The old stale scent of cigarette smoke was subdued by an overlay of vanilla. Salvador woke first to those aromas with a groan and vaguely wondered where the hell he was. Then he remembered. "Jame," he grumbled to himself. Here he was in Jame's apartment, of all places. It took him a moment to remember the events of the previous day. Broken slivers of memory trickled in and out of his thoughts. Memories of the bone puppet. Memories of a house. Dozens of things he'd much rather forget.

It was still early morning, he realized when he opened his eyes. He had dozed off mid-conversation with the glitterboy. What had they been talking about? Nothing important, he thought. Conversations with Jame were almost a chore for the predator. The glitterboy was always so ... human. Salvador felt his brows knit when he came to that conclusion. He realized he wasn't as human as most people expected or wanted him to be. But that was only natural, wasn't it? Like the cold that he radiated, the frigid chill of arctic lands. All that and more. It was only natural, normal. Normal for Salvador Delahada, son of the Linewalker, the Truthspeaker, She Who Tends the Dead. "Madre," he murmured. He heard the whisper of coppery chimesong brush against one of the windows, then he shook his head. No. Not today. He didn't want anything to do with her today.

Before rolling up to sit, he extended his sight outward, beyond his central point, and searched the apartment. He found Jame sleeping in his own bed, curled up with a countless number of felines. Dawn was steadily creeping in and smothering the dark of nighttime shadows with a muted gray glow. Pulling back into himself, Salvador sat up and tried to clear his head. He wondered for a moment if this is what having a hangover felt like. He had such a headache.

He found his clothes folded neatly nearby, clothes Jame had washed for him to get rid of new blood stains. Getting dressed was a chore. He'd never felt this stiff and sore before. Usually he could sleep anywhere without a problem. He blamed it all on the loss of blood more so than the luxury of a soft couch. Great, he thought only somewhat irritably. Now I smell like him. Shouldn't have expected anything less than some sort of flowery detergent in the glitterboy's comfortable collection. That same stink of vanilla and cigarettes clung to his skin. Salvador considered finding a trash heap to roll in at some point. He much preferred the scent of dirt, blood and grime to anything pleasant like this. Still, he couldn't be too grumpy about it. Jame had gone out of his way to be such a big help. He'd even left a plate on the table wrapped in foil for the predator. He considered breakfast, as it were.

About an hour later he was dressed, fed, and ready to leave. He'd crept through the apartment as silent as could be. It wouldn't do to wake Jame. Besides, he wasn't up for anymore conversation with him today. At least not this early. After stuffing all his toys (knives and weapons aplenty) back into his jacket pockets, collecting his gifts, and double checking his thoughts, he took his leave. Maybe he'd come back later. But now, what he needed more desperately than anything in the world, was some time to himself. It was time for a walk.

The city streets were already bustling with life. It was Sunday, and even in Rhy'Din people were heading off to their respective church services. Salvador considered joining some of the crowd. Usually he dropped by church on Sunday mornings. It was an old habit, a pointless habit. He really wasn't that much of a believer. But even a half-fae, a child born of an entirely different pantheon of beliefs, had to be a believer when one of his best friends was a nephalim. He could hear the church choir warming up from several blocks away. Listening to them was always soothing to the predator. He decided he could probably use a little of that mindless serenity today. But something else had a different idea.

Salvador turned on the appropriate street that would have lead him straight to the cathedral, only to discover that the city was suddenly empty. All signs of life had vanished entirely. It was as if he had stepped through a time portal and ended up several years in the future where all life ceased to exist. There was only him and the old scrap of newspaper that tumbled lazily down the sidewalk. And a little girl whom he'd almost stepped on.

"Oye," he grumbled at the girl. "Watch where you're going you little brat." With the change in the atmosphere, the feeling of vacancy that surrounded him, his temper had flared instantly. He was fully prepared to blame almost trampling the little girl on her instead of himself and his own absent meanderings. He hadn't bothered to get a good look at her. He likely wouldn't have, until he heard her giggle.

The little girl giggled, and it was a sound reminiscent of warm honey being drizzled over golden chimes. He knew that sound. Salvador stopped dead in his tracks instantly, frozen by the music in the air, and looked down. There before him stood an adorably innocent-looking little girl in a pale blue dress, clean white apron, white stockings, and glossy black buckle shoes. She had tight golden curls that framed a cherubic face and sparkling blue eyes. When she smiled (and she never seemed to not), perfect dimples formed in her cheeks. What took him by surprise was the fact that he was seeing this girl in color. He blinked, shook his head, and looked around. Everything else was black and white and gray. He blinked again, stunned, and looked back down at the girl. She couldn't be any older than five, she was so small. He was captivated by the sight of her instantly. The color hadn't gone away.

"I know you," he said. Somewhere in the back of his mind there was a memory clawing its way to the surface. He found it a little irritating that he couldn't capture that memory immediately. His brain was far too cluttered with far too much. Memories that were his own and memories that weren't. He'd made that revelation only yesterday after talking a little with Wren. He'd discovered a newfound sympathy for the bone puppet based solely on that revelation. A dream, he thought. "I dreamed of you," he told the girl.

"To sleep," the little girl answered. "Perchance to dream. Ay. There's the rub." Her voice was just as captivating as the sight of her. She embodied an innocence Salvador had never seen in any other living creature. Was she even alive? Maybe he was still dreaming. But the scents that were still clinging to him were too real to disbelieve.

An echo of far away memories trickled to the forefront of his thoughts. "For in that sleep of death what dreams may come," he murmured. He shook his head to clear the haze of absent self that tried to claim him. Again he blinked at the girl. "What's that have to do with anything?"

"Everything," she answered. "And nothing at all." She lifted the tattered old teddy bear she held clutched in her arms and squeezed it tightly. Had she been holding it before? He tilted his head slightly to one side. The toy was dirty and abused, missing one button eye. The faux fur was matted and the seams were hanging on desperately. Either the bear was actually gray or he wasn't seeing its colors as he could see the girl's. "For who would bear the whips and scorns of time," she said. "The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's--"

"All right, all right." He cut her off with a scowl and a hand sweeping to slice through the air. "I get it. Hamlet, right?" That truth of knowledge slithered into his mind from a far away place. He'd never read the play himself, but he knew it. He knew it because she knew it, his mother. "I'm not trying to kill myself, if that's what you're getting at."

His tone and interruption made the little girl pout. "The pangs of despis'd love," she whimpered at him. She seemed about to cry.

Salvador frowned at the girl. "Please," he scoffed. "I'm not going to off myself over something as stupid as that." He knew instantly what she was getting at, and he didn't like it. To think that he would try suicide because of something as ridiculous as lost love, unrequited love, any kind of love she could have possibly hinted at. This seemed to appease the girl, and she smiled again. A touch of particle gold caressed her bright blue eyes. He narrowed his own eyes and scowled at her. There was something very familiar about that. He was hoping that it was only a trick of the light, of the imagination, but he knew better. "I know you," he told her again.

"One must have a good memory to be able to keep the promises one makes," she replied. "It's a poor sort of memory that only works backward."

Was she mocking him? She was speaking in riddles. Riddles. No. She wasn't mocking him. It wasn't that. Why was he having such a difficult time remembering her? He knew her. He could feel the truth of that making his bones ache. He'd seen her before, just like this. They'd talked. About something. About what?

"Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it," she said, interrupting his train of thought. She didn't seem too concerned about whether or not he figured out who she was. She only continued to talk to him in riddles. But that statement did trigger a different memory entirely. She was so fixated on the subject of memories after all.

"Get out of my way, amante," he growled at the boy.

"Dimitri! Get down! What are you? Stupid?"

There was blood in the air. Blood and sweat and the sharpened shriek of warm steel as it cut through flesh and bone. Someone screamed. Another voice joined that in chorus. People were shouting and screaming. Shock and outrage, fear and pain. All those things sliced into static...

Salvador stumbled back a step and dropped onto a nearby bench. He sat with his head in his hand and tried to regain his focus on the empty world around him. He heard the click, click, click of glossy black buckle shoes. The little girl had followed him, was standing in front of him. "I ... I don't want to remember this," he told her.

"The secret of a good memory is attention, and attention to a subject depends upon our interest in it. We rarely forget that which has made a deep impression on our minds," the little girl said. For such a young child, she spoke so intelligently. It wasn't natural. She wasn't natural.

He pulled his head out of his hands and looked into her eyes. "Río," he said.

The little girl smiled at him, and her dimples showed. She only nodded once, bobbing her head and making her golden curls shake. "We are known by many names," she told him. "But to every person we are the same."

Riddles and rhymes. That was her geas, as his mother's was to speak only truth. "Río. River. Revari." Those were the three names he knew. Only one of them was the true name, but they all suited her well. "What took you so long?"

She pouted at him again and tilted her head curiously to one side. "One could inquire the same of you, Secret Keeper. You carry a pain of which I know none deeper." There was sadness in her eyes. He thought for sure she was going to cry.

There was still a faint sheen to her cheeks where tears, even wiped away, had left a glittery residue. The tie was slid away in a drawer and she undid the top few buttons to her shirt before heading over. Hands on the back of the couch, she looked down at him. "Tell me."

He tipped back his head to look up at her. One arm stretched on the armrest. Legs stretched before him. The other arm slung across the back of the couch. Perfectly lazy. He searched her eyes and hesitated a moment. First, he had a question "Do you want a baby?"

Salvador closed his eyes and leaned away from the girl, pressing his spine to the back of the bench rigidly. "Stop," he begged. "I don't want to remember these. Take them away."

"Would you be that desperate?" the little girl asked. Her voice was still full of golden chime dipped in warm honey. It was a question, and strangely devoid of any puzzle to decipher. He wondered if she was capable of putting aside the geas for such things. There was such a long pause. Maybe there simply was nothing to rhyme with that. "To do away with promise and fate?" He should have known better.

"Promise? Fate? What the hell are you talking about?" He was getting a little annoyed with all these mind games. By this point, talking with his mother instead seemed a little more enticing.

"She bound herself to you as no other before. You are her mate, her love, her heart and more. But here you still suffer your guilt and lament. Over a love now far gone and spent."

That was an easier riddle than most to figure out. Salvador growled at the girl, the innocent spirit of memory glamoured in front of him. "It's not gone!" The sting of tears burned his eyes. They threatened to spill, but he kept them in check. "It was never gone! Can't you see that? None of you understand. You're all so fucking heartless and empty. You don't get it. You never will."

Revari had no verbal response to his outrage. Instead she was the one to let the tears spill from her eyes. They shimmered down her cheeks and dripped off her chin. When they landed on the pavement at her feet they chimed as crystal. A true fae's tears always became solid when they fell. Only two had landed and skittered under the bench. No more and no less.

He was actually stunned by that. He never expected this fae, of any he knew, to shed Tears for him. His mother had only shed one that he knew of, and not in his presence. Faye had even captured one of his own and showed him he was capable of bleeding magic in his tears as any true fae was. But never had she shed one directly for him when he was near.

"I found you broken."

"You also found me wild and half mad, but things change. The most hazardous thing I face daily is being important to you. I'm many things, but not fae. Hardly fae." She reached up, arm crossing her chest as she wrapped dangerous fingers about his wrist. "But I'll stay because I love you, I'll do what I do because I love you, and yes, even seeing you weak ... I'll still love you. That's what I mean when I say trust me."

His lips twisted into a cross between a smile and a grin. Looking away from his own hand, wrist caught, to look instead into eyes he knew were brown only from asking. "I'm glad you're not fae." He pulled back his hand. He caught her fingers and pull her hand with his own. Only so that he could kiss her knuckles. "If you were fae, I would not love you as much as I do."

"Why these memories?" They were so vivid, so real. Sitting before the fae spirit of memories, it was only natural. She cried Tears for him to recall them. Those two crystalline jewels radiated the magic captured within them under where he sat. But he shook them off and sucked in a shaken breath. He didn't understand the point.

"Are they not as valid as any other?" the little girl asked. "A mate, a lover, a mother, a brother. How much room have you in your heart? When will all that love crumble and fall apart?"

Salvador frowned. "I'm not like you," he growled. "I'm only half fae. Unlike my mother, I do have a heart. She knows this. Why can't you see it too?"

"And yet you walk the line as She. Two by two and three by three."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

Revari only smiled at him, showing off her dimples as before. He was so used to speaking with his mother to have expected an answer. She gave him none. At least nothing satisfactory. "You'll see, if you haven't already."

Those few words conjured up another memory entirely. Of someone he hadn't thought on in quite some time. He was about to speak again, but another voice interrupted his thoughts.

"There is more than one kind of love, hermoso. There are many, many different kinds of it. You'll see."

Those words had stayed with him for quite some time. Hearing them again as only fragments of memory now did nothing to settle his nerves. "Take them from me," he whispered to the glamoured spirit standing in front of him. "I don't want them anymore. Take them away."

The girl spirit sighed dismally. "If only it were that easy, dear Salvador. They are more a part of you now than ever before." He picked up a sense of regret from her words, and there again was the sadness in her eyes.

"You mean you can't?" He felt his temper boiling hot in his veins. He was ready to unleash all that anger on her. He was trying so hard to keep it at bay. "You can't? All these lies! All this time! And you're telling me I'm stuck with them!?"

"I am telling you it is not as easy as me taking them from you," she said. "You are not yet ready to face the rituals that you must do."

That did nothing to curb his temper. He snarled at the girl and reached forward to grab her. Flaring rust-colored mist encircled his hand, and he found it all too easy to clutch the glamoured fabric of her dress in his fist. He shook her. "Not yet ready? Not yet ready!?" His words cut through the air as steel scraping against steel. The power of his fae voice echoed in his human voice, and the little girl trembled in his grasp.

"You are not yet ready." They were cryptic words at the very least, with a hidden meaning behind them.

He was getting sick and tired of hearing those words. They replayed in his mind over and over again. His mother always said them to him. He hadn't known what she meant, even remotely, until the last time he had spoken to her.

"You have it in you, Salvador. Some day ... you will learn this. When you are ready."

"Please. Stop," the Dream Weaver whimpered. He shook the memories aside and realized in looking at her what he had done. No longer was he holding a little girl by the collar of her dress. Kneeling on the ground in front of him was a trembling creature of a more true design. Revari, in her true body, was a somewhat fearsome creature. She was not as horrific as her counterpart. She had a lithe and androgynous body shelled in a blue-black carapace that reflected the light. She had four arms, two to either shoulder, and four spidery hands were gripping his arm desperately. Four legs, two either hip, were sprawled on the ground at her sides where she knelt. Two large and glossy black eyes stared at his face, frightened. She was the dream spider, the Dream Weaver, with all her illusions shattered.

The glamour was broken by his own power. Ribbons of rust encircled the Weaver's blue-black body. Salvador had unleashed this same power on the Nightmare Keeper once upon a time. It was a testimony of his rage that he had little power to control. He'd blanked out and lost himself to the fury. Now Revari was captive under his magics, incapable of movement and in pain. He jerked back his hand quickly and gasped, surprised at his own lack of control. "Lo siento," he murmured. The blood chains slithered away from her and back into himself. Odd, he thought. He didn't remember cutting himself to bring the magic to the surface. He hadn't.

Revari sighed relief and collected herself. The dream spider looked up at him and smiled. To some people, the smile on that face might have been considered frightening. But looking into her eyes, those reflective black eyes, told the truth of things. She was a kinder and gentler spirit than most he had ever encountered. "You know her as Truthspeaker; and that she is, was, and ever will be. You see the evidence of her words now; that you are not yet quite ready."

"Sí," he said. He flexed his fingers and leaned back with a sigh, trying to work the ache out of his joints. He'd restrained himself from causing the spirit harm, and now his body was making him pay for it. "What must I do?"

"Be patient," she replied. "I will do what I can. But this is not something simply undone." No riddles? No rhymes? Maybe it was the glamour that caused the geas to be active. "When you are ready, and when the time is right, I will summon you to my Web. Until then, you must be patient." The Dream Weaver got up to her four feet and reached out to settle one of four hands on his shoulder. "I regret that these lies have caused you so much pain, dear child. I regret that I can do no more for you now."

Salvador dipped his head and closed his eyes, only nodding. "Is there..." A thought came to him, but he wasn't sure how to word it. "Is there anything you can take now?"

Her hardened hand pulled away from his shoulder. He heard her body shift and creak. "Perhaps," she said. "Was there one specific you had in mind?" He looked up into her glossy black eyes. She tilted her hairless blue-black head to one side and blinked at him. It was not a sharing of thought between them, but she seemed to know. "You would be rid of a true memory?" She sounded confused.

"I ... I don't want them anymore," he said. His voice shook with pent up emotion. Again the sting of tears burned his eyes, threatening to spill.

"Without them you are only doomed to make the same mistakes," she told him. "Is that a risk you are willing to take?"

Damn her. She had a point. He pressed his face back into his hands and shook his head. "No," he murmured against his palms. "No. You're right. I just can't... I can't..."

The fae are not known for emotion, but in that moment Revari revealed a touch of sympathy. The spirit reached and settled one hand upon his shoulder, one on the crown of his head, and stepped forward to curl her other two arms around him in a comforting embrace. "I cannot begin to comprehend the pain that you feel. So much like Achilles and his legendary heel." There was the rhyme again. Maybe it was more a defense against emotions, something no fae could ever fully understand. "She is right in saying that you are a child seeking comfort where you will find none, Salvador. You were cursed to live this forbidden life of yours."

Salvador shook in her arms, but he still managed to keep the tears from falling. He sobbed but his face remained dry. "When I'm ready," he muttered. He felt the spirit drift away from him, and he thought he even felt her nod. "When I'm ready," he repeated.

"When you are ready, I will send for you."

He looked up and she was gone. The street was full again with passersby, people ambling along ignorantly to attend to their morning prayers. Salvador looked down at his feet and saw early morning sunlight reflecting off of two golden jewels. He picked them up and rolled them in his palm. They felt warm in his cold hand, warm but empty. But they started to fill and swirl slowly. He knew what those Tears were for now.

"I shouldn't think that about you. Shouldn't've been so tempted, either. It ... was probably just all the voices .... and the ... weird ... closeness."

"Because my ego needs any more of a boost. It's fine. Don't worry about it."

"Hm." That single grunt of noise was accompanied by a faint smile, amusement. He curled his fingers over those two tiny jewels and then tucked them into a pocket. Getting up to his feet, he stretched languidly and felt his joints pop. Letting out a weary sigh, he looked out over the bustling crowds and considered what to do next.

In the distance he heard church bells. He decided to walk toward them...