"Melara would have loved that," she says quietly. "She was always painting impossible things. Dragons with constellation scales. Cities that existed only in reflections. She always believed reality was just a rough draft."
"Tell me about her art."
Another surprised look. "You want to know?"
"I carried her hairpin for three years. I'd like to know more than just her death."
Yorika is quiet for a moment. Her fingers trace the rim of her glass. "She painted with her fingers. Never brushes. Said she needed to feel the art happening. Our apartment walls were covered in fingerprint flowers, handprint birds. She'd come home with paint under her nails, in her hair, on her cheeks. Like she'd wrestled with color itself and called it a draw."
"Did she sell them?"
"Some. But she gave most away. Said art should be free, like breathing." Yorika's voice catches. She clears her throat, takes another sip. "The day before she went to the market, she painted me. Not my portrait but me as she saw me. This warrior made of silver starlight, defending dreams from nightmares."
"What happened to it?"
"I burned it. After. I couldn't look at who she thought I was while planning to become a killer."
We sit quietly. Not silence but the space where words rest between thoughts. Her chair is touching mine now. When she shifted it, I don't know.
"Your turn," she says. "Something funny."
"Funny." I consider. "I once tried to hide at a masquerade ball. Duke Revarian was hunting me, wrongly blamed me for his wife's disappearance. I thought I could blend in, shadow form hidden by costume."
"What went wrong?"
"Children see through shadow glamours. Also drunk people, though they usually doubt themselves. A five-year-old announced very loudly that there was a 'smoke monster' dancing with the duchess. The child was quite specific. 'The smoke monster has tentacles under his cape!' she yelled. Then Earl Fastworth, deep in his cups, tried to challenge me to a duel. But his eyes couldn't track me properly, so he kept swinging at the space I'd just left. He dueled my afterimage for ten minutes while I stood behind him."
She laughs. Actually laughs. The sound changes her entire face. The exhaustion lifts, replaced by something bright.
"How did you escape?"
"I didn't. The duchess I was dancing with turned out to be Duke Revarian's missing wife. She'd faked her death to run away with her lover, who was, unfortunately, Earl Fastworth. The duke was so confused by this revelation that he forgot about hunting me. Last I heard, all three of them lived together in a castle by the sea. They send me holiday cards."
"That's ridiculous."
"Most true stories are."
She shifts her chair again. Our knees touch. "What about beautiful things? Besides the rain world."
"So many. Would you like to hear about the living stars of Caelum? Or the crystal caves that sing histories? Or perhaps the world where thoughts become butterflies?"
"All of them."
So I tell her. About places that shouldn't exist but do. Worlds where physics gave up and poetry took over. Cities built from crystallized music where walking through districts means hearing symphonies. Oceans of liquid starlight where swimming lets you visit your past, stroke by stroke through time.
She listens with complete attention. No one has ever listened to me like this, as if my memories matter beyond their strategic value. As if I'm someone worth knowing rather than something worth using.
"There was a world," I say, wine loosening my usual guards, "where people courted by creating small realities. Pocket dimensions shaped from desire and intention. A man once made his beloved a universe where every star spelled her name in different languages."
"Did she accept?"
"She made him one in return. A reality where every moment they'd shared existed simultaneously. They could walk through their entire history together, relive any second, see how each small choice led to love."
"That's beautiful."
"I thought so. I couldn't create anything like that. I'm made of void, not creation. But I remembered it."
"Why?"
