She reached up and touched the jade pendant about her throat. “Shall I return this to you?” “No,” he said “I will marry no one else, now. And I shall not take my mother’s bridal gift to the Silent City.” He reached out and touched her face lightly, a brush of skin on skin. “When I am in the darkness, I want to think of it in the light, with you,” he said, and straightened, and turned to walk toward the door. The parchment robes of the Silent Brothers moved around him as he moved, and Tessa watched him, paralyzed, every pulse of her heart beating out the words she could not say: Good-bye.
