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collective will of those who sought the same nightscape she had. Here in Ben’s oasis, he was both creator and sovereign. The club could encroach, but not overtake, what he’d done.
    “This is nice,” she told him. Her boots touched the edges of sand shading into the club’s concrete floor.
    “You can say it. Nice, but boring.”
    “Depends on what you’re planning on doing in it.” Tovah lifted a brow.
    Ben laughed and looked around. “Not what you’re planning on doing out there.”
    Ben didn’t need to dream the same sorts of things Tovah did. She didn’t ask why he needed to create an oasis, or water, or the fish he was always looking to catch. She wished he had as much consideration for her privacy.
    She looked over her shoulder at the club, which had gotten very far away. She pulled it closer with an effort that shouldn’t have taken as much will, but did. Ben’s oasis was stronger than her dance club. Ben was stronger.
    “I like to dance,” she said simply and left “What’s it to you?” unspoken.
    Ben apparently heard it in her voice, because he smiled and stood. He represented as he always did, a tall man with sandy hair and regular features, eyes the color of sun-faded denim and a long-legged, lumbering gait. He wore the same pair of worn brown cords and blue button-down shirt every time she saw him and, like his need to shape a space of quiet in the midst of chaos, Tovah never asked why.
    “I like the sound of flowing water,” he said as though she’d spoken aloud. The fountain tinkled a little louder. “I find it very soothing.”
    “Dancing is a great tension reliever.” She drew a line in the sand with her toe. “Dare you to try it, Ben.”
    Eight months ago Ben had shown up on the edge of a meadow Spider had been encouraging her to shape for practice. At first she’d thought he was a sleeper, so befuddled had he looked. In moments it had become clear he was a shaper when he turned her meadow into the seashore, Spider into a sand-crab and Tovah into a mermaid. He had a lot of power right away and clearly no knowledge of how to use it. Or of etiquette. She’d been the same way the first time she realized the Ephemeros was a real place, not just a part of her sleeping mind.
    Eight months ago he’d been brand new to shaping, but he’d passed Tovah’s skill and now rivaled Spider. Ben worked hard at shaping. At making details. And he wanted, as she did not, to be a guide.
    “I don’t dance.” His words were easy enough, without sting.
    Tovah let them bounce off her without flinching. “That’s too bad.”
    She’d never asked him why he wanted a mermaid so badly, or what that had meant to him. Or if he’d been disappointed to discover that the woman in his arms that first night, the mouth he’d kissed, belonged to someone who wasn’t a figment of his imagination. Who wasn’t a fulfillment of his desire. They never mentioned the way he’d literally swept her off her feet and into his embrace within moments of seeing her for the first time.
    Tovah thought about it, though.
    “Sure you won’t join me, instead?” Ben waved a hand at the fountain, the sand, the trees.
    She tilted her head and gave him a smile. “Only if you’ll dance with me.”
    He opened his mouth, closed it, shook his head and laughed. “Tovah…”
    Impulsively, stupidly, she reached for his hand and snagged his sleeve. She pulled him a little, knowing all he had to do was want to resist her and he wouldn’t budge a step. But he moved, reluctantly closer. She put his hand on her hip and put hers on his shoulder, then held up the other for him to take.
    “I don’t dance,” Ben repeated.
    “It’s easy. I’ll show you.”
    Despite his protests, they started moving at the same time. One, two, three, four. A simple box step, set to the music Tovah pulled from the air around them as prettily as from a music box.
    “See?” she told him, tipping her head back to look into his face. “You’re a