, Isabel kicks open the door of a dilapidated copper green building. The building was obviously not made with the intention of keeping young men and women out of it, for the door swings open with the force of her boot, and Isabel gestures for Gwynn to follow her inside.

The building is abandoned and decrepit. There are no walls, save for the four that stand and encase them like a courtyard. There is no evidence of any presence there beyond themselves.

The walls are covered with a tangle of climbing roses, sharp with thorns, sweetly scented. Briar roses grow in abundance at the foot of crumbling walls.

The only light that reaches over the rudimentary walls is that of the setting sun, and it edges the red roses with soft bronze light, like the tip of a flame.

“This is what you wanted to show me?” Gwynn asks, quietly, to disturb the silence as little as possible.

Isabel shakes her head. Even in the fading light, Gwynn can see she is visibly distressed.

“What’s wrong?” he asks. “You don’t have to show me whatever it is, if you don’t want to.”

“It isn’t that at all,” Isabel says, then frowns. “Well, it isn’t mostly that. It is mostly something else.” In response to Gwynn’s expression she only laughs, looking the least troubled she has since Gwynn saw her first this night. “A dreamer is one who finds his way by moonlight, and his punishment is to see dawn before the rest of the world,” she quotes, and a warm smile accompanies the cryptic sentiment.

Isabel leads Gwynn along the wall, and more than once he stumbles over a bramble path, or must tear his clothes from the thorny grip of predacious roses.

What Gwynn had thought was a niche in the wall is actually a staircase, spiraling down into darkness. They descend, their footfalls on each stone step echoing in the quiet.

At the bottom of the passage is a wooden door decorated by peeling blue paint the warm colour of twilight.

Isabel grasps the handle, then seems to hesitate, but she swings the door open and steps inside.

Gwynn follows closely, unwilling to lose Isabel, but as his eyes follow her movement, his feet stop mid-step, and he stumbles to stand.

The ground on which he stands expands into floor, then walls, then ceilings, made of stone and hung with tapestries that do not disguise the earthen quality of the space. The scent of hundreds of candles wafts through the air, mixed with petrichor and a deeper scent of old, musty books.

Candles and books sit on every surface, and where some books become tables or desks, candles burn atop them, wax dripping over spines, flames coming precariously close to pearlescent covers.

A small brook bubbles through the centre of the cave, disappearing down the side of a rock that spans between two bookcases. The cases themselves are crammed together, as though the person residing there fears there will not be enough space to keep all of his books.

The cavernous room is furnished with an assortment of mismatched pieces. Desks and chairs and tables in style ranging from Victorian London to Medieval Japan and rural Africa, adopted into the purgatory at some point in time.

Arches of rock make doorways that lead to adjacent rooms, through which Gwynn can see other lights and bookcases.

While the cavern looks undoubtedly lived in, it maintains a semblance of wildness in the tuberous tendrils hanging from the ceiling, and the glittering dew-cold rock walls.

“It always seems to take a moment to adjust,” Isabel’s voice comes from behind Gwynn. When he turns to her she stands at a desk, drumming her fingers on a book, with an air of concealed nervousness. “I forget how unusual it must look at first glance.”

“Unusual is an understatement,” Gwynn says, moving toward her, weaving around piles of books and stepping over the brook. He feels the ground tipping beneath his feet, like a ship on the high seas, but it steadies closer to Isabel.

Isabel’s drumming fingers quicken, the sound echoing like soft rain the cavern. She opens her mouth several times to speak before she sighs heavily, the movement of her fingers ceasing.

“My father is a collector. He collects dreams, Gwynn,” Isabel says.

Gwynn blinks.

“He collects dreams, every night. It’s his living,” Isabel elaborates, coming around the desk. “He-“

“Would like to be informed when strangers are invited into his home,” says a voice from across the room.

Isabel and Gwynn turn to the owner of the voice, a man in a suit with tails, with just the beginning of age showing in his face. He approaches them slowly, his eyes sparkling as he smiles with practiced charm.

“You knew he was coming,” Isabel says, abandoning the books as she circles around the desk and stands next to Gwynn.

“But I did not know he was here. And now I must make an impromptu introduction,” the man replies. He stops before them, extending a gloved hand to Gwynn, who hesitantly takes it. The man’s grip is tight as he shakes it.

“Orpheus Gray,” the man says, still shaking. “Pleased to meet you, Gwynn. I’m delighted you’ve agreed to help us.”

Orpheus releases Gwynn’s hand, and Gwynn lets it drop to his side.

“He hasn’t,” Isabel says, before Gwynn can open his mouth.

Orpheus looks back and forth between Gwynn and Isabel in surprise. He regards Gwynn with considerable interest. “Perhaps then, Isabel, we should explain ourselves.”

“Explain what?” Gwynn asks, turning to Isabel. A flush is creeping into her pallor.

“I was about to, father,” Isabel says, to Orpheus, though she is looking at Gwynn.

“This will be interesting,” Isabel’s father remarks, to nobody in particular. He sounds so amused, Gwynn almost expects him to pull up a chair and take a seat while Isabel struggles to provide and explanation.

After a minute of silence, Isabel sighs again. “Father collects dreams. It is an old magic, and incredibly rare. He went to a special school that educates on the way of the world. The real world. He’s been collecting dreams for years. Keeping them in these,” Isabel picks up a book and holds it in front of her. Gwynn takes it in his shaking hands, uncertain if he wants to open it.

He flips the deep blue cover open, and the first page is blank. He flips the page, then another, and another, but each page is wordless. Gwynn looks up questioningly at Isabel, but she is watching his fingers, holding the edges of the pages delicately.

“There isn’t anything in here,” he says.

“Only because you do not know how to look,” Orpheus says, from where he stands with his hands clasped behind his back.

Gwynn flips more of the pages, searching for some indication that it is more than paper bound into a book.

“They really are dreams, Gwynn,” Isabel says, drawing his attention back to her. “I know it is strange, and I can’t explain it. There are dreams, even if you can’t see them, just like you could not see this,” she gestures to the cavern around them, “from the streets of Venice. You’ve been taught not to see them, or the way the world truly is. But this is magic, or enchantment, as you would call it. It is real, Gwynn.”

In the silence that follows, Isabel’s father coughs pointedly, and Isabel looks away.

“How do you collect them?” Gwynn asks. He has many more questions, but only some are pressing immediately on his mind.

“Father follows them each night. All around the city, and traps them in these books. But that isn’t why I brought you here, Gwynn.” Isabel holds out her hand for the book, and after a moment’s hesitation, Gwynn hands it to her.

“You take dreams without asking?” Gwynn wonders aloud. “Isn’t that stealing?”

Isabel’s eyes glance briefly toward her father. Orpheus looks at Gwynn with considerably less amusement, but he does not move as he speaks.

“Dreams are my livelihood. It is a very old talent to be able to track and contain dreams, let alone keep them stable. There is considerably more to be gained from my stealing, as you call it, of dreams than from the dreamers’ keeping them.”

“And you’re his accomplice?” Gwyn asks, turning to Isabel.

“No. I’ve almost never assisted him before. That isn’t why you’re here,” Isabel repeats, resting a hand on Gwynn’s arm, gingerly, unsure of its reception. “We need your help.”

“What?”

“We need your help. Father’s done something stupid and I need your help to fix it.”

Isabel’s father moves suddenly, circling the desk and grabbing a smaller pile of books, hefting them at his side.

“What did you do?” Gwynn asks, eyeing the books in confusion.

“He sold me,” Isabel says, with a shaking voice and bright eyes. “Before I was born he promised to give me away, for the love of my mother. To a man, to the devil, sort of. And now he’s come to collect, and father struck another, equally impossible bargain, to save me.”

“You what?” Gwynn cannot seem to comprehend it. Isabel’s words feel as delicate and insubstantial as the steam over tea. He turns to Orpheus, and his expression of careful neutrality. “You sold your daughter to the devil!”

The dream thief turns on the spot, fixing Gwynn with startlingly bright eyes. “He is not exactly the devil. And had I known I was going to love her as much as her mother – more in some ways – I would not have bargained with her.”

“But you did.”

“And now we have a way out of this contract. And I assume you care for my daughter, which is the only reason I am allowing- asking for your assistance.”

Isabel glares at her father, removing her hand from Gwynn’s arm. “Considering the position we’re in, father, I don’t think you have the right to be anything but extremely polite.”

Isabel’s father does not even glance her way, but instead holds out the stack of books. Gwynn does not take them.

“We have to collect three souls,” Isabel says, speaking softly, as though the words frighten her. “Three… vibrant souls. The ones with the most vivid dreams. The most colourful. The ones whose souls would be most fulfilling to have. In exchange for releasing me from the contract.”

Isabel does not sound happy at all with the arrangement. She cannot meet Gwynn’s eyes.

“These are the most vivid dreams I’ve in my collection,” Isabel’s father says, filling the silence. He holds the books out again, and Gwynn accepts them, glancing at the glossy spines and rainbow-hued covers.

He looks back up, into Isabel’s anxious face. “What would happen if I said no?”

“If we don’t find three souls, I’ll have to leave. I won’t see you again, and I have no idea what he would do with me. But he’s a shadow of the devil, so I imagine nothing good.” She pauses, then says, quietly, “I need your help, Gwynn.”

If Gwynn had held any notion of refusing her, he knows now that he cannot. That he would help her with anything.

“Alright,” Gwynn says.

Isabel’s shoulders fall. “Thank you.”

“Indeed,” says Orpheus briskly. “Now that the matter’s settled, I have other obligations. I’ve left a list, Isabel.”

“What? Are you not coming?” Gwynn asks, he thinks the thief is obligated to go, since it is his fault they are in need of three souls.

“I have to get some materials for the separation. A soul will not willingly leave its body. They are not anywhere in the immediate vicinity, nor are they stocked by my regular clientele. Isabel knows what you are supposed to do.”

Isabel gives Gwynn a smile that is not entirely reassuring, but he smiles back and follows her into an adjacent room equally full of books, as Isabel and Orpheus navigate their way through the library, pulling this and that from the shelves.

Gwynn stands still, certain that something is about to happen, though uncertain as to what it is.

Around him books rise and fall like colourful birds, their pages rustling like wings.

Art by Vincent Van Gogh

Text by Lucie MacAulay

Enigma

The thief has departed, leaving only a written list and some hasty verbal instructions to Isabel. On the list is an address, and, Isabel has explained, the first of their destinations, and the first of their dreamers.

When they exit the thief’s cavern, Gwynn cannot decide if he is more frightened or curious.

Gwynn and Isabel enter slowly, Gwynn in he lead, and cough as they walk into a cloud of sugar sweet smoke.

The parlour is hung with heavy velvet curtains, permeated with the scent of musk and age. It is full of thick, cloudy smoke, curling around tables littered with silver spoons and discarded half full glasses of absinthe or wine, turning the candles into ghostly lights.

The air is stifling, hot as the desert beneath the sun, echoing with boisterous laughter and murmured conversations.

There are scantily clad figures in silk and fine suits, at various stages of profound intoxication, with lingering touches on elbows and knees, and low, velvety voices.

Navigating through the crowds is a journey through clouds of perfume, and like descending into a heated fog.

Gwynn and Isabel navigate their way to the bar with some difficulty, and Gwynn keeps a careful hand on her sleeved arm so they do not get separated.

The counter is sticky with spilled absinthe and brandy. The bottles lining the shelves behind it come in multiple shapes and sizes, like perfume or whiskey or oil bottles, with corks or lids, handles or none, with clear or frosted glass or opaque like porcelain.

Gwyn catches the scent of smoke and scorched sugar cubes from some niche behind the counter, as a cloud of amber smoke plumes like a large blossom.

As they take their seats on plush, dilapidated, velvet-cushioned stools, Gwynn asks, “Who are we looking for?”

Isabel raises her voice to be heard above the din of the parlour. “He’s an Arab, and very rich. He’ll be with an intimate company. He looks rather like a prince from the desert, Papa told me.”

They crane their necks above the crowd, but with the lightlessness and noise, it seems impossible that they will find the dreamer.

Through a haze of dim light and green tinted smoke, Gwynn can see shadows; the silhouettes of patrons milling before a stage that permeated the room with brassy music.

In the back of the parlour, Gwynn catches a glimpse of a golden silk swathed booth, between lascivious plumes of emerald tinted smoke, a party of turbaned men, and a tall, princely figure sitting in the middle.

“Is that him?” Gwynn asks, pointing to the man, sure that the smoke will hide the informal gesture. The man’s expression as his compatriots speak is one of practiced disinterest and reserved attentiveness.

Isabel subtly tilts her head in the man’s direction, glancing at him from the corner of her eye. “Yes, it must be.” She pauses, her eyes narrow. “I’ve heard of him. He has very dubious origins. No one is sure where he’s from. There are only stories.”

A waiter makes his way across the bar, coming toward them with a tarnished silver tray, but Gwynn waves him away. “What stories?” Gwynn asks, turning to Isabel.

“Some say he is a runaway slave, and he liberated many slaves who came with him on a ship across the ocean. I heard he stole rubies from an Arab prince and was chased by all of his warriors into exile. One story says he was raised by tigers in the jungle, until some poachers found him and returned him to civilization.”

“And some say I am the son of a runaway Indian princess and a djinn,” says a voice behind them.

He looked exotic from across the room, but up close he looks regal and alien to Gwynn. The gentleman’s face beneath his turban is a startling shade of gold, with dark almond eyes and a smile like a sphinx.

“What is a djinn?” Gwynn asks, before he can consider the question. He is about to apologize, when the man smiles and replies.

“It is a thing made of fire, as angels are made of air, and man of earth. Creatures of ashes and embers and black smoke. It is a deity that would offer you wishes. But they are unsafe wishes.”

“How can a wish be unsafe?” Gwynn asks. He can think of a few wishes he would make, were he given the chance.

“They are wishes with the sting of scorpion’s tail. They are like dreams that turn suddenly into nightmares, just when you are enjoying them.”

“We come with a proposition from our employer,” Isabel says, suddenly, reminding Gwynn of their task.

“And I would be very pleased to hear it. If you would join me and my companions,” the man responds, sweeping a hand in the direction of the table from which he came.

“Of course,” Isabel says, standing as the man disappears into the crowd, drifting through the fog toward his table. Gwynn follows her through boisterous absinthe-scented patrons, gasping when they emerge into clean air again.

The man waits for them at his table, indicating their seats across from him as he edges back into the booth.

Gwynn and Isabel are seated in silence, and Isabel readily meets the gazes of all four men across from them.

Before the man turns to his companion nearest the curtain and speaks a long fluid stream of some rich language Gwynn does not recognize. His companion stands and draws the curtain around the booth, turning it into a green-tinted enclosure.

“A little privacy for our discussion,” the man says, smiling at Gwynn.

They sit in silence for a few minutes, as the laughter and brass music crests and ebbs around them.

“You may call me the rajah,” the man says, eventually, in a voice dark and wild, like the heart of the jungle. It speaks of heat deep beneath the earth covered by burning plains of sand, eyes and teeth hidden by leaves and vines.”

“My name is Isabel Gray,” Isabel says, then gesture to Gwynn beside her. “This is Gwynnedd Faole.”

The rajah nods his head at them both, with a warm smile.

“Rajah means prince,” Isabel says, after a moment. “Are you a prince?”

The rajah’s smile becomes considerably larger as he leans in, as though to divulge a secret.

“I was named Aiden, which means ‘little fiery one’. It is a very English name, isn’t it? My grandfather on my mother’s side was English. Her mother was from India. She had skin the colour of milk tea, when she was younger, but it darkened like the red sands in the east. I was born sanguine, with too much blood, and I blushed constantly. It appeared as though my cheeks were enflamed, and I was a rambunctious child, so I was named ‘little fiery one’.

I was raised like a prince. In a house gilded with gold, with servants who fanned the rooms at midday, and the smells of exotic spices from the delicacies made by our private chef. My parents did not often leave me, but when they did, it was for trips to India or exotic places elsewhere.

One day, my father returned from a hunt, with my mother, from her native India. From the jungles in the mountains, they brought me back a present. In a gilded chain was a panther, black as night, still with his claws and mewling for his mother. And he was given to me.

I did not like the panther at first. He was feral and vicious. I could not come near him, for fear of his claws. And he resented being removed from his jungle. I avoided him, and to appease him, I ordered plants of all kinds to be brought into my apartments. He felt comfortable enough within them to leave me alone, though my parents insisted I tame him. For his benefit; animals taken from the wild often adjust beyond the point when they can return to the wild. Training was a mess at first, a combination of my own fear and his anger. But he learned that I was the hand to feed him, and I learned that he tempered my sense of invincibility, which is dangerous in a youth.

Months passed in this manner, then a time came when we traded our fear for friendship, and our resentment for care.

We shared stories. He told me of the flocks of flamingoes on the water in the lakes beyond the mountains. Of the elephants in the lagoons, and the scent of mangoes fallen from their trees. He told me of the mirror the moon makes out of the lake in the night.

While I taught him manners, and to control himself so as not to force mother or father to declaw him, he taught me how to be as silent as a shadow, and as watchful and patient as the hunter.

He moved like a prince of the jungle, and I tried to move in the same way. I was more than once chastised for walking on all fours.

And because I so mimicked the creature, so regal and beautiful, I was nicknamed rajah. I cannot remember who it was that bestowed the name, but it stuck, as nicknames do.”

Gwynn is so engaged in the story, that when the rajah finishes, he feels as though he has taken a step up the stairs in darkness, to discover one less step, and has his heart lurch in his chest. He tumbles back into the noise of the parlour, dimmed by the curtain.

When he glances at Isabel, she looks dazed. The rajah watches them patiently, silent even as his companions lean over and whisper in their rich language.

“Where is the panther now?” Gwynn asks, but Isabel begins speaking and the question is unanswered.

“We’ve come on behalf of our employer. Mr.____ would like to request your services in a future business exchange.”

“This venture your employer would involve me in, what would he have me do?” the man inquires.

“He is currently away in preparation for it. It is a simple exchange, for which we believe you have something to offer.”

The rajah regards Isabel with an expression that Gwynn cannot decipher.

“I would not dream of such a pretty young lady lying, but I can tell when you are taking liberties with the truth. That is a wonderful story, and while I appreciate it, I believe I would appreciate the truth a great deal more. Tell me why you are really here.”

“My father lost a game of cards,” Isabel says, with an unflinching expression. “And now he cannot pay for it. He has struck a more difficult, yet more possible, bargain, and you are in a position to be very helpful.” She pauses and stares at the man before adding, “You need only meet him.”

The rajah turns to one of his companions, who is whispering into his ear, quietly and quickly.

One of the men has been casting conspicuous glances at Isabel as she speaks, and as he consumes more wine, they are only becoming more obvious. If Isabel notices, she gives no indication of it, but Gwynn has noticed and his fingers have tightened their hold on one another.

“And how has he heard of me?” the man asks, when he and his companion are done conversing.

“Word of mouth. Mutual acquaintances,” Isabel says, vaguely.

The man tilts his head down, to better regard Isabel’s expression. He has hardly moved when the pause has gone on too long. “That is odd. I feel almost as though I have met you before.”

“I can assure you that we have not,” Isabel says, though she is well acquainted with his dreams. She slips her hand into her pocket and pulls out small rectangular card, embossed with a name Gwynn does not quite catch as she reaches forward.

Isabel slides the card across the table, turning it so the address of the function and her father’s pseudonym are face up.

The rajah does not look at it but when Isabel lifts her fingers from the card, he passes his hand over it and the card vanishes.

“Well then, I believe I am interested in hearing more. I am curious about the details of this proposition, and you are very intriguing. It is not often one comes across a person who is truly intriguing. And,” he continues, turning to Gwynn, “someone so quiet and watchful. You are an enigmatic pair.”

The rajah stands and holds out a hand to them both, in succession, to shake.

“I will see you both in due time.”

As Isabel and Gwynn turn, the rajah speaks from behind them. “The panther died many years ago.”

Gwynn turns to the rajah, who is watching him with a smile that holds a hint of sadness.

“He was old and weak, and he followed my through the desert and across the water to Venice. He died in his sleep, in his dreams.”

“I’m sorry,” Gwynn says, though it is not exactly what he means.

“Thank you, Gwynnedd.”

With the obvious dismissal, Gwynn turns and rejoins Isabel at the edge of the crowd. They push through the crowds, now somewhat fatigued and smelling even more strongly of alcohol and sugar, to the edge of the parlour and into the smell of the canal reflecting the star speckled sky.

Art by Linda R. Herzog

Text by Lucie MacAulay

Hunger Eats

Hunger does strange things to a person.
When emptiness gnaws at your stomach like rats' teeth, you may find yourself scrubbing on the ground, hands purple with berry juice, black from brambles, red from cuts, green with grass stains.
you may find yourself sharpening your knife and seeking food in the wood. Pulling the rabbit from its hole and skinning it while it is still warm.
Hunger makes animals of us all.
There are some who are devoured by their hunger. They fall prey to it like a deer to its hunter. They become wraiths, ghosts of bloodlust and starvation, thin as the wind, and as ever present.
Their teeth grow longer, their nails sharper. Their eyes, gaunt.
Perhaps that is not the most terrifying thing about them, though. Perhaps it is because everyone has the potential to suffer the same fate.
For hunger eats, but it is never satisfied.
Yes; hunger does strange things to a person.

Art by Matt Barley

Text by Lucie MacAulay

Dream Hopping

The room is bright with candlelight, and the flames reflect off the polished candelabras. The books in their cases and on the floors shine, embossed covers flickering in rich blues and reds. In the midst of the bibliological chaos, Gwynn is standing with care not to touch any of the stacks of books, anxious that they will topple to the floor and break the enchanting silence.

But it is a voice that breaks the silence, accompanied by Isabel’s footsteps as she enters the room. “What are you doing, Gwynn?”

Gwynn shifts and carefully navigated closer to her, through the books. His elbow brushes a pile of volumes that sway to and fro, but otherwise stay up.

“I’m not sure,” he says, then adds, uncertainly, “I’m supposed to be resting. But I don’t think I can.”

Isabel crosses closer to him, weaving around the books without looking, as though she has memorized their locations. “Then we can talk.”

“Do you not need to help your father?” Gwynn asks, reluctantly. He would rather not be alone in this strange library by himself, and so close to her he suddenly craves her company.

“When papa is with his most treasured books, I am more a hindrance than a help. We will not be needed,” she assures him.

Gwynn and Isabel make room for themselves between the books, carefully lifting piles in to the corners, and leaning them against the walls.

“I wish we could get rid of some of these wishes,” Isabel says, lifting a pile that makes her swing back and forth as she walks. “Papa won’t be selling all of them.”

“Why don’t you?” Gwynn asks, setting down his pile with a heavy thump. “Get rid of them, I mean?”

“Dreams need to be looked after. If they aren’t given away and taken care of someone else, we must maintain their proper care. The responsibility falls to us. Dreams can easily get out of hand. They are a piece of a person, and that can never be let free. They are wild.”

“But you said dreams are just things. That they are easily stored. That doesn’t make sense.”

“Because dreams have such reason and rhyme,” Isabel counters, drily. She smiles as she replies, moving the last of a small pile of books to a stack on the shelf next to her. “They are things. In the way pets are things. They are easily stored, but they must be stored. Does that make sense?”

Gwynn shakes his head.

Isabel sighs. “It is confusing, isn’t it?”

Gwynn surveys the books around them, put aside to provide space enough to walk, an possibly to sit, though not without touching.

“Isn’t it overwhelming, to live here?” Gwynn asks.

Isabel laughs. “Not at all. I have lived next to dreams all my live. The thrill has worn off, and all I have to fear are nightmares.”

“Wouldn’t you have gotten used to them too?”

Isabel shakes her head. “It isn’t something you get used to. I used to be so frightened of nightmares that I could not sleep,” she says, keeping her eye on the volumes, running her hands along their familiar spines. “Most children at that age fear death, when they know enough of life to understand the finality of its end. They cannot sleep for fear of seeing themselves die in some way and waking in the dark without holding someone’s hand. And perhaps some of them will have worse deaths that other, but on the whole, it isn’t something to worry too much about. But how can you protect a child from nightmares?”

Gwynn does not answer. Instead he stands still and waits for her to speak. Isabel faces away from him, but does not move away. She lifts a hand to the shelved books.

“To know that they are real, at least in some way, is terrifying. And to know that they are right beyond your bedroom door… My father would sit with me, night after night, when my eyelids were heavy with sleep, so that I felt I would not live to see morning, and it was only my terror that kept me alert. He read to me, from ordinary books, fairy tales, and nightmares. He taught me that where there is light, there is shadow. And where there is darkness, there is a promise of light. He read me stories of princes, and did not object when I insisted that it was not right for the princesses to simply sit around and wait for rescuing. When I defended the wolf for simply acting on hunger, and insisted that a red-clad little girl be more frightened of a violent woodsman, he laughed. I am lucky that I live beside nightmares and dreams, for I fear neither.”

When she turns, Gwynn cannot speak, and takes several moments to consider his response.

“Your father does not sound the type to promise his daughter away in exchange for magic,” he says at last.

“He was not my father at the time,” she replies. “He was young, and foolish, and he wanted desperately to prove himself. He wanted adventure. He was a reamer himself. And after that, he was in love. I can begrudge his thoughtlessness, and his recklessness, but I can also forgive his unrest.”

“It wasn’t a fair bargain,” Gwynn says. “You are worth more than the ability to steal dreams.”

Isabel smiles. “Thank you, Gwynn.”

“How does he find them?” Gwynn asks, suddenly, indicating the books. “How does he find specific dreams? The best ones, like you said?”

“Some dreams, vivid dreams, carry a palpable energy,” Isabel says, glancing at another book and setting it aside. “I can feel who they belong to, if I have met the dreamer before, though that does not often happen. It is like knowing a storm is coming. I feel it in the air. I’m not sure one would be able to feel it if they were unfamiliar with the sensation.”

“Is the Rajah’s book here?” Gwynn asks. “Or Rina’s?”

Isabel’s brow furrows as she gazes at the rows upon rows of book and pearly spines. “I expect father has them all elsewhere, since they’re so valuable. There may be one of them here. Maybe a dream that isn’t as grand.”

‘Is every book a different dream?”

“Yes. Though some dreams fade into one another, and they can be in the same book.”

“There are a lot of dreams,” Gwynn murmurs, looking at the books with reverence.

Isabel laughs in response, and his attention returns to her sparkling eyes. “Father has many more than this. And he does not keep every dream he collects.”

“What doe she do with them?

“He sells them. At the Night Market.”

“The Night Market?” Gwynn repeats, his curiousity about another impossibly possible place overcoming his question about what the dream thief sells them for.

“It is the nocturnal market that many people visit. People who know what the world is really like. Who know about all this.” Isabel gestures around them at the exotic glass lanterns and tomes of dreams.

“What can you find there?” Gwyn asks.

“Penny illusions, mostly,” she answers. “Small magics, tricks and taboos.” Her eyes focus on the space past Gwynn, though she appears to be looking somewhere much farther away. “I have seen a vendor with a small menagerie in cages; birds packed wing beside wing, tiger cubs rubbing away their fur against the bars, monkeys with hollows for eyes. Cruelty and confinement. You can find many things in the Night Market.”

“There must be some upside to his business,” Gwynn says, hoping to distract Isabel from her apparently uncomfortable thoughts of the market.

Isabel looks thoughtful, before refocusing on Gwynn. “Father trades with other merchants. Magicians in far flung cities. Users of legerdemain who cannot make their own magic. I believe he does business with a nomadic circus, whose proprietor is in London.”

Gwynn is impressed by Isabel’s knowledge, though he thinks it is similar to his own. Years and years of standing by his father with questions and watchful eyes, and his father’s trade has become his own.

“Will you be taking over your father’s… occupation, one day?” Gwynn asks.

“There must be so many things you could be, because you can do so much.”

Isabel shakes her head, smiling. “Father has always given me the choice to do something else with my life. He does not care whether I make a substantial sum or enough to get by, or which currency it is in. And seeing as he began collecting dreams all on his own, it is hardly a family business. And if it were, he would not blindly expect me to continue it anyway. He has given me many choices in my life. If I wished to leave Venice, he would not stop me.”

“Leave Venice?” Gwynns asks, with some alarm. “Why would you leave Venice?”

Isabel smiles, though she tries to conceal it. “I would not, Gwynn. I am happy here. Travel would be nice, but Papa cannot move, and, at the moment, I have no urgent desire to leave him.”

“Why can you not move?” Gwynn asks. If he had a barge he would leave the canal and ride it across the ocean. Or perhaps along the coast, as he has little experience with traveling on water.

“It would not be good for father’s business. He is like a fisherman, he gets to know his area well, where the most vivid dreams are, where there are nightmares, and he cultivates what he can, and collects from the most fertile places. Were he to move to another place, even for a short time, he would have to start all over again.”

Suddenly, Isabel moves from her position, coming closer to Gwynn. He holds very still as she reaches around him. Her perfume makes his skin prickle. When she withdraws her hand from behind him, she holds something in her hand.

Isabel holds the book out to Gwynn, presenting the cerulean cover embossed with a simple bronze border.

“This is one of Rajah’s.”

Gwynn takes the book with unsteady hands, flipping open the cover and turning the pages. They are all blank.

“There’s nothing in it,” Gwynn says, looking up at Isabel.

Isabel takes the book gently from his hands and, in a single swift movement, tosses it in the air, where it turns and flutters with a sound like bird wings. While it is suspended above them, she leans forward and whispers, “Close your eyes.”

Gwynn slowly lets his eyelids fall closed. In the darkness behind them he hears the sound of pages fluttering, but they suddenly become something else. The sound of wind, distant and cool in the sudden heat on his skin.

Gwynn opens his eyes and gasps. The cavern is gone, replaced by an endless stretch of sand. Dunes of golden brown sand beneath a blue sky, and a wavering form in the distance, like a cool shadow.

Isabel stands beside him, but takes a step away as he steps forward, eager to feel the sand beneath his feet.

Gwynn takes a few steps forward. When he glances behind him, his boots have left imprints in the sand.

There is the deep scent of golden sand and amber, and something richer and spicier.

Cinnamon and sandalwood, ginger and incense. It smells both ancient and fresh, like the heat over a dune of powder soft sand.

The sky is blue as a robin’s egg, though the sun is as hot as an ember. Gwynn already feels over-heated as he stretches out his arms.

A hand touches his wrist, as Isabel appears at his side. “Gwynn. This is not it.”

Gwynn turns to her in surprise. But she is wearing a smile that suggests hidden knowledge, and he cannot guess what it might be.

Her hand slides from his wrist into his palm, and in a quick tug, they are flying over the sand, swiftly as birds. Their toes skim the ground, but Gwynn cannot even look back to see if they have left marks in the sand.

Gwynn feels the elation of a cool breeze sweeping over golden sun-warmed sand. It is as fragile a feeling as a being a whisper, carrying Arabian spice to tiled courtyards shaded by green fans, filled with dusky skinned sari-wrapped people. They mingle with peacocks that shimmer like jewels. In the flora-lined pools are tall pink birds, lunging for golden-scaled fish at their feet.

When Gwynn’s feet touch the floor again, he stumbles and would have fallen if Isabel were not there to catch him. She leads him to the side of the room, out of the way of dark skinned, gold-clothed men and women who carry trays and scrolls and small birds through the courtyard.

Many stop to exchange greetings with the woman seated in a pile of jewel coloured cushions. Her hands and feet are decorated with henna, like an elegant piece of jewelry sunken into her skin. She is tall and willowy, with long dark hair falling in waves around her and dark eyes that make her seem older than the rest of her face implies. She nods and smiles at many who walk by, but is preoccupied with the ladies sitting by her feet, rubbing her hands or re applying henna where it has begun to fade on her toes.

“This is the Rajah’s dream, yes?” Gwynn says, quietly, for he is sure that the people in the dream will hear him and regard him as an intruder of some sort. He certainly feels like an interloper, in this beautiful and exotic place.

Isabel nods. “He often dreams of places like this. And that woman,” she tilts her head toward the dark haired beauty in the cushions. “She is often in his dreams, and she leaves an imprint in them. I cannot tell what they’re saying, but she is someone of high status.”

They stand for a few more moments in stillness, and in the shade of a large fanned leaf. Silently, Isabel moves from the shelter of the plant, beckoning for Gwynn to follow her.

They look out of place as they traverse the courtyard, walking from shadow to shadow, nodding at those who pass and look at them curiously.

One man speaks to them in the same throaty language spoken by the Rajah, and Isabel responds in kind.

When Gwynn looks at her quizzically, she only says, “I have been here before. I should know at least one or two words of their language.”

Isabel leads him around the woman in the cushions, circling behind her to the opposite end of the courtyard, where they slip into the shadows of an alcove echoing with the sounds of the bubbling fountain that occupies it.

“There isn’t too much else to this dream,” Isabel says quietly, though they are attracting little attention in their alcove. They are standing quite close, though they have space between them and the wall. When Gwynn drifts closer, Isabel does not move back.

“Do you want to go back?” Isabel asks. She is close enough that her words are warm against his skin.

“Can we go into another dream?” Gwynn asks. When Isabel nods he tips his head, “Yes. Sure.”

Isabel takes his hand, and the sensation that accompanies her touch makes Gwynn think they will race over the dunes again, but instead she whispers, “Close your eyes again.”

When Gwynn is looking at the backs of his eyelids, Isabelle pulls him a few steps forward. He loses his balance for a moment, and when he catches himself with a heavy footfall, it makes the compact sound of a boot on dirt, rather than on a tiled courtyard floor.

“You can open your eyes now,” Isabel says.

The desert and the courtyard are gone when Gwynn opens his eyes. There is only the cavern and the mountains of books around them, looking almost exactly as they left it, though a few close to him have fallen over, presumably toppled when Gwynn stumbled back into the room.

“That was…” Gwynn feels breathless, and his voice catches. “This is impossible.”

“Nothing’s impossible,” Isabel says, with a smile.

While Gwynn struggled to readjust to the sudden change of venue, Isabel peruses the selection of tomes around them.

“I do not believe we have Rina’s, but Emma’s is right here,” Isabel says, righting a toppled pile of books and picking up the topmost.

She presents it to Gwynn with a small flourish that makes its evergreen cover flash like a beetle husk.

“Do I have to close my eyes?” Gwynn asks, as Isabel flips the cover open.

“No. Not necessarily. It’s just, getting into the dreams can get… complicated. Especially if you don’t know where you’re going. Just because this dream has an open door,” she hefts the volume in her hand, open to a random page. “Does not mean you won’t wander into another.”

Gwynn decides to close his eyes. He tells himself it is purely precautionary, though he also feels as though the transition between dreams would leave him feeling even more disoriented than he already does.

Isabel does not offer her hand out loud, but when she holds it out, Gwynn grasps it and shuts his eyes tightly.

There is the sensation of a tug, and the world tips as though he were dizzy. When Isabel tells him to open his eyes, he does so with a certain amount of trepidation.

They stand in a garden. It is a large garden that stretches on in both directions, fading into the violet of twilight sky on the horizon. Immediately around them, though, the garden looks as though it has been encroached upon by the woods, choked with vines and filled with trees.

And everywhere there are animals wandering. Beneath the ferns, in the branches of the trees, through leafy aisles. They walk around one another as though they have a preordained path, and it is not until one of them comes quite close to where Isabel and Gwynn stand that Gwynn realizes they are not ordinary animals. No, they are much more than that.

It is an alternate version of Emma’s waking environs. The creatures that pad across the moss are creatures of myth, or strange variations of animals Gwynn only glimpsed in the menagerie.

There are wyverns and dragons, nine-tailed foxes, griffins, eight-legged horses. A mare sits beneath a tree; its white torso shimmering as it lazily waves the scaled green tale that rests where its legs would.

A bird screeches overhead, drawing Gwynn’s gaze heavenward. A flock of scarlet-red birds with glittering golden plumage scatter sparks across the greenery, disappearing above the canopy.

Isabel leans forward to pet a foal, maneuvering her hand around the horn protruding form its head. It wobbles past and disappears beneath a bower of entangled vines.

Gwynn follows Isabel slowly, taking a more leisurely pace through the garden, though that is partially due to his own misgivings about traveling solo within a dream.

She moves from dream to dream easily, though Gwynn feels slightly discombobulated and would have gotten lost by now if he had not been following her so closely.

They stop at a clearing that is filled predominantly with flowers. Forget-me-nots and bluebells carpet the ground like a blue blanket. In the spaces between flowers Gwynn can see small salamanders in shifting rainbow colours crawling slowly this way and that.

“Why did you never tell me?” Gwynn asks. It is what he has been wondering most since she first revealed her origins. She is quiet for a moment, seeming to consider her words.

“At first because I did not trust you,” she says carefully. She does not meet his eyes. “And then because I suspected you would not believe me. And even if you did, it hardly ends well, revealing this side of the world to anyone. Younger minds can accept it easily enough, but with age one is more likely to reject it. People are comfortable with their perception of the world, not matter how blind it may be. I was unsure, and I kept putting off telling you. And eventually it did not seem like lying.” She glances at Gwynn. “I am sorry.”

Gwynn glances around the woods, at the fantastical creatures that gaze back with matching expressions of curiousity. “I’m not. I’m glad to know about it now, anyway.”

“What made you decide to tell me now?” Gwynn asks, after a pause.

“I was weary of lying to you. And I did not want you to think, should this fail and I go with papa’s associate, that I had just left you. I wanted you to know who I was.”

They stand in silence for some time, gazing at the animals and watching them, though Gwynn’s eyes are drawn to Isabel repeatedly, watching the sunlight on her skin. She regards him occasionally in a similar manner. When their eyes meet, they do not look away.

Isabel only suggests that they return when a basilisk slithers over her boot.

Gwynn is less jarred when they return to the cavern, and he does not relinquish Isabel’s hand until she reaches for a book elsewhere.

The silence of the cavern is interrupted by the pitter-patter of rain on soil above them, echoing in the adjacent rooms.

Isabel selects a book from a high shelf, pulling volume after volume down from the well-stocked shelf, wavering on her tiptoes, before retrieving it.

She stares at the silver and black cover with a small frown for some time.

“It something wrong?” Gwynn asks.

Isabel shakes her head and turns the book over, to perceive it from different angles. Gwynn cannot tell what she might be looking for.

“I cannot tell what is in it. It seems a dark sort of place, but that can mean anything. It is foggy, in my head, like hearing footsteps far away in the mist and not seeing whose they are,” Isabel says. She looks up and returns the stare Gwynn has aimed at her. “We just don’t know what is inside. There is only one way to find out.” Isabelle smiles.

The dream they step into is ice cold. Air as sharp as knives hits Gwynn’s skin before his eyes open.

These woods are different from the ones in which he stood only minutes before. They are the cold and black, with skeletal trees that reach above them like the elaborate bars of a cage.

Isabel’s hand tightens in his.

Close by there is the sound of a snapping twig, though Gwynn sees nothing in the direction from which it comes, only blackness and moonlight, repeating in fractal patterns over and over.

Something like dread crawls up Gwynn’s spine.

“This is a nightmare. We shouldn’t be here,” Isabel says.

Gwynn opens his mouth to answer but the air around them shifts. The ground shudders as though his with a wave. It reverberates through them like the vibrations of a noise, shaking their bones.

The small amount of light illuminating the trees disappears. Isabel is only a voice and a hand in the darkness.

“Gwynn, close your eyes now.”

In the added darkness, Gwynn feels a sharp pain in his chest. The sensation of falling, with no ground beneath him. Cold fingers on his throat.

Then the sensation is gone, and only Isabel’s voice remains.

“Gwynn, open your eyes.”

Isabel is kneeling beside him, holding his hand. Her expression of concern fades as he sits up.

“What happened?” Gwynn asks. He is no longer cold, and the light is slowly reassuring him.

“I pulled us from the nightmare. I’m sorry; I should have recognized it sooner. It got out of control.”

The rain is growing to a steady din that sounds like distant thunder in the cavern.

Gwynn slowly stands, and when he is steady, Isabel turns to the nearest pile of books.

“Dreams are comparatively easy to handle,” she explains, flipping through a thin blue volume. A ribbon flutters by her fingers as she turns page after page. “Nightmares are harder, they are volatile. Father usually doesn’t let me handle them. He prefers to do it himself. Dreams are also kindred spirits, they tend to huddle. A person dreams many dreams in one go, then nothing. They don’t spread them out. Nightmares are more solitary. Imagine a rogue animal, it was once yours or someone else’s, and now it is feral and vicious. That is a nightmare.”

“Are your dreams here, or somewhere else?” Gwynn asks, wanting to divert the conversation and suddenly very curious of what he would encounter, were he to step inside one of her dreams, and desiring the opportunity to find out.

But she shakes her head and replies, “My father has never taken my dreams from me. He has never even touched them. They come and fade with morning light.” She smiles as she replaces the book on its shelf. “He has given me the freedom to keep my dreams, or relinquish them as I choose. They are, possibly, the only dreams he does not have in his entire thiefdom.”

Isabel replaces the book in its pile and sweeps a hand toward the shelves.

“Pick one, Gwynn,” Isabel says.

Gwynn looks between the books on the shelves and on the floor, but there is not indication  of what is inside them. The ones on the floor look identical to those in the cases; he wonders if there is some indiscernible filing system. Thinking of the dream thief, he thinks there probably isn’t. He chooses one at random from a collapsed tower at him feet. It is pumpkin orange, though it shines with the warmth of smoldering embers.

Gwynn opens it and hands it to Isabel, closing his eyes as she takes his hand.

The heat between their palms spreads, and becomes the heat of summer.

Around him, Gwynn can hear the roar of surf, and the whistling wind. He opens his eyes slowly.

What had been the rough stonewalls and packed dirt floor of the cavern are now the night sky, midnight blue over the endless expanse of ocean, rippling like black silk.

Isabel leads him as close to the surf as they can be without wetting their boots. In the stillness, her breathing matches the rhythm of the tide.

The ocean is almost indistinguishable from the sky on the horizon.

“There,” Isabel says, pointing to a flare of light in the distance, ember red and small as a firefly. “That is the temple on the far shore. Its torches remain lit every hour of every day, so that its disciples may see it from afar.”

“How do you know?” Gwynn asks, though his eyes remain on the flickering light.

“I simply do. It is another unforeseen effect of growing up next to dreams, I suppose. And I have been in this dream before.”

They walk in silence down the beach, keeping an eye on the temple in the distance, watching it blaze and burn.

When they finally return, Gwynn does not stumble. He steps from the dream to the cavern as calmly as he can, and watches Isabel place the book back on the shelf.

“Are any of my dreams here?” Gwynn asks. 

Isabel does not answer immediately, and though she gives no indication of having heard; Gwynn doesn’t repeat the question.

When Isabel responds, she looks at the brightness of a lantern, glowing like a small sun. “I don’t know. Once before, I thought perhaps a dream was yours. It felt familiar enough. But I cannot be certain, and I never thought to ask father to leave your dreams be.”

The pause between them goes on long enough to make Gwynn uncomfortable.

“Would you be mad it they were?” Isabel asks, quietly.

Gwynn considers the prospect of remembering each dream he has forgotten. He can hardly recall each dream he has had that is still vividly clear to him when he wakes. He decides it likely would not matter if he still had those dreams; he may have forgotten them all on his own.

“No,” Gwynn answers. Isabel turns to look at him. “I think there is hardly anything I could be mad at you for.”

“Even when I broke your violin, right after I met you?” Isabel asks.

“Even then… The first time I saw you, I thought I was dreaming,” Gwynn says, he feels his ears getting rather hot.

Isabel smiles. She takes a step closer to him. “You were standing up,” she points out. “Not asleep.”

“I was in a state of disbelief. Also, I was exhausted. I could have fallen asleep while my legs still carried me.”

Isabel takes a step closer. There is little enough space between them that her toes brush his.

When Gwynn reaches for her and draws her lips to his, it is as though they have met like this before.

Hot breaths follow, growing hotter with roving hands.

Gwynn learns the xylophone ridges of Isabel’s spine.

They fall to the floor gracelessly, pushing aside books and toppling stacks.

Their voices tangle together. Entangled limbs, lips against skin.

When their breaths no longer outpace the rain, they fall into a deep, dreamless sleep.

When Gwynn wakes, Isabel is lying with her head on his chest, and he thinks perhaps he is dreaming, as he softly strokes her back.

He does not move until she wakes, and they dress slowly, speaking softly.

The rain has stopped. Outside the cavern the streets are filled with silver sunlight, and three strangers are preparing to visit the dream thief.

Art by Ludovic Jacqz

Text by Lucie MacAulay