The fox was looking at me again. Narrow gold eyes, watching me, waiting for weakness.

The mechanism clicked and clacked in the corner of the quad. Soon it’d start steaming, and then dispense… something. I almost laughed when the old wedding cliché tumbled into my mind: something borrowed, something blue…

The sky above us was the wrong color, deep blue-green, the color of the shallow ocean in Carribean travel brochures. When night fell it’d be the shade of leaves in autumn just before they turn to gold and red.

The mechanism hissed, venting steam out the top that had made my eyes water when I’d accidentally inhaled it, and dispensed a lozenge of blue gel into the brass receiving cup. I picked it up between thumb and forefinger; it was lighter than it looked.

“Swallow it,” said the fox.

Something borrowed, something blue.

Staring into his eyes, I brought the pill to my lips. When I touched my tongue to it, it tasted like sugar.

“It won’t hurt you,” said the fox.

I closed my eyes and swallowed it.