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“I don’t bloody care,” Pierce answered slowly. “Do what you will. Rant, rave, make life miserable for all those around you. But if you come at Miss Lion, I will come at you.”
And she stood, walked to one of the books, and pulled it open. She returned with a newspaper clipping. It was a photograph of soldiers: fresh, young, provoked by the distance of the place they found themselves. It was no more than a moment before I saw Maxwell, smiling. The article had been cut away except a few paragraphs and my eyes caught the words “but as photographer Niall Pierce remembers the scene…” “Unbelievable,” I whispered. And it was. Pierce had been standing not twenty feet from Maxwell. He had taken his picture.
“I wouldn’t mind if you and he…if you found someone like him. I believe you have put a brave face on your loss, and I thank you for it, but I think he would wish you to find someone.” I waited longer than was comfortable, but when my response came it was honest. “I understand what you say in theory, but I cannot see past the limits of my own loss.”
He turned and looked to where I was, halfway up the stairs. “Did you mean what you said on the train?” he asked. I wasn’t aware I had strung together any coherent words whatsoever. “What did I say?” “That you couldn’t conceive of a life with anyone else?”
It’s strange. I hadn’t remembered speaking them. But they felt true. “I don’t know.” I shrugged. “Is a life of friends not sufficiently rewarding?” “It can be. But not for you.” My smile was half-hearted, and I said goodnight. Clearly unable to sleep, I sat at my window with a sermon Hawkes gave months ago on my mind, where he mentioned Aaron and Hur holding up the arms of Moses.
They might not be of the Old Testament variety—Pierce, Islington, and Hawkes—but whatever strange confluence of events led to them holding me up was the gentlest hand of fate...
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If the men are very, very good, perhaps I will pray for manna.
Anything written by you, Lion, is a constellation.
It was then I thought that life—my life, in particular—wasn’t wholly worth giving up on yet.
“I wondered how long it would take.” Before I could ask him what he meant, I heard two voices. One deep, one elegant. And two spectres came around the corner of the church. “There they are,” said Islington, the night carrying the sound of his voice perfectly. “Morbid place for a morbid night,” answered Pierce.
“What do you make of this?” He was right about there being something, what I had sensed at dinner a few weeks back. Remembering the very thoughts I’d had after our dinner weeks ago, I glanced from face to face. Pierce shrugged. Islington waited. It was Hawkes who gave voice. “Alchemy.” I shivered. That mythical pursuit that turns disparate elements to gold. None of us questioned the veracity of his statement.
“So Heaven has thrown me in with you lot?” Islington said he wasn’t certain my coming into his life was the work of heaven. Pierce made some comment under his breath as to whether it be heaven or fate. And Hawkes? Well, he simply lifted an eyebrow, the trace of a smile following, and said, “Goodnight, all.”
You know there is good. You are good. I’M RIDDLED WITH ILL WOUNDS. You are full quarter of this fated alchemy. Without you, it doesn’t turn to gold. PERHAPS I’m still upset about the Spartan King, Leonidas. IT WAS THE NATURE OF SPARTAN KINGS TO DIE IN BATTLE. Well, let us hold the pass. No traitors among us. WE WILL FIGHT IN THE SHADE.
