The Facade was a pub. A bar. A place that stayed open long into the night and served all types of drinks. Except warm tea or blood.

I considered, for appearances sake, taking an alcoholic drink. But then decided against it and settled for the zero powered ginger ale. It tasted better and looked convincing for the casual eye. As I couldn't really get drunk on anything non-magical, I had really lost my taste in drinks. Even wines these days tasted just like very old grape juice.

I grabbed my drink from the bar and started looking for the tall brunette in the midst of the crowd. A band was playing. For a moment I was captivated by the guitarist. I could maybe play for this Mimosa some day? I just needed a place where we could sit. I couldn't really invite her into my room at the Castle, which was my only address. And a hotel room could be understood wrong in a million ways.

Maybe not then. Not in the near future at least.

And why was I even thinking about this? I had befriended all Rosemary's old tenants. It had never even crossed my mind that I would like to show off my musical talent in front of any of them. But this Mimosa had something... I couldn't quite point it out. There was something familiar about her, as if we had met before.

Had we?

I spotted Mimosa occupying a leather sofa in a corner on the second floor. Someone had seated himself opposite her and was leaning overly eagerly towards her over a table. On the table rested a rectangular parcel that could have been a book.

"You came alone?" the man was asking.

Mimosa bore on her face a polite look. Her aura was lost in the mass, but I had no doubts it was riddled with annoyance. The man wasn't old, maybe even younger than she was.

I placed a hand on the shoulder of the man. He turned to me a sharp, hostile face. His eyes had dark circles etched deep underneath them.

"I would like to sit here, if you don't mind."

He frowned.

I smiled over him at Mimosa. She responded to my smile with a tight smile of her own.

"You with her?" the man asked.

I turned back to him. The whole environment smelled of alcohol and I had difficulty telling if he had drunk anything. His aura mingled with others around us. But there was something in him that told me he was drunk on something else than simple beer. I felt the lure in my very bones. His aura carried an ounce of misery in it, whispering to my bloodlust. Not strongly, but I felt it.

"Yes. For tonight I am with her."

He turned now fully to me, about to rise, not in an effort to leave, but about to challenge me.

I kept the hand on the shoulder and pushed him gently down.

Then I couldn't resist the temptation and smiled at him a different, knowing smile, a smile too gentle for a human to wear and look at him, as he was obviously going to maybe punch me in the face. I reached over him and placed my ginger ale on the table. Then I laid my freed hand gently to the rough stubble growing from his chin.

He froze. And looked me in the eyes, his chin cupped in my long pale fingers.

"I might be with you some other night," I told him, holding his gaze and lacing my words with deep honesty. "But not tonight."

He looked at me a long moment, caught by the honesty in my words which was highlighted in his inebriated state.

"Shit," he cursed and then scrambled to his feet, knocking over the stool he had been occupying. I let him go.

He glanced behind himself from the stairs. I waved and winked. He almost fell in his haste to flee.

I turned back to my date and occupied the vacated seat the man had left behind. I reached for my drink and took a sip.

Mimosa was inspecting me with a frown. I smiled at her disarmingly but the gesture she returned was almost forced.

"What is it?" I asked. "I know I can be wicked sometimes, but I think you already told him no."

She shook her head, searching for what she wanted to say. A passerby swept her scent to me. And there I was again. The scent. There was something about that scent. I leaned closer, intending to take another sniff, but the air I got was again just generic environmental stench of alcohol, leather and detergent, multiple perfumes, but not the unique mix I was looking for.

"That was bold," she said at last.

I gave her my best boyish grin.

She still had something on her mind, but now she laughed a little and tried a sip from her own high pint.

"Please, tell me. What are you thinking? I am a bit late. But what is it?"

She looked at me for a long moment, weighing her options. I noted that we both wore contact lenses. She also had on a light layer of makeup and heavier eyeliner than I would have anticipated. Her long hair was still swept up into a carefully arranged messy bun.

"I didn't think you'd show up," she said at last.

"I wasn't that late, was I?" I made a show of checking the wooden watch I had on my right wrist. "Only a few minutes."

She shook her head again and smiled, apparently despite herself. She blushed.

"It's not that."

"Then, what is it? I am intrigued."

I leaned even closer and supported my chin against my fist.

"I thought... I think you are a ghost."

My jaw would have dropped if it hadn't been supported on my hand.

"A ghost? What makes you think I am a ghost?"

I was pleasantly surprised. This promised to be an interesting meeting.

"This."

And then she opened the cardboard box on the table that I had absolutely forgotten about. I understood immediately when my eyes fell on the aluminum frame, even before she turned the picture towards me.

"I loaned this from my landlady. Her brother. His name is Plume as well and you do look like him. Except, this picture is thirty years old."

Now, I faced a choice: I could pretend I found this turn of events amusing and had no idea what she was talking about. Or I could see how this played out with an open hand.

At least almost open.

"So, you think I am her brother, who passed away and keeps haunting her tenants?"

"Are you?" She asked. And didn't so much as blink.

"The question is," I said with a low voice, leaning close. "Are you willing to truly believe I could be? It's a big question, Mimosa: can you believe in magic?"

She looked me in the eyes. I smiled indulgently.

After a long moment, she gave it up. All air seemed to abandon her when she collapsed against the leather seat.

"I don't know. I haven't decided. There is so much going on." She reached for her pint and massaged her temples. "Please, Plume, if there were magic, would you then be her lost brother? Just tell me, are you a ghost?"

"This is surprisingly important to you," I noted. I filled my own mouth with ginger and savored the pepperlike effect in my throat.

"Calling me a ghost is not far from the truth, really," I confessed then. "I am Rosemary's brother. And if you call this haunting, then surely, I have been caught red handed haunting her tenant. But I am not a ghost."

I reached out to touch her hand. She flinched, but I held on.

"I am sure you can accuse me a bit better than that, can't you?"

"Some kind of wizard?" she ventured.

"Not really. I wasn't born with the gift of magic. It's in the blood and I don't have any."

She arched an eyebrow at me.

"You are suggesting you are a vampire? If I believed in magic."

"Under the strict condition that you believe in magic, I would be a vampire." I drew my hand away. "But if you don't, then that's really just a picture with uncanny resemblance."

She pursed her lips.

"Could you make me believe? Turn into a bat or something. Show a corner of a fang?"

I burst into laughter.

"I wish it were that simple, honey. Don't you think I would have shown Rosemary a thousand flashes if I could? Oh, I have tried. And she can remember nothing. Look around you." I encompassed the room in a sweep of my hand. "I can turn into a raven and fly through that open window, everyone will stare and point. That includes you, by the way. And then nothing. Magic makes you drunk. The memory doesn't stay. Like when you have had too much on a Sunday evening and don't really know how you got home. Were you taken in a taxi with a handsome undead? You can't tell."

I drained my drink.

"I won't do it to you, Mimosa. Not tonight. Maybe some other. But I think we have had a good conversation thus far and I really don't want to ruin it."

But I did walk her home, back to my sister's house. We stayed to talk on the porch step, mimosa standing on the concrete platform while I stayed on the lawn.

Now, in the still summer's late evening, I could smell her clearly. And there really was something about that scent that made me thoughtful. I knew that scent from somewhere. But the exact memory slipped my groping mind, fleeing focus like a cockroach from the flashlight.

"Will I see you again?" Mimosa asked.

We hadn't exchanged numbers, and it didn't seem likely we would.

"I don't know. Probably. I keep an eye out for my sister. And if magic feels like a part you want, then you can find me. I am hiding in the shadows, but not so deep I couldn't be found."

She smiled then.

"Good to know. Nowadays it seems there is nothing but too deep shadows shrouding the landscape." She paused for a moment, looked past the fence to the street behind my back. "Will you eat me, if I come looking one day?"

I coughed.

"Probably not."

She looked at me, troubled.

"But what if you truly were a vampire, wouldn't that mean..."

"That I drank blood? Most surely."

I looked at my watch, to check the time.

"I am afraid I need to go now. I still need to catch a train tonight."

"Okay."

Something was left hanging in the air, a tension the conversation hadn't quite dissipated.

"I am now going to turn into a raven and fly fast." I announced.

I reached to take off my high heels and placed them inside a small bag I carried flung over one shoulder.

"Au revoir, Mimosa."

Then I disappeared from her world and hopped on the lawn a few small jumps before taking off. I left her below me on the lawn. And turned to fly and catch the night train that would pass by Genbrea.

I would sleep like a dead man in the sleeping compartment. And probably would wake up a few stations after Grenbrea. But then I would fly the rest of the way. I only needed to reach Timothy the next evening, almost 24 hours from now.