4

There's a pause.

Then the creature raises its face to the sky—and suddenly each of the bright petals on its head peels away and floats up into the air, dancing like a flock of colorful birds.

And at last—buzzing like a distant swarm of insects—you hear it speak.

"Magic."

For once, when you wake up, it's not with a sudden jolt back to the real world. It's just as simple as opening your eyes—because for some reason, in the last moment of your dream, when you heard that voice, you knew you were asleep. You knew you were dreaming, and you were visiting a place that only existed when you dreamed it.

But even though you knew it wasn't real, the voice didn't feel like a dream. It felt like a sound that pierced through your sleep for you to hear even while unconscious.

You don't know what that could possibly mean. You just know that this is the third time you've had a dream like that since you arrived here—since you left the forest—and each time, it's gotten a little more difficult to shake it off after you wake up.

Maybe it's not just the dream that makes it a little hard to come back to the real world, though. Maybe it's also the fact that everything that happened last night is still lingering on your mind like its own kind of dream. The concert with Marlowe, the music soaring through the darkened room. Finding Tobias alone in the park. Sitting with Tobias with the whole of the night sky above you as you talked.

And finally, watching him walk away until he was out of sight.

The thing that stands out the most is: