Sometimes he'll try to talk to people, offer to sell them things. Sometimes he'll offer their dreams, fantasies and wishes... I don't know if anyone has ever taken advantage of this offer, except Aisha. She bought a queen's dream and her own deepest wish, and got two rich green bottles, sealed shut with a bit of wax, withdrawn from some pocket deep within the layers of his clothing.

He warned her not to open the bottles until she had some privacy... two days ago she kissed me, the sort of kiss we had when we first hooked up, passion and hope and...

...and then she walked out the door. I could hear the clink and chime of the two tiny bottles hidden in her pocket. She called back over her shoulder that she would be back in a while, that she was going up to the Rose Gardens to see the Queen's dream. I wished her good luck, hoping she wouldn't come home too disappointed.

Today when I was pacing through the roses, wondering why she left, where she'd gone, what happened to her, I found one of the tiny bottles. It was still sealed but had a scrap of paper wrapped around it. I unrolled the paper - her handwriting, but I'd known it would be her writing before I saw it - and read.

"Come find me."

No hesitation, just the flick of my knife against the wax covering the cork, a single indrawn breath as smoke the color of sunlight through leaves poured out, filling my lungs... I couldn't keep on my feet, the world was spinning, swirling, so I lay on the cool solid stone of the walkway and stared at the hill before me, watching it draw open, waiting to see her eyes looking back at me from the other side.

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