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natural.”
    Ben stopped. His hand tightened on her hip while the other squeezed her fingers. “I didn’t say I couldn’t dance. Just that I don’t.”
    His mouth had tasted sweet, his lips warm. His breath had filled her, creature of the sea though he’d willed her to be, and she’d taken him deep inside her. The kiss, that first and only kiss, had lasted a second and a lifetime. They’d become closer since then, both students of Spider, and they’d shared jokes and laughter and more than a bit of not-always-so-friendly rivalry…but they’d never spoken of that kiss or what it had meant.
    Or what it hadn’t.
    She shook her head, backing away. “Right. I get it.”
    “Tovah—”
    She held up a hand. “No, no, Ben. Don’t worry about it. I just thought…never mind. I’ll catch you another night.”
    He scraped a hand over his hair, standing it on end, that small detail she knew he hadn’t shaped on purpose but which told her so much about how he was representing just then. Ben was always full of details like that, every tiny piece of him and what he made around him perfect and natural. What she struggled with, he simply did.
    She waited for him to take her in his arms again, or at least to call her back, but Ben didn’t. “Right. See you, Tovah.”
    She took another step back, letting go of the oasis and again shaping the club, and Ben let her do it. She felt the release of his will on hers like the slow unwinding of thread from a spool, bit by bit until he’d gone. Flashing lights and pulsing beats filled in around her, and her heart leaped to the thud of the bass that also pounded in the floor beneath her feet.
    She had come to dance, after all. It was time to get to it.
    Tovah wasn’t the only person looking for a partner. Shapers and nonshapers alike moved to the ever-changing music. A man approached her, his eyes narrowed with desire, smile practiced and charming.
    “How about it?”
    Waves of desire hovered around him. Though easily brushed aside, they tugged her, and when she extended a tendril of desire toward him, he responded at once. His brown eyes shifted briefly toward green. She relaxed the shield protecting her from the push and pull of the collective will. Still, he did nothing. He wasn’t a shaper. She could feel what he wanted, but he couldn’t make it happen.
    He needed her, for that.
    “How about what?” She leaned closer, checking him out. Laughter burst from her throat. Colors brightened and dimmed around them as her focus at keeping her surroundings in place got fuzzy for a moment. She looked back at her would-be wooer.
    He was cute. Probably representing taller and broader than he was in the waking world, but so what? Unless he suddenly grew tentacles, she wasn’t about to complain.
    Her snappy answer set him back a little bit. He was probably used to his dream women slavering all over him. His teeth were very, very white and clean. “Come with me, and I’ll show you.”
    Fooling around with a sleeper was tricky. Wanting something and knowing how to get it were two separate things in the Ephemeros, as in the waking world. Sleepers could influence shapers but because they lacked control, things could easily go awry. Sleepers were generally too easily distracted. Keeping them focused was too much like guiding for her tastes.
    Still, the offer was appealing. She nodded, reaching out her hand. He took it with fingers soft and warm, the small and somehow intimate detail of the calluses telling her more than anything else probably would.
    He knew how to dance. Each step landed with perfection. The hand on the small of her back led her with gentle pressure. They moved effortlessly through a crowd that parted to make way for them. He didn’t know how to waltz, but she did, and that was enough.
    “Like music-box dolls,” he said suddenly.
    “Is that what we are?” Tovah laughed as he dipped her so low her hair swept the floor.
    The people around them became music-box dolls, and