27 — The MeadowEphe y on her back in a field of pink and yellow flowers. She wasn’t impatient to return to the outside. Sheam would let her know when it was the right time to.

  It was a field that gently inclined into a pcid, gss–calm ke. The air was absolutely still. A sun hung low in the sky, half hidden by one of the wispy clouds that seemed just as still as everything else.

  It was a pce of peace. Ephe had made it herself. Sheam was astonished — she didn’t know how it could be possible. It wasn’t the making of it. Sheam understood that, in at least the ways that she understood that the entourage ability’s list of unknown qualities was ten times longer than the ways the delegates used it. What she didn’t understand was where the calm was coming from. Sheam never felt calm. Not really.On the other hand, Ephe did make her feel calm.

  She looked up at the sky, as if Sheam was up there somehow. What was it the woman — the invader — had said? Delegate? Entourage? Ephe imagined that those were new words for things she already knew about. She already knew she wasn’t a flesh and blood person. She was a projection from Sheam's mind. She had her own inner life because that’s how Sheam imagined she should be.

  Ephe sat up. Nearby was a boardwalk, the pale gray wood worn to softness as if by a thousand feet over a million years.

  Ephe noticed she was not alone. Obs was now here, too.Obs waved from the boardwalk where she stood and went in the other direction, wearing a bright smile and eyes shining.

  Ephe let out a long breath. She was gd to see Obs, but had wanted her to come y among the flowers. Obs preferred the clean and uniformity of the pillows rather than the flowers, damp grass, and dirt.

  Ephe forced herself up, and joined Obs, lounging on body–sized pillows with her back to the sky. Obs lifted her pale, hairless head and looked at Ephe with gray eyes and a wide smile. “Morning?” she asked.“I don’t think so, not yet,” Ephe replied, again looking up, as if up was out.“Have you talked with Sheam about me?” Obs said. She was never one to beat around the bush.“Sheam knows about you,” Ephe said, trying to be reassuring. “She can’t not. We’re all inside her head right now, after all.”“But do you talk with her about me?”That was going to be a harder conversation than Obs seemed to imagine. It would involve Sheam confronting parts of herself she wasn’t fully ready to.

  “I will, soon,” Ephe said. She knew she couldn’t lie to Obs. It wasn’t that Obs would be able to tell; she very likely wouldn’t. Her heart simply was uncomfortable with dishonesty.

  The situation frustrated her. Ephe didn’t enjoy being the go–between. She couldn’t make Sheam want to talk with Obs. She was sure it would involve her saying things for Obs that were for Obs to say to Sheam, and that felt wrong.

  Ephe knew that there was a time when Sheam was everything Daelus felt he couldn’t be. What Ephe didn't know, was that Sheam had imagined her as the woman she should have been. Sheam had made Ephe into everything that was out of reach.

  Obs was something else entirely.

  Ephe slowly stroked Obs along the back of her head and neck, as if the being was a cat. “An honest talk was somehow easier, back when Daelus was out there,” Ephe confided. “Somehow in the time since it’s gotten harder for Sheam to be truthful with herself. I don’t know why.”“Things were simpler back then,” Obs said, reasoning it out. “There were fewer topics to need to be honest about. Everything complex was hidden away.”“I suppose that makes sense. I suppose things will only get more compli—

  —cated.” Ephe finished the word, but felt as if her mind had briefly been nowhere. She had stopped existing for a moment.“What was that?” Obs said, frightened. Suddenly, there was wind. Suddenly the flowers swayed two and fro and the mirror-like surface of the ke turned to chop.“I don’t know,” Ephe said, looking up, as had become her habit. “I think Sheam — we — died for a second there.”“Bad shit,” Obs said, harshly. “She’d better not do that again.”“I don’t think she will always have a say in that,” Ephe said, the calm of the world growing even more distant. The ndscape began to crinkle, as if it was forgetting to be a gentle meadow. There were rocks in the soil now. The sun shone a little too brightly.

  “What about you, Ephe? Have you asked Sheam to make you flesh and blood? She should know how. It was in the notebook she found. She’s experienced enough.”“Oh,” I said, hesitating. “No. I know I should, I mean, I know I am supposed to want that. I know it’s what my end goal should be. I just need more time. I’ll do it, though. I know I am supposed to.”

  Obs nodded, satisfied, but clearly distracted. “Let me show you something,” Obs said, as if she had forgotten all about what had just happened.

  Without Ephe agreeing, the world changed.

  Suddenly they were in a seemingly endless expanse of architecture. It continued on in all directions, towering above and plunging below. The architecture itself seemed impossibly intricate and twisted and curled into itself, but all with a very orderly rhythm and organization. “You made this?” Ephe said, jaw agape.“Yes. It was easy. I just thought about it, and there it was. It just took a few minutes. I am making more, too. You’ll see.”Still, it felt cold. Ephe was shocked by the sight, charmed by it, but something nagged at her about it. There was so much of it. It just seemed to exist for its own sake. It reminded Ephe of the city where she and Sheam lived, up there. Not existing because anyone needed or wanted it, but because one mind decided they wanted it like that.“You say it’s easy, but this must be exhausting to do, Obs,” Ephe remarked. Everywhere her eyes went she saw a new detail. Nothing was repeated. It seemed to go on forever, but every direction there was something new.“Maybe,” Obs said bnkly. “Yes. It is. But I don’t know how to stop.”