lisa knows every leaf of her jungle, every vine, every stone, and detects no malice in the shadow that slides over her. She opens her warm, wet eyes, enjoying the playful resistance of droplets trying to keep individual eyelashes mated. They peel apart, one by one, reluctant and languorous. It is Giles, backlit by living-room light, standing over the tub, smiling gently, and she wonders if the hothouse mugginess of the room is to blame for the tears filling his eyes.

“It’s time, dear,” he says. She winds her drowsy arms around the dozing creature, unwilling to recall, but unable to stop herself, either, how several hours ago, possibly several millennia, she’d knocked on Giles’s door to beg of him the greatest, most terrible favor. She’d signed her request briskly so that the grief wouldn’t prolong: unlock her apartment before midnight, rouse her from the tub, and ignore any protests she might make. The bathwater she lies in, she notices, has gone cold, yet she has no desire to leave it. It can’t be that late already. It can’t be. She’s had all day, all night to say good-bye to him and she hasn’t even begun.

Giles plants his hands to his knees in order to hunker down, but halts halfway. He’s holding a long, thin paintbrush, fine-tipped for detail, and seems to have forgotten it. Now there’s green paint all over one knee of his trousers. He chuckles, stows the brush into his breast pocket. “I finished.” He can’t keep the pride from his voice, and Elisa is glad he doesn’t. “It won’t be the same thing as having him. Not even close. But I believe it’s the closest anyone could ever come. And it’s for you, Elisa. You’ll have it to remember him by. Let me show it to you on our way out—show it to both of you. Now, please, sweetheart. It’s late. Won’t you take my hand?”

Elisa smiles, lost in awe over her friend’s head of hair, his face’s boyish brio, his skin’s healthful hue. His aspect is tender, but resolute. She looks at his outstretched hand, the knuckle hair clotted with paint, the fingernails swathed in paint, the cuff of his sweater ringed in paint. She raises a hand from the water. The instant it leaves the creature’s back, he bristles, holds her more tightly. Elisa hesitates, her hand occupying the midworld between her watery wedding bed and Giles’s solid ground, and she doesn’t know if she can bridge the gap.

There is a crash. Down on the street. It’s close, against the building itself. And loud. Metal, glass, plastic, steam. Elisa feels the brunt in her body, a concussion in her lungs, and she knows, she knows she has lingered too long. Giles knows it, too: He reaches across worlds and snatches her wrist. Even the creature knows it: His claws protrude, scratching like a lover’s fingernails across her naked back. They move in concert. Water sloshes over the tub rim. Plants topple from the sink. Cardboard trees swing from the walls. They have been found.