He caught a glimpse of the face he wore in the antique mirror. It was the face of the man she loved in the world she lived in when she was awake. He didn’t know how a woman so radiant and beautiful could love someone as unremarkable as this, but perhaps he would think differently if he saw through her eyes.

Her pale skin was coated in sweat. Her long dark hair lay spilled beneath her her head on the pillow as she tossed and turned. Again he was filled with wonder as he beheld her. He could not yet remember her name but he had dim memories of the life she shared with this man—enough to hurt her. There was no one in the world he wanted to hurt less then her. But just like every other night, he was already beginning to change.

He had never dreamed himself. A dreamwalker had told him that this world was on a low tier of reality, low enough that its people could not shape other worlds. He didn’t know what it was like to have a nightmare. It couldn’t be worse than being one.