“Vaguely,” she confessed. She remembered trying to be near him when the Emperor had returned to the capital, and Vhalla remembered stretching her mind toward the rose garden. She thought it’d been a dream then, but perhaps it made more sense as a Projection.

“Try to repeat that process.” Aldrik seemed as uncertain as she felt.

Vhalla nodded, willing to let his confidence in her give life to her attempt. She closed her eyes, thinking back to the process she had used long ago. Visualize, she instructed to herself. In her mind’s eye the room began to rebuild with a magically sharp clarity.

Vhalla allowed the world to slow and still. Farther, she needed to stretch farther. Now able to maintain an open Channel, Vhalla found it easier to construct a magical world for her to walk within. She was the air; it beckoned endlessly to Vhalla, asking for her to fill the space. Soon sound disappeared, and she stood.

Her senses rushed back to her, but they were different than before. She heard by feeling the air move; she saw by how the shimmering currents of air circled around objects. Vhalla watched her body slump limply.

Aldrik caught her physical form and shifted it to rest in his arm. A smile curled his lips at the sight of her.

“Excellent,” he enthused.

Can you see me? she asked.

He nodded. “Try walking.”

She turned in place. It was easy to cross the room, and his eyes followed her the whole time. She walked over to his armor and reached out a hand. Vhalla studied it uncertainly.

What do I look like? she asked, wondering if the ghost-like appearance of her hand was the same for him.

“Fuzzy, as though you are in a fog. How a mirage looks in the desert,” Aldrik replied.

Vhalla tried to touch the plate and found her hand passed right through it. I can’t touch things, she observed.

“Try to use your magic,” he suggested.

Vhalla held out her hand, attempting to manipulate the wind around her. It was suddenly slippery and formless, like a vat of snakes and oil. Vhalla demanded it oblige her, focusing harder.

“Vhalla, stop,” Aldrik warned.

She didn’t even look back at him. Vhalla tried to take a deep breath, to feel the air, but found she couldn’t in this form. She would just have to force it. Immersing herself in her Channel, she insisted the armor move. Her vision shifted, the world phased between light and dark.

Aldrik? she called.

“Vhalla, stop!” He sounded distant and far.

Aldrik! she cried. Vhalla stood in a world of blinding light.

“Vhalla.” Aldrik’s voice was faint. “Come back to me.” She turned in the white emptiness but couldn’t find where he was. “Listen, find your heartbeat. Find mine. Come back.” He sounded strung out, which only caused her to feel more distraught.

Aldrik? she asked into the emptiness. There was no reply. Vhalla closed her eyes, only to find more light. She listened, there was nothing. Vhalla walked for a bit, but couldn’t make anything appear before her. Time seemed to have stopped, and she wasn’t sure how long she wandered. Finally, she sat and simply listened.

Slowly, painfully slowly, she began to hear a distant drumming. It was a familiar rhythm, and it called to her. Vhalla allowed it to flow back into her, it resonating through every aspect of her consciousness. It was a slow transition as the world faded into blackness.

Her eyes fluttered open. Aldrik’s face hovered above her, and he let out a small relieved laugh. For the second time in one day she found herself pressed against his chest. Vhalla sighed softly. It was a trend she could learn to live with.

“You scared me again,” he muttered. “That’ll be the last time we do that.”

“No,” Vhalla insisted with a shake of her head. “I’ll get it, I just need more practice. I pushed too hard.”

He studied her carefully, and she yawned, suddenly feeling exhausted. She made no motion to get up, and he made no motion to remove her from his person. Vhalla’s eyelids drooped closed.

“Rest,” the prince instructed.

She shifted slightly, her ear against his chest. “Aldrik?” she inquired with another yawn.

“Vhalla?”

She struggled to find the right words. “This is a really, really awful idea.”

Vhalla felt him stiffen a moment, and he let out a small sigh. “I know.” His voice was barely audible. “I know. Now rest.”

Vhalla felt her consciousness fade as she was swathed in a comfortable warmth that only he could exude.

VHALLA WAS ONE of those perpetually cold people. With a small amount of body fat, likely due to her spotty eating habits when wrapped up in something, she was usually the first to complain about a chill. She had long since accepted it as part of her lot in life and dressed as warmly as possible to make up for it.

However, at this particular moment she was pleasantly warm. It was a surreal feeling and, in her half-sleep haze, she shifted, pressing herself closer to the source. That source adjusted itself beneath her before settling again. The unfamiliar sensation brought Vhalla back to awareness. Her mind was sluggish with sleep, and she struggled to make sense of it.

His heartbeat was the first thing she heard. Slow and strong against her right ear. The second thing she heard was the scratching of quill on paper. Vhalla cracked open her eyes and saw she rested in the crook of Aldrik’s left arm, which wrapped around her side. She was halfway onto his lap as he sat cross legged on the floor. Stretched across her was his right hand as he marked papers on the table.

The previous events came back in pieces, punctuated with a yawn.

“You’re up.” Aldrik placed the quill on the table and ran a hand through his hair. “How do you feel?”

“Tired,” she responded groggily.

“I could tell.” His tone was flat but his posture had no heaviness to it. “I’m fairly certain you depleted most of your magic and fell into your Channel.”

Vhalla made a note to ask him, Fritz, or Larel about that later when she didn’t feel so sleepy. “How late is it?”

He shifted and reached out to the edge of the table. It had parchments strewn across it with all manner of scribbles on their surface. Aldrik pushed some pages aside, and a glint of silver caught her eye.

“Let’s see, eight-thirty.” He inspected the pocket watch.

“Can I see it?” Vhalla held out a hand.

He looked at her curiously but obliged. Vhalla turned the watch over in her fingers. The back was polished to a mirror finish, the front held the blazing sun of the Empire. Time pieces were rare because those who understood their strange mechanics were few and far between. Vhalla stared past her reflection in the glass that covered the obsidian and alabaster face of the watch. “It’s beautiful.”

“Thank you,” Aldrik replied awkwardly.

“I’ve never held one before,” Vhalla mused aloud. The few clocks she had ever seen were large, like one at the circulation desk in the library. “It’s like holding time itself, isn’t it?”

“I suppose.”

“I wish I could make it stop,” she breathed.

His hands closed over hers and the watch, shutting the front latch closed. “If you could, what would you do?”

Aldrik’s breath was warm on her cheeks, and Vhalla was keenly aware of how close they were. He held her in one arm, the other hand holding both of hers, her side pressed along his chest. What were they doing?