He sat down in the chair, still holding the lock of her hair. His head nodded, his eyes slowly closed…

The dying lotos flame flickered beneath Iridial’s portrait. The image of the dead woman shimmered in its frail glow… then the shimmering image seemed to emerge from the portrait within the frame.

Starting up, Jerame saw a creature, transparent as molten glass. It was clothed only in long, wild strands of hair, white as hoarfrost, and strange ichors flowed in its veins: silver, rose and gold.

‘Iridial?’ he said uncertainly.

‘Iridial…’ The voice vibrated in his mind, brittle as silvered windchimes. Inhuman. ‘That name. Dream-name. I dreamed I was called Iridial…’

Slanted eyes stared curiously up at Jerame.

Rainbow eyes.

This weirdling creature of mist and air could not be his long-lost wife. And yet there was something in that iridescent gaze that awoke a frisson of memory.

He said haltingly, ‘You were my wife. Your name was Iridial. We have a daughter, Orial.’

The creature writhed away from him in a whirl of glitter-mist hair.

‘Don’t you remember anything? This is our house, this was your room, these are your clothes.’ He picked up the fragile, faded dresses from their chest, showing them to her.

‘All I remember from before…’ the bell-like voice faltered ‘… is the dark. Then sunlight woke me. They called to me. I dragged myself from the clinging waters and let the sun dry me. They had come for me. I was part of them, and they a part of me. The spinning circle. How long I have been one with the circle I cannot tell…’

‘So you don’t even remember me?’ Jerame let the dresses drop to the floor. ‘Our life together? Our – our love?’ He could hardly choke the words out.

‘You are part of a dream, a distant dream…’

He turned away from her, angrily wiping the tears from his face. How could he explain to her? How could he put it into words?

‘Do not grieve, Jerame.’ For the first time she used his name. ‘I am always here. I am Eä-Endil.’

‘But I’m – I’m mortal.’

‘Then live as a mortal. Jerame. Be free.’

‘I – I don’t think I can.’

‘I let you go.’

‘No. Don’t. Iridial.’

Flowerbreath brushing his cheek, translucent lips, rose-flushed, pressed to his.

‘Now let me go, Jerame.’

‘I – I don’t know how.’

‘The lock of hair. Burn it.’

‘I – I can’t.’

‘Burn it.’

Shaking, he took the lock of fine, fair hair from his breast and held it to the lotos candle.

It flared into pale flame… and a fine, grey smoke rose up in a dwindling spiral.

She seemed to fade into the flame, to merge with its soft smoke, melting into the nothingness.

With a cry he reached out to grasp her, to hold her, to bring her back – and found he was clutching empty air.