#doodoodoo

Underfoot, the ground grows softer, softer, softer. Her toes sink deep on a step, then catch on a buried root. She trips—scrabbles for purchase on Graysen.

Falls through him.

Her palms ripple and flicker. They are at once cushioned by a plush covering of grass and splattered deep in sulfurous muck. She feels her breath quicken.

"Water," she rasps.

She is near water. This is important, she thinks. Someone wanted to know this.

Someone easy when they let it be. Someone warm enough to melt into. Someone who made her enjoy dreaming again.

Lu—

Mist tingles up her nose, a fog of the eyes, a shush of the mind, and there is only the dream.

Graysen sits across from her. The picnic is a lavish spread set atop a gingham blanket. He rummages through a basket at his side, then passes her a cup.

Drink, he tells her. You're thirsty.

Human wine is worse than she remembers it. Thick as sludge on the tongue. Offensive enough to the palate to rouse tears. But he was right—she is thirsty, and so she laps and laps and laps.

There, now, he murmurs after a time. That's enough. We're almost there besides. I'll take care of you soon.

Elain wipes her mouth and rises to a stand. If her limbs tremble, shake, sway as she follows behind, that is in a body which she cannot feel. One which has not been her own in a long time anyway.

A tug at her ribs reminds her of this.

She has felt it before, right around when their dreams began. He had been her, and she had been him. The sharing had been a thing like sunshine—waiting there always beyond, even when it is obscured from sight.

But it had been a reminder then, too. Of what she is. Of what she is not.

You said you wouldn't do that again, she scolds.

Relief parts the clouds just overhead. Graysen scowls up at the rend, and her face grows warm to think he can feel it.

I'm sorry, he says, but he does not quite sound it. Tell me where you are.

Elain tries to focus, tries to remember, but her eyes have been closed to the world—or perhaps they are open and simply unseeing. This dream is not as easy as it had been at the outset. She wishes for their bed, his heat, the simplicity of it all.

Elain, please. We've been looking for you.

We.

The names run together, overlap, meld and contort: nestafeyreazrielnualacerridwencassianmorriganamrenrhysand

All different. All other. Like she is now, but—a glance towards Graysen—like she does not have to be any longer. Perhaps, once she has been remade as she once was, she can even do the same for her sisters.

Of course we can, Graysen assures.

Lucien yanks on the thread connecting them. Hard. For a moment, she can see him: lying in stately repose across a chaise, shadows atop him, eyes on him, waiting, hoping, fretting. Then she balls her fist and yanks right back.

Oh, Lucien gasps, just beneath her ear. That is strange.

Graysen rounds on her like a turning storm. The pellucid blue of his eyes bleeds black where they narrow just over her shoulder. That thing wearing his face, peering out from beneath.

The dream falls away. She feels the ravage made of her feet, the sturdy leather of the boots she chose yet too fragile for this journey. Her stomach has distended with such sudden overuse. Grit abrades her tongue. Her body that is not her body anymore aches and aches and aches.

"Come back," she pleads.

Graysen does not answer.

To Lucien: He doesn't like that you're here.

Who?

It hurts, she says, pushing him away. Please go.

His voice is distant but panicked. Wha— Elain, who are you talking to?

He will not go away unless she answers, and he will not come back unless he goes away.

Graysen.

You're with Graysen?

At the toothy edge of a whispering lake, endless and black, Elain stands all alone.

No, she shudders. But I will be soon.

El—