Leopard head and leopard head; xie sees in all directions at once, and from one end of the spectrum to the other, and all the universe vibrates in every indivisble atom.
Cedar is drunk again and handsy as hell. “Wait, wait, wait,” she says. “Wait. No, listen–” She leans over to puke into what is, momentarily, a jasmine bush. One of hir mouths waters uncontrollably and begins to speak prophecy; something about famines, something about empires. The future is an endless spool of magnetic tape.
She plays with hir wings, spreads the remiges wide and slides her fingers between them, peeps through. Xie shivers, feels it down to hir pelt. They trip on the sudden cobblestones and collapse laughing in a doorway that had been a phone booth.
“I love you,” says Cedar, “I love this place, I love everything! Hey, no, hey, listen…”
They cling to each other and Daniel folds all four of hir wings in tight. The eighteenth century slides past, but Cedar is snoring, passed out, and misses it.