Gallant

by V.E. Schwab

I am so happy. I am so scared. The two, it turns out, can walk together, hand in hand.

It is summer, and yet, the parchment smells of autumn, brittle and dry, that narrow season when nature withers and dies, when the windows are shuttered and the furnaces belch smoke and winter waits like a promise, just out of sight.

safe? Tombs are safe. Merilance was safe. Safe does not mean happy, does not mean well, does not mean kind.