His mouth twitched slightly, as if trying to remember how to smile. “I gathered.”
I tilted my head. “Whether this is a dream or not, I am curious—how long have you been here?”
His smile faded and something unreadable passed over his features—like a shadow moving behind glass. “I don’t know, only that I’ve been here as long as I can remember. I’m the tender of this garden. In many ways, it feels like a moment…in others it feels like forever. Ithinkthis garden is mine…but I don’t remember planting any of it.”
I had learned long ago that memory never truly disappeared—it lingered in the worn edges of objects, in the echo of moments left behind long after they’d been forgotten.
Out of habit, my gaze drifted over him, tracing the line of his sleeve, the shape of his hands, the tilt of his posture—searching, as always, for the fragments a person carried, clues they didn’t know they wore.
I was tempted to reach out and allow my powers to explore these stories…but I didn’t dare reveal my magic. Not to mentionI had no reason to want to learn more about a man who would vanish the moment I awoke.
Then again, this was only a dream—a world of flickering shadows and possibilities, where mistakes didn’t bear the same consequences as the real world. I didn’t touch him, but reached out with my senses curiously, drawing back hastily as he met my eyes.
“Whoever I am doesn’t change the fact that I reside within this garden as its tender.” As he spoke he traced the curve of a rose petal—gaze reverent, his movements slow and deliberate, almost hypnotic. “I take it you have no trouble remembering your own identity?”
I proudly lifted my chin. “I’m a thief.”
“Athief?”
Instead of reacting with wariness as many did when learning my profession, he only looked puzzled, his brow lifted in mild skepticism. “You claim this is a dream, yet you choosethatas your role? I thought dreams allowed us to be whatever we wished.”
“The choice has always been mine since the day I made it.”
The memory of that moment tugged at the edges of my mind, an unwanted recollection I had buried with painstaking care. I’d discarded every token that might recall it, desperate not to relive what my magic might unearth with a careless touch.
The way his eyes lingered on mine made me uneasy, as if he could see the vulnerability I’d worked so hard to conceal. “That explains how you came here.” His gaze flickered to the high wall of brambles that enclosed the garden, thorny and impassable. “I doubt even thorns would stop a thief.”
“Nothing can stop me.” While this resolve was true, for once the words felt like a lie. In every previous exploit, locked doors and high walls served only as obstacles to overcome rather than a hindrance to whatever path I was determined to forge.
But I hadn’t scaled any walls or picked a lock to get here; I had simply appeared through no volition of my own…and that unsettled me. I slowly looked around again, taking in every rose and bramble. I was certain I’d never dreamt of such a place before, yet it contained an air of familiarity, similar to a memory I’d visited that wasn’t my own.
When my gaze returned to the stranger, I found him studying me again. “You appear disturbed. Did you not climb the wall?”
I hesitated. “I don’t know.”
“Interesting.” His tone was musing. “That makes your presence here all the more peculiar, especially considering there’s nothing worth stealing.”
“Perhaps at first glance,” I said, stepping past him and letting my gaze drift over the tangle of briars. “But a well-trained thief finds value in the most unexpected.”
I should have left the conversation at this natural conclusion, but I didn’t seem to be showing any sign of waking. After the adrenaline-filled dreams I was accustomed to keeping me entertained throughout an otherwise uneventful night, being confined to a single setting was proving rather dull.
I squeezed my eyes shut and willed myself to wake. In ordinary dreams, that was usually enough—disinterest alone could unravel the illusion and draw me back to the waking world. But this time…nothing happened.
I opened my eyes. The garden remained. The scent of roses still hung thick in the air, almost cloying now, the man watching me as before. The light dimmed by a fraction, shadows drawing closer at the edges of the thorns, as though the moment I tried to leave, the dream had noticed…and responded.
I tried again, reaching for that invisible thread that usually tugged me back to consciousness. But it wasn’t there. How curious.
I sighed. Nothing to do but await for the unfolding dream to play out. Perhaps I could at least use the time profitably; my dreams were always creations of my subconscious, so perhaps I could find a clue for escaping not only this mysterious garden but the tower prison where my body slept.
Whether this was a dream or an extension of the real world, I searched the same way I navigated any other place in preparation for a heist. I didn’t know what I hoped to find—proof this was a dream, a way out, a reason for why I’d been drawn here at all.
The stranger cocked his head curiously as I began to explore, offering neither guidance nor remonstrance. He simply watched as I prowled along the edge of the path, then moved after me—whether for companionship or mere curiosity I wasn’t sure. I didn’t need to concern myself with the motives of fictional dream-characters.
With the brambles creating a lattice similar to ivy over the hedges, there was no way to climb over and investigate another corner of this dreamscape.
As if the surreal environment had sensed my unspoken desires to explore, the landscape suddenly shifted, almost imperceptibly. Behind the nameless stranger, a thorny hedge seemed to draw back slightly, revealing a glimpse of path that hadn’t been there before. A breeze stirred the thorns, and for a moment I could’ve sworn they whispered.
The garden appeared small at first glance, but it seemed to have no end, turns and bends unfolding as I walked deeper into the labyrinth of thorn-laced arches and pale buds that never seemed to open, drawn to something just out of sight—a glimmer that, from a distance, almost appeared like a shape of memory.
