Sinit?a sat beside him and ran a hand over his cheek and through his hair. A tingle ran through him, and he closed his eyes to cut out the other sensations and just enjoy the feel of her fingers.


    Slowly, he opened his eyes again. She was still sitting over him, her fingers still on his scalp. He could feel them again.


    So he closed his eyes once more. This time, the sensation remained. She must have briefly stopped last time.


    It was certainly much nicer with his eyes closed. No swirling, out-of-focus room to struggle against. Just the touch of her fingers in his hair.


    She removed her hand. A moment later, the mattress shook as she pressed herself up against him. Something tickled his face. He opened his eyes again to the sight of her blonde hair adorned with streaming, coloured ribbons. She was lying beside and against him.


    But she didn’t move. Instead, she stared into his eyes, her own bright blue eyes seeming to sparkle. There were tears forming in them.


    They lay like that for a while longer. He stared into her eyes, wishing he could remember what had happened, what had brought him here. Why was she afraid for his life?


    “Yeah,” he said. Maybe, by the time she was back, his head would have cleared enough for him to remember, or for her or Jorvan to tell him.


    She slid off the bed and stood up, then picked up her coat from the floor right beside her.


    When he opened his eyes, she was carefully tucking her hair, tied back with a single, large white bow, into her hood. She smiled at him. “I’ll be back soon. I promise.”


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    She came back in.


    Meleng took a deep breath, hoped the room had stopped spinning, and opened his eyes again. Sinit?a was sitting beside him, leaning over him and supporting herself with one hand on the opposite side of him. Her hair was in a pair of pigtails, each tied with a bright red bow. She smiled at him, her bright green eyes seeming to sparkle once again.


    “Huh?” She shook her head. “Not today.”


    “I...I just don’t pay attention to those kinds of things.”


    “I’m still here, aren’t I?” Meleng asked.


    “When my diare told me I needed to practise on a human,” the voice said, “I scoffed. She was angry at me over that, and yet I still scoffed. I thought there was no way I couldn’t handle a human. What a fool I was. My diare is powerful and wise. I will never doubt her again.”


    Meleng almost laughed, this situation was so absurd. But it was terrifying too. “If it’s the eyes giving it away, why not just set a colour? I mean, if I don’t know Sinit?a’s eye colour, then I won’t notice, will I?” Did he know her eye colour? They were blue, weren’t they? He wasn’t sure. He really was bad at that sort of thing.


    “I don’t owe you any explanations.”


    At any rate, he didn’t need an explanation. He could guess at least part of it. The illusions he was being subjected to were reliant on his own mind filling in most of the details. Convincing his mind that Sinit?a’s eyes were a specific colour when he didn’t really know the colour was probably very difficult. Same with her changing hairstyles, or her coat not being there until it was needed. It was like a dream.


    He was getting better at noticing the signs. At least, he was fairly certain he was. He vaguely recalled the earliest dream sequence lasted much longer before he realised it wasn’t real. Each time, it was taking a little bit less time before he realised what was happening and returned to this...wherever he was, and spoke to his real captor.