A Marvellous Light (The Last Binding, #1)

by Freya Marske

He was in the mood to not talk with anyone and, as sometimes happened, felt perversely like surrounding himself with people to not-talk to.

Edwin had no idea what he ached for, no real sense of the shape of his ideal future. He only knew that if every day he made himself a little bit better—if he worked harder, if he learned more, more than anyone else—he might find it.

“We are man’s marvellous light / We hold the gifts of the dawn / From those now passed and gone / And carry them into the night.”

“All right. Books are at least somewhat less likely to hurl insults at one,” he said. “It is one of their major appeals,” said Courcey, and Robin found himself unexpectedly smiling.

“Remind me not to make an enemy of you, Edwin Courcey,” he said, smiling to show he meant no sting. “I think yours is probably the kind of brain that could run a country.” Edwin wasn’t smiling, but something about the way he ducked his head suggested that he was pleased, and not sure how to handle being pleased.

“You can do this,” Robin said. “I know you can.” “You don’t know anything,” Edwin whispered, but it sounded like thank you.

And then Robin’s mouth was on his again, and all of a sudden the grammar of the thing fell into place.

And admission, even in his own head: I am nothing like you, and yet I feel more myself with you.

It didn’t take long to become so accustomed to something that you could describe the exact shape of its absence.

“And we are but feeble women,” said Miss Morrissey. “Woe.” “Your sister is a magician,” Robin said, pointing out what seemed the largest hole in this story. “Woe,” said Mrs. Kaur firmly, and Robin recalled what Miss Morrissey had said about the assumptions made by men.

Robin wanted to make a leather-bound book of his belief and hand it to Edwin, make him read it over and over until Edwin could look in a mirror and see something of what Robin saw.

Of course I’m on your side, Robin thought numbly. I’m yours.

In the jubilant flare of the candlelight he was the loveliest thing Robin had ever seen.