But before I could grasp it, Evander straightened and stood. The loss of his steadying presence was immediate and strangely noticeable. Before I could miss it too long, he turned and extended his hand to help me to my feet. I accepted it slowly, trying to ignore the subtle thrill I felt as his fingers enclosed around mine.
He noticed the puzzlement filling my expression. “I’m not sure how long you’ll be awake for. There’s something I want to show you.”
Without waiting for my response, he turned and began walking. I hesitated a moment before following.
The path curved through the roses, their blooms fuller than I remembered, their color so deep it bordered on unnatural. As we passed, one brushed against my hand. The petals didn’t dissolve beneath my touch nor blur as dreams often did—they bent, soft and real, leaving behind the faintest trace of their scent on my skin. Too real.
A flicker of a memory tugged the edges of my mind, stirring my powers—one filled with roses in full bloom from a place within this dreamscape I was certain I’d never visited in person, even as the lost recollection felt strangely like mine. I blinked and it vanished.
I didn’t realize I’d stilled until Evander slowed up ahead, glancing over his shoulder in a silent question. I buried my sense of unease and hurried to catch up.
For all the dreamscape’s breathtaking beauty and detailed imagery, it was still shrouded in ruin and neglect, a conflict of opposites that really made it appear as an illusion from a dream. Yet the deeper we walked, the more the illusion began to fracture.
Beyond the vibrant roses and sunlit paths, there were traces of ruin—crumbling stone half-buried beneath new growth, fractured pillars standing where something greater had once been. Restoration and decay side by side, as though the world could not decide what it was meant to be.
“Each time I come here, the world seems to change,” I murmured, my gaze tracing the jagged edge of a broken arch now threaded with blooming vines. “As though it’s rebuilding itself.” Almost as if each new setting was being recreated by my imagination.
I expected another carefully worded evasion that would leave me with more questions than answers, but to my surprise he responded plainly. “That is because of you. Every time you move between these two realities, something is lost from where you came from and restored here. When you awaken, more returns.”
“Don’t you mean whenever I fall asleep and enter this dream?”
He regarded me with quiet patience. “I’ve told you before: this isn’t a dream.”
My breath suspended as I considered his claim. Everything around me seemed to be proclaiming its reality until I could no longer ignore the evidence. But if this was no dream…what did that mean about the world with the other Evander, the world that housed my reality?
I felt momentarily lost, adrift in this sea of uncertainty. I struggled to grasp for something steadier. “Dream or not, at least you aren’t speaking in riddles like your counterpart.”
He shrugged. “I have no reason to hide anything from you. It’s precisely why I chose to warn you.”
“Warnings and answers are not the same,” I said. “I’m surprised you’re willing to offer the latter.”
He was quiet for a moment before responding. “I don’t believe most in the other world are withholding informationintentionally,” he said. “They’ve simply forgotten and no longer possess it.” His expression darkened suddenly. “The same cannot be said of my counterpart. I believe he alone has retained his memories, which is what makes him so dangerous and thus unworthy of your trust.”
The warning seemed to echo faintly in the space around us, one part of me still didn’t want to fully believe. “If you two are the same person,” I said slowly. “Then do you know what he’s after?”
Evander hesitated. “In part,” he admitted. “But whereas he has retained much of what was lost…I have not.” His gaze drifted briefly to the ruins around us. “It seems my memories were the price of his clarity.”
That answer did not settle anything, but instead made the fracture between them feel sharper.
Evander glanced towards a path winding deeper into the ruins. “There is much I still don’t understand: the curse, the nature of these worlds, the imbalance between them. I’ve been researching as much as I can in an effort to help my kingdom.” His gaze returned to mine. “This is one particular finding I believe you’ll find enlightening.”
I yearned to accept his invitation, one which my rebellious heart yearned to view as a courtship outing disguised as a research expedition. I had never been pursued by a man before, either in my dreams or while awake. That thrill eclipsed even my curiosity to learn more information about this world and the sleeping curse that had descended upon it.
But the shield I’d erected over my heart didn’t yield so easily. “How do I know that you’re not deceiving me as well? You caution me against trusting your counterpart, yet you ask for that same trust in return?”
A faint smile touched the corner of his mouth. “Then perhaps it is time I offer you more than warnings.” His expressionsoftened, revealing a warmth that had been hidden beneath his previous restraint. “It’s admittedly hypocritical to desire trust I have yet to earn, but can you fault me for envying him for having the opportunity to spend time with someone so beautiful and intriguing?”
My breath caught and a blush rose unbidden to my cheeks; I hastily looked away before he could see it.
No one had ever spoken to me like that before, not without wanting something in return. Every instinct I had honed over years of survival warned me to keep my distance—to remain cautious, detached, unentangled. But that instinct had already begun to falter the moment I’d met him. Whether these two versions of Evander were one and the same or something far more complicated, I was already involved more deeply than I should have been.
Yet for all the risk, I didn’t think I was strong enough to resist.
It would be easier to indulge that curiosity within the safety of a dream; surely nothing could actually happen to me if this world existed only in my mind. I lifted my gaze to meet his once more. “This had better be worth it,” I said lightly, though the words carried more weight than I intended.
His smile deepened. “I won’t disappoint you.” His words carried a promise I wanted nothing more than to hold.
He motioned for me to follow him down the path. Despite my initial agreement, for a moment, I remained where I was. I knew I should draw a boundary between us before it was too late, but as the distance between us widened with each step he took, something in me resisted the thought of letting it grow.
