“Is — is any of this real?" she asked. "Are you real?"

He lifted a hand to her cheek, his fingers brushing her jaw.

"Even if this is a dream," he whispered, "I'm not."

Isobel's eyes widened, recognizing those words as her own, the same ones she had once uttered to him. She reached for him, her arms twining around his neck, drawing him closer so his scent poured over her, that combination of incense, citrus, and dried leaves overriding the funeral funeral smell of the crowding flowers.

"Don't leave," she breathed.

"I'm here," he whispered. "Right here. Waiting.”