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He shook back the sleeve of his coat and looked down at his watch to see the time. But all three hands had stopped turning, frozen at 6:22. Preston frowned and held up his wrist for closer examination. The face of the watch was filled with water.
A pair of students dashed past her, brusquely slamming into her shoulder with enough force that she almost toppled backward. Preston would have a fit of panic if I fell, she thought, remembering his fear-stricken pleading for her to be careful on the ice.
Awww ;(
In the second chamber, Effy’s statue still stood, in its place of preeminence. The crack on her face had been mended, and Preston was so relieved to see it that his knees grew weak beneath him. He dropped to the floor again—because the great beauty and the great stillness of her form deserved worship, devotion. Here, she was a princess, a queen, perhaps even a saint.
I love you, he thought as he looked at her sleeping form. I love you. For some reason it had become so difficult to speak aloud. Perhaps because his next thought, always, was I might lose you.
He didn’t say a word as he stared at the ring. He only felt a great sadness rise up in him, a longing for things that he had once had, but never would again, and for things that he imagined, but which could never be real.
“Come in,” she said. Preston pushed the door open. Standing there in the threshold, snowflakes clinging to the unruly strands of his brown hair, his glasses faintly misted, he smiled at her. It was a hedging, hesitant smile, as though he couldn’t yet discern her mood—but it had been more than a day since Effy had last seen him and she was so relieved that she bounded over and buried herself into his chest. He wrapped his arms around her and held her tightly. “Are you all right?” “I’m fine,” she said, her voice muffled against the wool of his coat.
WHy are they so cute!?!?!
Distraught by the loss of her lover, Dahut fled the castle and dove into the ocean. The saints took pity on her and, rather than let her drown, transformed her into a mermaid. The king was fitted with a silver hand but, so aggrieved by the loss of his daughter, he never lifted a sword again. Indeed, he rarely left his chambers, and the great city of Ys began to wilt and decay, as a flower garden left dry and unattended.
“Haven’t you read the news today?” Preston’s heart skipped. “No, I just woke up. What do the papers say?” “A draft.” The words came out in little more than a whimper. “Llyr has claimed that it’s planning a full-scale invasion, so Argant has decided to implement a draft.”
Oh no!!!
Preston didn’t know that she was skipping class. Every morning, they would see each other off, and Effy would walk vaguely toward the literature college building until she was out of Preston’s sight. Then she would creep surreptitiously back toward her dorm and crawl into bed, pulling the covers over her head and opening up Antonia Ardor’s book beneath the sheets.
“Shall I get us drinks?” Preston asked. Effy bit her lip, hesitating. He knew she rarely drank and he didn’t want to force her. After a moment, she said, “All right. But no scotch or whiskey, please. Something . . . something sweet.” “I suppose I could ask the bartender to spike your drink with six sugars, just the way you take your coffee.” “Oh, be quiet.” Preston bit his lip on a smile, then leaned over and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. “I’ll be right back.”
WHy are they so cute?
“What is it that you told me once? That Argantian saying?” Effy traced her finger over the indentations on the bridge of his nose. “‘One must know before loving.’ I know you, Preston. And I love you.” A swallow ticked in his throat. His eyes were shining, but still no tears fell. “I love you,” he whispered. “For however much it’s worth . . . my heart is yours.”
After several moments of staring, brow furrowed in concentration, Lotto straightened up again. His face had gone ashen. “This is fucked, Héloury.” “It’s all fucked.” The swear felt strange on Preston’s tongue. He never cursed—at least, the old version of himself never did. Now . . .
He was still focused on what he had seen: nothing behind the mask, no corpse. Whatever had been stuffed under his robes to give the appearance of a slumbering body, Preston did not know. He only knew that Aneurin the Bard was—in the truest sense of the word—gone.
“It wasn’t a hallucination. It wasn’t a dream.” Of that, Preston was slightly less sure. The barrier between this world and the one beneath the water had broken, like a seawall against the ceaseless tumult of waves. But if Lotto had seen it, too, then it had to be real. Could two people have the same hallucination?
