“Oh, no,” said Drusilla. “You see, we’re not really here.”

Dawn cocked her head at the vampire. “We’re not?” she asked. “Where are we, then?”

“The future,” the vampire confided to the girl in a whisper. “Remembering.”

“Remembering what?”

“All this.” Drusilla waved a hand around the street. “This world, this meeting, the scent of fear I smell on you. Most of all, you yourself. We’re not real, you see, no more than will-o’-the-wisps. We’re like my pixies, whispering things to me. Only not the future, but the past. Not the truth, but lies.”