If she did not understand, it was no surprise to him, though he found it difficult to face the confusion of her expression while having no explanation of his own. He did not understand either. In that, they were truly well matched, indeed. 

In fact, Curdle had no idea what he was doing. Not in the slightest. 

And with no words to ease that confusion, he elected to remain silent beneath her stare. Whether accusations or exhortation followed, he could remember clearly enough to know that he had begun this journey somehow, and he had started the fall into this place that was hers. Accidentally, true, but accidents were never innocent in his world. She had every right to be upset, and he would accept her decision. He [i]would[/i], he promised himself, though the longer she stared at him in such broken shock, the more shaken his resolve felt. 

Had it been any longer before he realized where her mind had taken them, he might have found himself on his knees and begging. Begging for help, for escape, for remembrance, for her hands to do what his could not, or even, simply, for an answer. Any would do better than the silence she surrounded him with then. 

Only, as the tremble stirred from his voice to his hands and weakened his gaze, made his breath stutter, sound returned. A crowd at his back and to either side, isolating them before the very stall where fate had seen him pause. Was it really only two days now? Not even. 

Shaking fingers reached for woven cloth between them and stilled in fright as he watched his skin and bone dissolve and reshape itself as though the strange light magic he’d seen before tumbling into her dreams made up his body now. And, like midges, was stirred by every breath of wind or—as the air was still here—her every wayward thought. 

He was not here. 

No, yes, please, it was not true. Not yet, his thoughts were here. He witnessed as she did, the changing patterns of the market, the shifting colours of her cloth weavings. Dreams, he thought, did not understand the value of inertia. How could he be anywhere else? Yet what she said was also true. He was here, but somewhere else. He might have led her there through the streets her mind conjured. Away from the city square to a small, plain wall with a wooden door guarded by two men through which one could look in on an old man, stiff and weary. He could not have said how this was possible, or how he knew it to be the truth. 

So, he held his tongue, and still she questioned him. 

He managed only a shake of his head for his current whereabouts. And was grateful she did not press further. With her next breath, he regretted that she had not. 

Flinching at that bald question that turned him into something other than what he should be, Curdle kept his gaze lowered as he pulled his hand back, wares untouched. In a moment of nostalgia, it lingered briefly on the hilt of the sword at his hip before dropping away as though burnt with the memory that he was no longer a guard, no longer anything, and unfit to bear arms. His fingers curled into fists at his sides as he took a breath to answer, once sure her questions were finished and he would not be interrupting, able only to hope she would not know he was breaking the law in her dreams. “I-I am Jinn. Lady Fiira Gerun’s Jinni, messi.” Or, he had been hers, until her final breath left without him knowing… Now, he did not know who…

No, he still was, until he finished what he had started. “She called me Curdle.” It was how he’d introduced himself. So long ago now, and far away. A lifetime past. When he was still young enough to believe that petty secrets mattered. Now, with plenty of regrets thickening in his stomach, it suited him better than his true name, he thought. He wished that he had known then what he did now, and shared even a little more with her, that he could have heard it said aloud even once over the years. 

But now was not the time to make wishes. 

Her last question stumped him. And his mouth moved for a moment without sound as he sought some simple explanation. “This magic, messi, is not one I have ever known. Yet, I think that it is mine. It is something I have done. I flew on-no, [i]as[/i] the wind, here, messi. As the tales tell it, there is no Jinni alive who would ever ask such of the wind.” But maybe, once, there had been many. He did not know. Every story he’d ever learned of the Jinn was a frightening one, meant to remind them not of past glories, but of past misdeeds. There was nothing that might compare with the wonder of riding wings of wind so high above the dunes, or seeing the sun sparkle from within the sand. 

But just as it should not have been his, so it could not have been any other’s either. He had heard of no Jinni this powerful. Then again, this power had trapped him in a human’s mind and left him at their mercy. It was not so great as his awe would have him believe. 

“I do not know what comes next.”