I followed her out onto the balcony. The sea spread before me. It rumpled darkly against the coast. The sun was drowning on the water. I heard the muted calls of gulls. And nowhere could I see the wall.

I had never seen the sea.

I had never not seen the wall.

“Do you like it?” Sid asked.

“I don’t think I believed the sea was real,” I said. “I mean, I accepted that it was there even though I couldn’t see it. But it’s only now that I do see it that I realize that I didn’t really know what it was. My belief was half pretend. But I didn’t know, before now, that I was pretending.”

She nodded. “I think I understand, though it’s hard. The sea is one of my earliest memories. I grew up escaping to the harbor every chance I could get. The sailors would drag me home to my parents.” She peered at me through the rosy light. She lifted her hand to stroke my hair.

I flinched in surprise.

“Just a petal,” she said, pulling a white one from my hair. It curled like a thin shell in her fingers.

“Oh.” I tried to ignore my stuttering heart. “Thank you.”

Her nonchalance changed to amusement. “Well, yes, and you should thank me, for accomplishing such an arduous and unpleasant task as removing a stray petal from your hair.”

“No,” I said. “Thank you for everything. For this.”

“I am a gift from the gods, but I confess that I didn’t create the sea.”

“Don’t do that.”

The light was dimming. Her eyes were shadows. “Do what?”

“Praise yourself.”

She drew back a little. “Do you think me arrogant?”

“No,” I said, though I had thought it, up until that very moment. “You sound like you’re bragging, but really you’re just making fun of yourself.”

She opened her mouth, then closed it.

I said, “Why would you do that?”

“Maybe,” she said slowly, “so that you won’t make fun of me first.”

“I would never.”

“Then I won’t do that,” she said, “if it bothers you.” She rubbed the petal between her finger and thumb. “Take this room. It has the best view. I’ll be in the one next door.”

“This is your room.”

She looked at me.

“It smells like you,” I said.

She winced. “Maybe I don’t clean all that well. Since we’ve decided I’m to be more honest and not lay claim to skills and attributes I don’t have. Do you want the other room? It might be less, ah, fragrant. It’s unused, though maybe”—she cringed again—“a little dusty.”

“I want this one.” I hoped she wouldn’t ask why.