James rose and paced the room the moment Cordelia left. He wished he could remember what she so clearly badly wanted him to recall. He felt as if he were disappointing her, letting her down somehow. Yet when he reached back into his mind, it was as if a curtain had been drawn across that time at Cirenworth, and he could see only in glimpses through gaps in the fabric. The smell of jasmine and woodsmoke. The length of a body, warm and solid, all along his own. Her husky voice: I sought not fire, yet is my heart all flame. Layla, this love is not of earth.
