As Red walked down the ramp of the parking garage he made a mental note to buy bread on the way home.  The little bakery he went to had two employees, both knew to get him a loaf of bread made of cornmeal without asking.  One of the employees always asked if he wanted the bread sliced, which he always did.  The other employee always asked how many loaves he wanted, he only ever wanted one.  Red found it odd that both of them knew what kind of bread he wanted but could not remember these other points.

Down in the underground parking structure Red found a photo shoot going on.  There were six people involved.  Three of them were models.  One was a young photographer.  Another was his assistant who was adjusting the lights.  The last was a stylist who was fixing a model’s hair.  The models had positioned themselves around a car, one laid in front of it, one on the hood and another stood beside it.

It was an odd looking photo shoot.  The car was an anonymous sedan, the kind of car you wouldn’t look twice at when you saw it on the road.  The models were wearing full body covering flannel pajamas.  One of them held a large teddy bear.  It was hard to imagine what they were taking photos for.  When the girl on the hood saw Red she jumped off and ran over to talk to him.  

“Hey where are you going?  We’re in the middle of a shoot!”  The photographer demanded.

“She’s been getting her hair just right for the last twenty minutes.”  Gold snapped at him.  “Call me when you’re actually ready to shoot.”  Then she turned her back to him.

“What’s going on here?” Red asked Gold.

“A friend of a friend asked me to be in this photo shoot.  I thought ‘sure it sounds fun.’  Then I got here and I saw the car he wanted to use.  I said there had to be a better looking car than that.  There are places where you can rent a Ferrari or a Lamborghini.  It wouldn’t even have to be a top end car, almost anything would be better.  He wouldn’t hear of it though.  The only thing he’d tell me was ‘this is the car.’  Every time I opened my mouth he’d just respond ‘this is the car, this is the car.’  I thought the car was bad, and then I saw what he wanted us to wear.”

“You look like you’re at a junior high sleepover.”  Red observed

“I know!  When I was asked to do a photoshoot on a car with two other girls I thought he’d want us looking sexy.  Instead he asked us to wear these dumpy outfits.  I brought some swimsuits of my own that I offered to wear.  Mr. Photographer got all offended at that.  Said he was creating art, not doing a cover shoot for Lowrider Magazine.” 

“Well… maybe your image will be on a museum wall one day.”

“Not bloody likely.”

“Why not?  You’re already part of one painting.”

Gold's face showed displeasure at this comment.  “You mean that painting that Ela did?  That doesn’t look at all like me.”

“It totally does.”

“Doesn’t.  How could she make a painting that looks like me?  We’ve never met."

“Yet here we are.”

Gold got annoyed “Any resemblance to me is impossible.  She doesn’t even know I exist.  She just made up a character with golden hair to fill out her cast just like she made up a character with green hair.”

“I can’t explain it.”  Red admitted.  “I’m just telling you what I saw.  Your presence wasn’t even the most important thing.  In the painting, she killed me.”

“Yeah, a sign of things to come.”

“No, no it’s not.  You were right when you warned me that if I kept seeing her she’d kill me.  Just in the painting though, not in real life.”

“Assuming that you’re in the clear is going to put your life in danger.  Are you sure you want to take a risk like that?”

“Sure?  What does ‘sure’ mean?  A person who is ‘sure’ about things is a fool.  I’m not even sure if the sun will come up tomorrow.  However I am going to take a risk with Ela, even though I’m not sure what the consequences will be.  I’m going to start telling her the truth.”

“The truth?  Tell her the truth about what?”

“I’ll start with telling her the truth about the Ottoman coin.”

Gold groaned at this “Why would you tell her that?  It worked so perfectly.  It never even occurred to her that you didn’t really just find that coin, that you’d planted it there.”

“So she thinks the coin might actually have some magical powers.”

“Exactly!”  Gold exclaimed.  “Then when you gave it to her and said you’d found a stronger magic, oh it was perfect.  She completely melted in your arms.  If we just keep…”

“No.”  Red cut her off.  “I’m going down the wrong path.  I’ll never find true magic by faking it.  Ela has been kissed by magic.  My only chance is to be honest with her.  After I tell her about the coin I’m going to tell her about my past.  About who I really was before I came to Izmir.”

If the idea of telling Ela the truth about the coin upset Gold, the idea of telling Ela the truth about Red’s past infuriated her.  “Have you gone mad?  You can’t tell anyone about your past.  You’ll destroy all the work we did to bury it.  Ela wants a nice guy, if she finds out the things you’ve done she’ll run away from you screaming.  We’ll have to go on the run again, set up a whole new identity again.  That’s assuming we get away in time.”

Red took a deep breath before he replied “Everything you’ve warned me of and worse is possible.  This could very well be my undoing.  I’m going to do it anyway.  Magic is out there.  It’s just waiting to be found, to have its potential realized.  I can find it, but not alone.  I need the support of someone I can trust.  I can’t trust someone who doesn’t actually know who I am.  If the truth comes from me then she might accept it.  If she discovers the truth on her own she’ll hate me forever.  I’ll give her my secrets, not for free; the price will be her secrets.  If we can stand the sight of each other afterwards then we might just be unstoppable.”