A quiet splashing drew his attention to a tall, skinny-legged girl wading in the pond. Black hair tumbled long and tangled around her narrow frame, her brown eyes huge in her piquant face. She held a lily blossom in one hand and a bright-green frog in the other, and she regarded him solemnly. “I like the frogs just as much as the flowers,” she told him. “Is that contradictory of me?”

“No.” His voice was hoarse, almost soundless, as if he hadn’t spoken in a long time. “They’re both beautiful, just in different ways.”

Her somber face broke into a wide grin. “That’s what I think, too.” She looked around. “I think we’re not supposed to be here. This was a long time ago. Not today. Not real.”

He nodded, though he didn’t understand. “Where are we supposed to be?”

She frowned, then bent to ease the frog onto a lily pad. “That’s a fine question, but I really thought you’d know the answer, Gabriel. That’s a big brother’s job, you know.”

“Selly?” He should have recognized her right away, except… She was right that this was long ago.

She rolled her eyes, reminding him of someone else. “And here I thought I was the crazy one. You really didn’t know who I was?”

“You’re not crazy,” he said, realizing she might not know. “You never were. You only lost your way for a while because you have magic like I do, only you’re a familiar, so you couldn’t release it on your own. It’s been building up inside you, clouding your mind.” He wasn’t sure how he knew all of that. When he tried to put context to that information, his thoughts slid away again.

She regarded him gravely. “That explains things, and it doesn’t. Still, I’d really like to not be crazy anymore.” She glanced around at the thick fog ringing the small pond. “Are we dead?”

Are we? “I don’t think so,” he ventured. “I don’t feel dead.”

“What does dead feel like, though?” she replied philosophically. “Maybe it’s like this.”

“A daunting thought.”

She shrugged. “Could be worse.”

You’re lost is all. “I don’t think we’re dead. I think we’re lost.”

“I’ve been here a long time, off and on. You only just arrived. Did you come to find me?” She looked suddenly sad and alone, heartbreakingly hopeful.

“I think so,” he said, because he couldn’t bear to tell her otherwise.

“I found this,” Selly said. She now held a rose, bloodred against the silvery-pale shimmers of the lily pond, vivid and full of fire. “It must be yours.”

Because she didn’t come to him, he waded into the pond, the water pouring into his boots. Instead of it being annoying, he found the cool wet refreshing, and he drank it in. The fog seemed to brighten, and he looked up to find a full moon shining bright, shedding its light upon them. Selly looked up, too, holding open one palm. “It feels good.” She extended the rose to him. “Is this what you were looking for?”