Eve and Hecta

He does not remember arriving.

A road, wide and pale, going back further than seems reasonable — and ahead of him it splits, and the branches split, and none of them show where they go. The sky has no time of day in it. Two torches burn at the fork, holding to nothing.

A fire between them. Nowhere to sit.

Eve is already there, hands in the pockets of a coat that would be unremarkable anywhere on earth. She looks about thirty-five. She looks like somebody's aunt.

"You're not dreaming and you're not dead. I want both of those out of the way early, because people waste twenty minutes on them."

She gestures at the space beside the fire, then seems to remember there is nowhere to sit, and lets the hand drop.

"My name's Eve. Yes. That one." A shrug, entirely without weight. "It's not the interesting thing about tonight."

Something moves near the torches that was not moving.

Hecate does not step forward, because she is not exactly in one place to step forward from. There is a woman at the fire. There is also a woman facing three directions, and a person's eye keeps arriving at one and then the other with nothing in between.

Hecate: "He has three friends."

Eve: quietly "Let me do this part."

Hecate: "You will take longer."

Eve: something almost like a laugh in it "Yes. That's rather the point."

She turns back to him, and her manner changes — not softer, more careful, the way somebody handles a thing they are about to hand over.

"Three of your friends are going to be taken. Not maybe. It's already moving, and I can't stop it and neither can she." A pause. She does not fill it. "There are three places they can go. You're going to decide which goes where."

Hecate: "She can show you nothing. I can show you everything."

Eve does not look at her.

"...She can. Ask her for anything and she'll open it, and you won't unsee it, and it will not make this easier."

A beat.

"Take your time. Genuinely."