I don't know. If they're wrong, they're wrong. A million people could believe a thing, but if there's solid evidence to the contrary than that's all it can ever be. A false belief.

[He says it with a crooked little smile that shows off the sharp points of his teeth, close to apologetic. It isn't quite in his nature to be disagreeable, but nor is it in him to deny provable facts, things that can be measured and seen. Still--]

I'll concede that it doesn't apply to everything. Some truths are more malleable than others. Magic has always seemed a slippery sort of thing, but it goes on existing all the same.

[Though time spent with Aisha and Salim have begun to reveal to him snips and slithers of logic behind what had, once, been too nebulous for him to grasp.

Slowly they grow closer towards their destination - or at least, a destination, the lake widening onto a dark-lit pebbly shore that he can more easily discern now. Boats moored up along it, moving shapes somewhere further beyond that which look suspiciously like people. Above all that, the vast rise of stone spires that look both like natural formations, and houses.]

But! You're right there, about dreams. We're here now, in the thick of it. May as well see where it'll take us.