When the Faerie King takes his tour of the human realm, he becomes—of course—a viral hit.

The first posts and videos stream out from Shanghai, just after the New Year. He’s seen waiting patiently in line at a popular dumpling stall. Comments multiply under the posted photos—”Who is he?” “So handsome!” “I’m dead!” The woman at the counter hands him his xiao long bao in a daze. At his sweet smile, there are audible gasps.

He eats his dumplings slowly, savoring each bite. He closes his eyes after the first one, as though he’s never tasted such a thing before. The staff tries to give him more when he’s done, but he politely thanks them, smiles again, and leaves.

More photos pop up. He’s at a park, he’s strolling through the Yu Garden. Snowflakes catch in his jet-black hair. He’s seen taking in the city skyline along the Bund. He wears a deep purple cloak against the chill, the color of twilight bleeding into night. He walks along a busy street, and traffic literally slows. Heads turn. A spreading pool of silence, as those closest to him notice and gawk. That small, stunned delay, before the cell phones are brought out to record.

The photos and videos spread internationally. Who is he? the world wonders. An actor, a model, some preternaturally beautiful new star of the Chinese entertainment industry? Ambassador for a fashion brand, with his striking clothes? But no one can place him; no one’s seen him before, and no one would ever forget that face.

He wears exquisitely tailored outfits, suits and jackets of modern design, but of rich, luxurious fabrics and colors. Black and silver brocade. Plum and gold. Shimmering silks of midnight blue. That deep purple cloak of night.

He’s next seen on a beach resort in Hainan. Ordering noodles from a street vendor in Bangkok. Perhaps he’s trying to escape winter’s chill? Yet he keeps his cloak on, even in the tropical heat. He’s seen for one day in Sydney, Australia. A tour group eagerly posts the photos when he joins them on a climb up the Sydney Harbour Bridge. A passing drone films him at the top of the bridge, his cloak flaring out in the wind. The resulting pictures are the most popular yet.

By the time he appears north again, people are cosplaying the viral star. He comes face-to-face with a few on a Tokyo street. There he is in the photo, resplendent in jewels, in dark and lustrous silks. He’s holding a rolled-up sweet crepe in one hand. Next to him are the pale imitations: a teen boy and girl in their garish purple cloaks, their cheap gems and glitter; yet their eyes shine like stars to be beside the Faerie King.

The Faerie King. This is the hashtag that finally sticks. Variations in English: #FairyKing, #FaeKing. Approximations in all major languages online.

He doesn’t speak much. When he’s tired of the shouted questions, the surging crowds, he has a trick of silencing everyone with a little flick of his head. A hammer blow of awe hits and creates a widening space about him. But he’s generally genial, if treated with proper respect. He accepts selfie requests. Engages in small talk. Answers polite questions. Yes, he’s king of the Faerie Realm. Yes, he’s enjoying his tour of the human world. Yes, he’ll consider visiting that city, that restaurant, that recommended five-star or “secret” attraction.

There’s a sadness in all his smiles. A gentle air of melancholy, like a subtle perfume. Watch enough videos, and you’ll see that it’s always there. This quality only makes humans more crazed.

In late February, he attends Milan Fashion Week. He’s invited to sit in the front row of all the major shows. The head of every fashion house is desperate to meet him. The most beautiful celebrities of Earth flock to the city; models strut the runways in the newest designs. But every eye, every camera, is fixated on him.

He accepts and deigns to wear only one gift of clothing. A black silk scarf shot through with silver. A piece of night threaded with starlight. The designer who created it cries—not for the coming fortune and fame, the boost to her career. But because he touched her hand when he thanked her.

The scarf matches the black suit he’s wearing that night. It complements the silver pendant he always wears on his chest. In video of that night, he sits in the front row of a show, fingering the pendant. It’s a silver half-moon, pure and gleaming. He caresses it, tenderly lifts it. His dark eyes go distant and sad.

It’s that sadness—these brief glimpses of it—that drives watchers wild.

We’re all watching, and we gather on Internet forums, in the comments of news articles, to debate and dissect what we see. To piece together his story. For surely he has a story—he’s not really just here on a holiday, is he? There must be some meaning, some mission, a quest that he’s on. An explanation for his sorrow. There’s meaning in everything he does and says: the scarf that he chose, the cappuccino he ordered. There’s meaning to the moon pendant he wears: it’s a gift from his lover, a key to a kingdom, a memorial of lost, tragic love.

In a cocktail bar in Oslo, he finally spills it. He gets tipsy with a table of new friends; he has a weakness for gin gimlets. I’m looking for my Queen, he confesses. She was last seen in the mortal realm, a thousand years ago. I waited and waited, and she never came back.

The Internet explodes.

His comments are first reported secondhand, but soon enough he’s confirming them on live TV. His eyes glimmer with unshed tears as he looks into the camera; his melodious voice stumbles and catches. Around the world, hearts clench.

We all promise to help him find her. We beg for descriptions, details, a clue. But he’s spare with his answers: he acknowledges his quest, thanks us for our concern. Says he’ll be open to any of our reports. But he doesn’t think she’ll be seen by one of us.

If you do see her, he tells us, you’ll know. She is the Queen of Dawn and Day. What he doesn’t say, but what we’ve figured out on our own: He is the King of Dusk and Night.

• • • •

I check the Internet every day, following my King’s travels. It’s spring now, and he’s touring Europe’s great capitals. Berlin, Rome, Paris. He’s seen eating a sausage roll in London, while strolling the South Bank of the Thames. He makes an appearance at dawn at Stonehenge—not during the vernal equinox, but several days afterward, when the crowds are gone.

Then all sightings stop. It’s as though he’s fallen off this world’s surface. Disappeared, like his missing Queen.

We’re all frantic, until he finally turns up in America.

• • • •

And I’m in America, but I know that I’ll likely still never meet him. Because I don’t live in a glitzy or romantic city, or a place of rumored Faerie power—I’m in a three-stoplight town in the American Midwest, surrounded by cornfields. This place will never make any tourist list; it doesn’t have any street food; it’s hundreds of miles away from anywhere interesting. And I’m a twenty-year-old girl still living with her mother, commuting half an hour to community college and working part-time at the one grocery store in town. The Faerie King will never come here. I’ll never see him in person.

But I can still dream.

I track his travels on a map taped to my bedroom wall. I’m in a chat group with others, and we keep each other updated on news. We watch him strolling under flowering trees in New York City’s Central Park. We see him in Montreal, ordering bagels. We see him eating a hotdog in Chicago by the lake, then posing for selfies by the famous “Bean” sculpture.

Something has changed.

In Chicago he allows a few group selfies, but more and more often he pulls his head-flick trick to keep the crowds at bay. His smiles are fewer. He stops accepting invites to galas and premieres. His expression is solemn, even as he tries cotton candy for the first time at a fair.

Days go by between sightings. Even weeks.

He’s traveling the hidden roads, someone in our forum says.

He’s picked up her trail, it’s serious now, someone else opines.

He’s getting closer, another agrees. Not so much time to play tourist anymore.

• • • •

A rare interview from his time in America, with a Youtuber who has been tracking the Faerie King for weeks: Are you enjoying your time in our country? (Yes). What do you like best about the mortal realm? (The food, of course. He’s answered this before, explained that Faerie food has a habit of evaporating in one’s mouth; it doesn’t have weight like human fare). What human food do you like best? What’s your favorite city here? (A shrug and enigmatic smile). How’s the search for your Queen going? Can you update us on that? Do you think you’ll find her?

The Faerie King frowns. His eyes sharpen and glow. The interviewer cringes, anticipating the silencing Head-flick of Awe. The King’s mood can be unpredictable when it comes to his Queen. But a moment passes, and the King’s glare fades. His face relaxes into its usual genial expression. The human exhales, and hastily moves on to other topics.

Where are you headed next? the interviewer asks as they wrap things up.

The King pauses. His eyes seem to look inward, and soften. Then he gestures toward his moon pendant—or maybe it’s to his heart beneath. Wherever this calls me, he says.

• • • •

Rumors fly of what he’s said in exchanges that were never taped. People of all types claim to have met him, to have spoken to him off-camera or out of audio range. They claim deep confidences, secrets, or just passing remarks. We comb through the gossip, relying on translators for different languages. We weigh the credibility of sources.

He said that he quarreled with his Queen, and she left him.

He said that they visited our world together once, long ago.

He said that he once drank in taverns with the poet Li Bai.

He said that he’s fond of melted cheese over fries.

He told me that his Queen is more beautiful than the dawn itself.

He told us that she loves dry wind and heat, desert sunlight, and the alertness of shy desert rabbits.

He said that he won’t give up looking for her. He’ll look for as long as it takes. A thousand years, ten-thousand years, or more.

• • • •

If I knew where he were headed next, I’d fly out to see him. I don’t care about the cost—I’d charge it to a credit card and damn the interest payments. But no one knows where he’s headed, or for how long. He’s glimpsed briefly in St. Louis, on the downtown riverfront. He’s caught in a jazz bar in New Orleans, unnoticed in the dark until the lights come on after the show. He’s seen in a cornfield in the middle of nowhere, after all—a cornfield that’s nowhere close to where I am.

I would chase him over the miles, if I could. If I knew where he’d be. Just for a glimpse of him in person.

We all would. We all want to feel part of something bigger—part of his quest, his story. We all want to see beauty. And I want a love story like his and his Queen’s. Undying love, love that spans centuries and worlds. Rapturous love, love that crazes the mind, love that launches ships and poetry and myth. I have never been in love. I’ve only been on a few dates. I’ve never kissed anyone, not with love.

• • • •

West. He’s headed—in his erratic, meandering fashion—west. Ever westward, from the beginning.

• • • •

He remembers the great bison herds that once grazed the American plains.

He said that he loves mountains.

He said that he and his Queen both love the sea.

• • • •

It would seem near impossible to vanish in this modern age, not with the eyes of the world looking for you. Not when you shine out from the crowd like a moon among stars. Not with all the cell phones ready to record, not with closed-circuit cameras and drones that can surveil the tracts of pathless wilderness.

But the Faerie King does it.

When footage erratically surfaces, after weeks of absence, it places him far from population centers. He’s at a remote lake in Montana. On a mountain peak in Colorado. By an unnamed canyon stream in New Mexico.

The days are lengthening. Summer approaches. His Queen’s power waxes with the sun. He’s been in our world for nearly half a year.

A report from one final city: Las Vegas. He’s seen on the Strip at dusk, the glow of lit fountains on his face, his cloak the same color as the desert sky. He’s seen entering one of the fanciest casinos.

And then all footage cuts off. There are no cell recordings from within the casino, or from the rest of the night. Rumors abound of the wildest of benders, an unbelievable party, the casino cleaned out but the drink orders massive. No one will talk about it. There are no firsthand accounts. The casino and all local businesses refuse comment. No one leaks any security footage.

The King’s silencing powers are more potent than we thought. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, indeed.

• • • •

In the end, my King escapes into the desert.

Scattered reports of him in the vast scrublands of the Mojave. In its red rock canyons. Among the sandstone cliffs.

Surely this is where he’ll find her, in the place she’s said to love. This place of dry heat and quick desert rabbits. Of brief-blooming flowers and scurrying life. This place of the sun.

There’s one final shot of him, standing atop a great red rock outcropping. His hair is black against the blue desert sky. His cloak of purple falls to his knees. It’s over a hundred degrees Fahrenheit, but he doesn’t break a sweat (he never sweats). Cool twilight is gathered in the folds of his cloak. Each hair on his head is perfectly groomed. His eyes are distant, unreadable, as he gazes toward the sun. The moon pendant flashes.

Timestamp on the video: the day before the summer solstice.

It’s the last image I’ve saved to my phone.

• • • •

The world moves on, even if I don’t.

There are always other stories, coming and going in our world. The next year a Dragon Prince comes to earth, seeking his lost Princess. Then a Heavenly Goddess appears: she’s looking to gather and resurrect the scattered remains of her dismembered lover, which fell to our world on the backs of shooting stars. A different Goddess comes, one who’s leading a rebellion against a Heavenly Tyrant, and she seeks hidden weapons in our realm. Perhaps the greatest excitement comes with the arrival of a Demon King: he’s evil but intensely charismatic, and he promises to select his new consort from among the mortal humans of Earth.

I follow these stories. I fall for the hype. But I never forget my Faerie King.

I still dream of his perfect face. His sad, gentle smile. All the emotions in the world flicker briefly in his eyes. All the depths of the sea.

• • • •

I escape my hometown. I try on different careers. I travel the world.

I find myself on America’s West Coast, in Los Angeles. It’s another move, another home. A job that’s not quite my dream job, but closer than I’ve come before.

On a chill February day, I leave work early. I drive to the sea. I park and walk to the Santa Monica Pier. It’s sunset, and the sky is a riotous swirl of pink and gold where it meets the horizon, fading to purple and blue above. There’s only a few tourists about; it’s a weeknight in winter, after all. I wouldn’t be here myself—I haven’t been to this tourist spot in years—if I weren’t meeting an out-of-town friend.

I’m early. I walk to the end of the pier to wait for her, and I stare out at the sea.

Slowly I become aware of the man standing nearby. At first, I think he’s a cosplayer, a street performer—there’s been a revival of interest in the viral stars of yesteryear. The purple cloak is beautifully made. But then he turns his head, and I see the famous profile. The features both delicate and strong.

He’s here, finally, in front of me. At the end of the continent. Just a few feet away. I could step forward and touch him.

And he hasn’t changed at all. Of course. It’s been thirty years, and I dye my hair to cover the white strands. In my mirror, I see the clear marks of age. But he’s eternally young; he still has the face that captured my heart, the face that enthralled the entire world.

I’m not sure that I’m breathing.

He’s looking out to sea, and my chest hurts with his beauty. My throat’s tight; everything burns. And my mind’s a rush of questions. I want to ask him, Did you find her? Did she come back to you? Because I need to know. I’m not the naïve twenty-year-old I once was; I’ve known love, I’ve had it. I’ve lost love, and found it again. And now I’m fifty years old, well into middle age; and I still want to believe that love lasts, that it overcomes all; that for someone, at least, it can last for all time.

Is she here with you? I want to ask him. Perhaps they came together to Earth this time. And maybe she’s right around the corner; she’s browsing souvenirs in one of the pier’s kitschy shops, and she’ll be back any minute. She’s gone to get a snack, and she’ll return to him with hot, sugared churros.

Maybe I’ve said something out loud; maybe I’ve made some movement or noise. Or maybe he just feels the weight of my stare. He turns, and his black eyes catch mine. Is there anything of the old sadness there? His lips start to curve into a smile—

And there were voices approaching, and now they’re here: a group of loud tourists walking between us, crowding the end of the pier. My phone buzzes. I step angrily around the group, looking for him again. My phone keeps buzzing. Of course, he’s gone. We never knew the end of his story. For all of them—these viral visitors from other worlds, these brilliant stars shooting across our timelines—we never knew the full story. I push my way to the place where he was, touch the railing he touched. I’ll still never know. The last bit of daylight burns above the sea. All the colors of dusk, fierce and glorious, and then gone.