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  “Spider’s never been afraid of anything before. Not that I’ve seen. But that was different.” Tovah shrugged and picked a blade of grass. She put it between her thumbs and blew, making it bleat. She looked up at Ben. “Were you here when it happened?”

  He hesitated, then nodded. “Yes.”

  “Was it the same for you?”

  “Black sand? Black sky?” He reached for his own blade of grass and whistled with it. His worked better.

  “Yes. Lightning. And the ground shook.”

  Ben looked away from her. “It was the same for everyone I’ve talked to, no matter what they were doing.”

  Of course he spoke with others. There were plenty of times she entered the Ephemeros and didn’t see Ben or Spider. There was no reason for her to believe they weren’t here when she wasn’t. The sudden flare of jealousy surprised her.

  “Was it something from a shaper, do you think? Or something bigger?”

  Ben shot her a frown. “How should I know?”

  Though Spider had explained the Ephemeros to Tovah and she’d seen firsthand how it worked, she didn’t exactly understand it. She didn’t think Spider fully did, either, nor had she expected Ben to hold the key to its secrets. Even so, she frowned at his reaction.

  “Sorry. I thought you might have a theory or something, that’s all. Spider’s told me a lot. I figured he’d told you the same things he’s told me.”

  “What things?” Ben had shredded his grass whistle, but didn’t pick another.

  “That the Ephemeros is shaped by the collective unconscious. That we all enter it, but not everyone can manipulate it. Not even sleepers who know they’re dreaming are always shapers. That some people think it’s Heaven, or Hell—”

  “Yeah, he told me that, too.” Ben got up and strode away from the patch of grass he’d shared with her. Pacing, he shoved his hands into the pockets of his worn tan cords. He turned to look at her. “Do you believe him?”

  “I don’t believe he was lying to me, if that’s what you mean.”

  Ben shook his head. “I didn’t say he was lying. He believes it. I asked if you do.”

  She took a moment to ponder that. “I saw Jim Morrison in the club, once.”

  Ben laughed. “That’s not proof. Besides, Morrison’s not really dead. Just like Elvis and Marilyn Monroe. What was Mr. Mojo Rising doing?”

  “Nothing. I mean, we didn’t speak. He was at the bar, just watching everyone around him.”

  “Was he old and fat?”

  Tovah smiled. “No. He was young and lean and gorgeous.”

  “That’s not proof of anything. If you’re going to represent as a famous rock star, you’re not going to do the bloated version.”

  Tovah raised a brow. “It’s not proof. You’re right. It could have been someone shaping to look like him. Is this a philosophical discussion about whether or not Jim Morrison really died or are you arguing with me for kicks?”

  “I’m just saying that you know as well as I do the face anyone wears here isn’t necessarily his own, and seeing someone who died—supposedly or otherwise—means nothing. I mean, really, do you think the Ephemeros is Heaven?”

  She ignored his deliberately taunting tone. “I’m not convinced it isn’t.”

  “Because you saw Jim Morrison in a club.”

  “Because I think Heaven has to be somewhere,” she told him. “And this is as good a place as any.”

  “So you think what happened the other day…the ground shaking…was what? God?” Ben didn’t sound taunting now, he sounded downright scathing.

  “I didn’t say that. And no. I don’t think it was a god.”

  Ben stared at her. More tension crackled between them. Tovah took a slow breath and let her eyes wander over his face, the planes and lines and curves of which had become so familiar to her in so short a time.

  “Maybe it was Jim Morrison, then.”

  Tovah shrugged. “It didn’t feel shaped. He felt like he was representing true.”

  “You can’t tell that.”

  The way he scoffed got under her skin like a sliver. “C’mon, Ben, you can tell sometimes, can’t you? When someone’s representing true or not?”

  He stopped pacing to pierce her with his gaze. “I can tell when someone isn’t.”

  Now he was deliberately trying to get on her nerves, and Tovah put her hands on her hips. “Oh, really?”

  “Yes.” Ben moved two steps closer as though daring her to move away.

  Tovah didn’t move. He got to his knees in front of her and traced her eyebrows with the pad of his thumb while she shivered at his touch. His fingertips whispered over her cheeks, the bridge of her nose, the curve of her jaw and down her throat.

  She swallowed hard. He wasn’t looking into her eyes. His gaze followed the path his fingers made as they mapped her. His hands stopped briefly on her hips, and one moved across her thigh.

  Tovah, trembling, closed her eyes. She thought he’d kiss her again. She wanted him to kiss her.

  “Almost everything about you is real,” Ben whispered into her ear. “Almost.”

  Tovah opened her eyes, breaking at Ben’s words not because he meant them to be cruel but because she thought he meant to be kind. “What are you looking for in the water, Ben? What’s so important about those fish you’re always catching and throwing back? What do you want to pull out of there?”

  Now he looked into her eyes. Inches apart, his hand still on her thigh just above where her scars began in the waking world. There, but not here.

  “It doesn’t matter, Tovah.”

  “It does to me.”

  That first time he’d crashed into their space and shaped her and Spider within moments. Now Tovah relaxed, opening herself to the tendrils of Ben’s desire. The grass beneath them became soft white sand and the stream turned into the immortal and inexorable push-pull of the sea.

  But though Tovah waited for him to change her, she stayed the same.

  Ben turned his face when she leaned to kiss him. She stopped herself a breath from brushing her lips against his cheek. Stunned by the rejection, she watched as Ben got to his feet to pace again.

  “I’m not like you, Tovah.”

  Embarrassed, ashamed, she got up too. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  He wouldn’t even look at her. They’d known each other for months, and now he was making her a stranger. Tovah swallowed bitterness and thought about simply willing all this away. Running away.

  “I can’t afford to jerk around in here, that’s all,” Ben said. “I don’t spend all my time in here avoiding the real world.”

  “Is that what you think I do?”

  He sighed. “Isn’t it?”

  Stung again, Tovah stepped back. “Why do you always do this?”

  “Do what?”

  “Pick a fight with me.” She crossed to him.

  He still had his hands in his pockets, but he took them out when she moved toward him. She stopped. Did he think she was going to hit him?

  “I don’t, Tovah.”

  She didn’t believe that for a second. “I don’t avoid the real world, Ben. But there’s not a damned thing wrong with enjoying this one. I’ve been given a gift in here, and so have you. I don’t know if it’s Heaven or Hell, but I’m glad I’m here.”

  “Tell that to all the people who’ve been having nightmares they can’t get away from.”

  “I can’t help that!”

  “You could help them,” he pointed out.

  “What were you doing when it happened?” She’d meant to ask only for basis of comparison, to get him to admit he hadn’t done a lot of guiding either, but his expression made it clear he didn’t want to tell her.

  “I was doing the same thing I’m always doing in here.”

  “Which is what?”

  Ben looked grim. He backed up a step or two, and the Ephemeros blurred around him, going gray. “Trying to wake up.”

  Then he left her alone in the meadow.