Aveline looked at him for a long moment, and then her expression shifted into something softer and sadder, the smile thinning until it seemed almost transparent.
"Because this is a dream," she said quietly. "You are not real. I am making you up."
Her words struck him with odd force.
Aveline looked down and away, her shoulders tightening just enough to show how much she was trying not to be disappointed.
In her mind, the real Theron would never have said something like that. The real Theron would not have looked at her and called her beautiful so easily. Not in waking life. Not when it mattered. Not when her heart was so foolishly ready to believe him.
And so, she turned away from him again, walking more slowly this time but walking all the same, as though she had already accepted that even this moment would not stay.
Theron stood frozen where he was.
