Siena clutched the phone to her chest as she lay down in bed after Alessandro had gone home and she had unpacked. Dante was snoring softly and reassuringly curled up next to her, so close that she could feel his fluffy, tranquil warmth permeating her body as well as he could feel her tiniest movement. She smiled as she buried her fingers in his ginger fur-- he was resolved not to allow his human to leave without his noticing again anytime soon.

It was a perfect moment; she loved evenings spent reading in her bed with Dante within reach... and yet it didn't feel as right as it used to. She missed James.

She groaned, angry with herself, this... heartache for him was the last thing she needed. It would be three months before she would see him again, and even if he looked like he... liked her as much as she liked him now, that he might want to return... her feelings should she let them grow, three months was a long enough time for things to change... Would he still like her when they met again? Was it all right to text him now, to try to keep in touch, or should she try to push him out of her thoughts until they met again...?

Closing her eyes, Siena sighed deeply, the sound and the change in her breathing disturbing Dante who scolded her with an indignant meow. As he rolled around in search of a more comfortable position, she reached for the book she had pushed under her pillow. She needed to reread Frankenstein; it was important to decide on the best point in the plot to enter that story.

Would it be worth attempting to meet Victor before he would give life to his Monster, or would it be better to let him bring his creation to life and then intercept him right after, before he could bolt from his apartment, frightened and disgusted, abandoning the poor thing to itself?

Her phone vibrated with a message even as she opened the volume, scattering her serious thoughts, making her smile return. She knew that the text was from James even without looking at the phone.

'Good night, Siena.' The simple line said, and she could almost see on the illuminated screen the outlines of words and sentences he had written, cancelled, typed, and deleted again.

'Good night, James.' She typed back, feeling at a loss for anything more suitable to tell him. It was so much easier to be around him in person.

Dots appeared on the screen following her sentence, then vanished, making her smile widen. It was the weirdest thing, apparently even for him, trying to think of something to say via a text, but she was sure that they would get better at it with time.

The insistent buzz of the alarm pulled Siena from the most unusual dream. She curled around Dante, who was still sleeping at her side, undisturbed by the sound that banished the cosy perfection of the night out of the bedroom. She had dreamed about James, a dream so vivid that she was sure that she could feel his touch; his perfume seemed to linger in the air around her still... Siena pulled the chain holding the red pendant from beneath her shirt curiously-- it felt warmer than normally since the moment they had said goodbye at the airport. With a surprise, she noticed that it glowed feebly in the semi-darkness of her room. As if James had just left...

Nonsense. She was back in her normal life for several months now, she needed to stop fantasizing-- that belonged to her parallel existence where she wasn't a high school teacher but a Book Traveller-- and focus on her work and daily routine.

Leaving Dante to continue his nap in the warm nest of her blankets, she sat up, and caressed the objects she had put into a little wooden box which she had set on her bedside table last night. A delicate, pressed, crimson rose petal the Little Prince had given her, and she kept it safely within the copy of his book, which she and James used to transport into his world. And the vial made of sea glass that had contained the antidote, which the Little Mermaid gave her before she jumped into the waves to join her sisters. They were souvenirs from her and James' incredible adventures, objects that felt as magical as the worlds they came from. They seemed to be alive, to possess a soul, to form a connection between Siena and their previous owners. When she focused hard, she could almost scent the perfume of the blond boy's hair, feel the brackishness raising from the heaving waves in the air around her...

Shaking her head to scatter her rambling thoughts, Siena looked at the alarm clock again. It was almost half past seven; she needed to rush unless she wanted to be late on her first day back at work.

A yelp escaped her lips when her bare toes connected with the copy of Frankenstein she had placed on the floor at night. She didn't get to read much the previous night; she needed to start reading and studying the book seriously after work. Three months may be a long time, but with her life interfering with her reading, she would not get as much time as she would like to plan the next adventure.  And they should think of the one after that too, they might just have time to visit two worlds in the two weeks of her Christmas holidays and even if not, the Society would want to know what to prepare for them for the Easter break.

Entirely absorbed in her thoughts, Siena went through her morning routine quite automatically, realising that she was ready to leave only once she paused to caress Dante goodbye.

"Your food is in the kitchen, as usual. And I'll be back by five, you know that," she promised the purring tomcat who stretched on her bed luxuriously, revelling in her attention.

Her phone vibrated with a message in the depths of her handbag even as she locked the door, and she pulled the phone up as she rushed down the stairs. Expecting to find a text from Alessandro, making sure that she got out of bed and was on her way to work, she was overjoyed to find one from James instead.

'Good morning, Siena.'

'Good morning, James,' she typed back before she crossed the already busy road and directed her steps along a narrow, cobbled pavement skirting the river Arno towards the ancient Ponte Vecchio bridge.

'I had the strangest dream. You were in it, but I can't remember anything else.' His next text informed.

Her eyebrows drew together in thought as she typed, 'Same. I think I dreamed about you.' Why were they dreaming about each other? And if he had really experienced the same thing she had, then it must be more than a simple dream... Could it be the jewels?

It took him longer to compose his next text; Siena just reached the bridge when it found her.

'What are you doing now?' James demanded, abandoning the previous subject.

'Walking to work, just crossing the bridge. It's a beautiful late summer morning. I wish you could see the sunshine reflecting off the slowly flowing water, adding colour, warmth, and scent to the ancient houses huddled in the sides of the bridge. If only there were fewer tourists,' she typed, narrowly missing a couple taking pictures of everything around them without paying real attention to it. If her town flat wasn't so conveniently close to her school, she would have moved out of the city a long time ago. Firenze was stifflingly overcrowded.

'And I wish you could be here, and see my lake this morning. It's so still, like an enormous silvery mirror half hidden in the mists, rising from its surface as well as the forest. There's not a soul around, not even the Nessie deigns me with her presence...'

Siena laughed, attracting the attention of a couple of passers by, not noticing them at all as she started to get lost in her fantasies. Nothing would please her more than observing the mysterious loch resurfacing from the night's mists in James' embrace; maybe only his kiss would please her more... It'd been a while since she'd been wondering how his full, sensuous lips would feel on hers...

She blushed, schooling her rambling thoughts into order; this was hardly the place or time for similar musings. She was almost in front of the school, the groups of teens strolling past her informed her of that as well as the hill which the cobbled street was winding upwards now, stealing her breath just like her wayward thoughts.

'I must go, James, I've just arrived at work. Have a wonderful day.'

'Take care, Siena. Will text you later.'

"Now that's a sight I've never seen before and I've known you for ages," Alessandro's words startled her back to reality as she walked through the teachers' entrance into the renaissance palazzo of the high school, where she found him waiting for her hidden in the shadows quite impenetrable to her eyes after the blinding sunshine reigning outside.

"What are you talking about?" she asked, puzzled, after she let him kiss her on both cheeks, then rest his arm on her shoulders as they crossed a courtyard towards the school building.

"This... sorry... silly, lovey-dovey smile you are wearing today. I've never seen you so enamoured before."

"Oh, stop it, Ale," Siena muttered, feeling a new blush flooding her cheeks. "You're thirty, and yet you are behaving like the kids we teach here."

"Why, it's you who is blushing like a teenage girl, in love for the first time..."

To Siena's chagrin, he didn't stop teasing her until they entered the already crowded teachers' room.