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“Did you find anything?” She bent to look at a sculpture, a man carved in stone with an oversized, erect appendage. Straightening, Brinna stepped back quickly, right into Lucian. His hands centered her, the warmth of them curling around her arms.
His eyes sparkled as he looked at her, even though he looked tired. “Nothing that fits.” He looked at the sculpture. “You know, I visited this place on my Roam—an ancient city in twelfth circle—where every sculpture was some version of this. And when I was a godling, I spent time here looking for all the… colorful art. Nix and I made a game of it.” His gaze jumped back to her, as he grinned. “Does thisancient civilizationinterest you?”
Brinna narrowed her eyes, feeling that he was setting her up somehow. “It does.”
He grinned wider, as if her answer energized him, then he tucked her arm into his and led her through the library. They stopped to look at different sculptures, works of art, many of which depicted gigantic phalics, female genitalia, and sex acts, Lucian telling her stories about what he’d thought as a boy.
“Are you trying to tell me something, Lucian?” she asked, straightening from a sculpture where the stone woman had her legs bent and splayed open, waiting.
“Subliminally?” He arched an eyebrow and smiled. “Were you able to Dreamshare with your mother?”
“You didn’t answer my question, and this isn’t subliminal.” She laughed, and he joined in, the lightness in the moment giving her strength. “Yes. I was able to dream with my mother.” She filled him in on what she’d seen as they walked. “It’s different than dreaming with you, though. It feels like a dream—difficult to decipher—instead of… this.”
“Less real?”
“Yes,” she said as she looked around, thinking this looked like a fantasy rather than something tangible. Yet here she was with Lucian. “I can’t communicate directly with her, only try and guess at the meaning of her dream.”
He drew her a touch closer with his arm. “How are you?”
She wasn’t sure why the question made her throat close. Why it made her feel like she might drown while simultaneously making her feel light as a feather on a breeze. Perhaps she wasn’t used to anyone asking her how she was. She cleared her throat and blinked, a glowing orb over Lucian’s shoulder blurring. “Um. I’m–” But she couldn’t finish the thought. Her eyes jumped to his golden ones, and his handsome features pulled into something resembling concern. “I don’t–”
“I’m here,” he said with a reassuring squeeze.
“I feel myself being tugged away from what’s real,” she admitted.
He stopped and turned to face her, his brows drawn together. She watched his throat work as he swallowed.
“I think I understand,” he said. “Today, I was… afraid that perhaps I’m losing my grasp on what’s real. When I was here—in the real library—with my brother today, that felt more like a dream than this. Being with you feels more authentic somehow.” He looked away as if ashamed to have admitted it.
Brinna took one of his hands in hers, unsure what to say but needing to feel him, needing to comfort him, to take his comfort.
Lucian laced his fingers with hers and looked around the library, then back at her. “I remembered something today. Something about being here.”
“Yes?”
“I loved it. Loved coming to the library. I’d forgotten it, but it played such a huge part in inspiring my Roam. Do you think that’s strange?” He looked at her once more.
“What? That you loved this place? I love it.”
He smiled but shook his head. “No. That I’d forgotten.”
Brinna looked around, then back at him. “No. I think we lose sight of things sometimes. Things that are so important at the time, but then other things take precedence.” Her words struck a chord inside of her. What hadshelost sight of? “I think there’s always a way back, even if we have changed.”
He nodded. “I read about my father’s life.” His voice carried something she couldn’t decipher.
“And?” she asked, curious, and started walking once more, her hand in Lucian’s. She reveled in the ease of being with him and feared when it would come time for him to leave.
“His life is filled with missteps and misguided choices. And still…” His voice faded away. He shook his head, but his eyes drifted back to hers. “I think I thought he was more than he is.”
It made her think of her own parents. Her mother. “Does that make you sad?”
He shook his head and gave her a short smile. “I think it makes me think differently, but not in a negative way.”
Brinna blinked, and the dreamscape had changed into the woods.
“Wait,” Luc said, looking over her shoulder. “Oh.”
“Where are we?” She turned in place and recognized it—the Whitling Woods—though different in Luc’s mind. Her eyes connected with various details, the snow piles, the boulders, the tall evergreens and naked, reaching branches. A sound and movement captured her attention, and she turned her head to see a young woman—no! It was her, only different—walking into the meadow, pulling a sled.
