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March is such a fickle month. It is the seam between winter and spring—though seam suggests an even hem, and March is more like a rough line of stitches sewn by an unsteady hand, swinging wildly between January gusts and June greens. You don’t know what you’ll find, until you step outside.
“The old gods may be great, but they are neither kind nor merciful. They are fickle, unsteady as moonlight on water, or shadows in a storm. If you insist on calling them, take heed: be careful what you ask for, be willing to pay the price.” She leans over Adeline, casting her in shadow. “And no matter how desperate or dire, never pray to the gods that answer after dark.”
“Life is so brief, and every night in Rennes I’d go to bed, and lie awake, and think, there is another day behind me, and who knows how few ahead.”
If he could have spent his whole life sitting in a lecture hall, taking notes, could have drifted from department to department, haunting different studies, soaking up language and history and art, maybe he would have felt full, happy.
Choosing a class became choosing a discipline, and choosing a discipline became choosing a career, and choosing a career became choosing a life, and how was anyone supposed to do that, when you only had one?
Addie feels ridiculous, but she leans in close to the tiled wall, and waits, and listens. And then, impossibly, she hears his voice. “Addie.” She startles. The word is soft but clear, as if he’s standing right beside her. “How are you doing this?” she asks the arch. And she can hear the smile in his voice when he answers. “The sound follows the curve of the arch. A phenomenon that happens when spaces bend just right. It’s called a whispering gallery.” Addie marvels. Three hundred years, and there are still new things to learn. “Talk to me,” comes the voice against the tile.
They are Orpheus, she is Eurydice, and every time they turn back, she is ruined.
