An unsure smile played on his full lips, and his warm, dark eyes were full of longing. He wore an amethyst button-up shirt, with the top few buttons undone. With the wind sweeping through his wavy black hair, he looked like a fashion model.

His hair was longer than I remembered it, curling just below his ears, and I had the strongest urge to run my fingers through it.

“Pan.” I threw my arms around him, and he held me to him and lifted me up off the ground.

When he set me back down, I pulled back so I could look him fully in the face. I wanted to study every part of it—his deep-set eyes behind thick lashes, his high cheekbones, and the subtle crooked smile on his lips that never completely went away. At least not when we were together.

“This is a dream, isn’t it?” I asked him sadly.

“Sort of, but I am really here,” he said with a wink.

“What?”

“It’s a lysa,” he explained. “I’ve only done this once before. Dagny had to walk me through the whole process, and I’m not very good at it so I had to wait until you fell asleep. There’s a way that you can pull someone into a lysa even when they’re awake, but it’s a lot harder.”

A lysa was similar to a persuasion, in that almost all trolls could do it and almost no humans could. I’d never had one before, but I had learned about them in school. They weren’t very common, since it was far more tiring to astral project somewhere than it was to use a cell phone.

It was sort of like a dream, if the dream was really happening on the astral field. Our bodies remained in the physical world but our essence could meet together in a psychic link. Meaning I could feel his touch and smell his skin as if he were right here with me.

“Cell phones are usually easier than a lysa, except with you and me it seems.”

“How long has it been since I’ve seen you in person?” I asked, staring up into his eyes.

He licked his lips. “I don’t know.”

I touched his arms and chest, and the feel of him—so strong and warm and here—made me flush with heat. “I’ve been worried about you. And Dagny and Eliana.”

“Well, you don’t need to worry about me. I’m fine. Dagny’s mostly fine, and she’s in good hands with Elof, and I’ve been checking on her.”

I smiled. “Good.”

“Where are you right now?”

“On a train in the middle of Manitoba. I’ll be in Doldastam the day after tomorrow.”