The dream shifted.
Adrian stood in the grey city, but the buildings around him were different. Softer. The sharp edges had blurred, the cold stone replaced by something warmer. The sky was still pale, but the light had changed—softer, golden, like the hour before sunset in a place he had never been.
She stood beside him, her hand still in his.
“Where are we?” he asked.
“My village,” she said. “I think.”
“You think?”
“The city never shows me this. Not like this.” She looked around. “But I know these shapes. The rice paddies. The temple. The path to the spring.”
He looked where she was looking.
The buildings of the grey city had transformed. They were still tall, still strange, but their surfaces now reflected green—the green of rice terraces. Their windows now held the dark silhouet
