I shudder underneath my baseball cap. The store sells dark paraphernalia tied to actresses like Mama, like “sexy” costumes based on her grittiest characters. Even cheap replicas of the gloves she disappeared with, the same ones pinned to their window displays like the old, molted skins of newly spectral hands.

I’m early for my meeting. I buy myself a drink in a Dreamland-themed vending machine—mulberry-lemon soda in a little glass wine bottle inexplicably labeled DREAMS ARE REALITY TO THE POWER OF ECSTASY!—thinking that maybe sugar will help. The tourists around me stare with sly eyes, their faces covered up by scarves, collars, sunglasses. The soda is cool and sweet on my tongue, but it tastes a bit too much like coppery bile as it trickles down my throat. I walk around the entrance, scanning the area for him. I pass pods of bleary-eyed, suit-wearing Hero Pharm employees, of whispering, coy young lovers with hands in each others’ back pockets, of giddy teenagers swinging their backpacks like toy weapons, of elderly men in suits out for strolls.

That’s when I spot a man in a military jacket in the distance. I can’t see his face, and he’s far, far enough, but—

A large hand settles on my shoulder, and I jump out of my skin. I drop my soda, and it shatters. Pieces of glass spread across the concrete like haphazard lace. Soda splashes across my jeans.

But it’s only Hérrakí, wearing a blue-striped button-down shirt and a light jacket. He smiles hello, and I feel a cool rush of relief, undercut by something warmer. The hair by his temples is so fine in the daylight, it looks like he’s wearing a halo. “Are you okay?”

“I’m okay.” I brush at my ankles. “It’s okay.” I crouch to pick up the pieces of glass, unthinking; I touch one before realizing the bottle has shattered into so many tiny pieces that I’ll risk lodging them all in my hand—in fact, I already have, and a couple of teensy dots of blood speckle my palm.

“I meant your phone call,” he says, stooping to help. He inspects my palms, wincing for me, and tenderly pulls me up. “But, uh, this isn’t great, either. Let’s get you first aid?”

I didn’t explain why I wanted to meet on the phone. I couldn’t exactly say that I wanted to feel normal, sane.

“Let’s just walk,” I reply, my arms springing back to my sides, a poor imitation of someone holding it together. The park gardens are clean and well-kept: a disc-size robot roams, trimming grass. Several winding paths lead in different directions, and I follow Hérrakí on the rightmost one, lined with the tired, sagging blooms of late-spring flowers. He’s quiet, but it’s the rare kind of silence that comforts and reassures.