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I wanted to ask him if there was medicine he could take I wanted to know if there was so we could find a heart surgeon

I said none of those things because Dancer was brilliant and he loved being alive and if there had been anything he could have done, he would have by now

The only gift I could give him was the one that wouldn’t make me feel better but would , and we didn’t talk about the elephant in the roo its trunk, threatening to break all fragile things in its way, and I cleaned last night’s pizza off the floor and cabinets while he s with dried salmon and crea hands, young and in love, eager to see what the day

ZARA

The e walled garden on the outskirts of Dublin, and she spent her days outside, whether rain or shine, weeding and spreading seeds he’d brought her for the ani to her T’murra but not to hi care of her, unless he found her beautiful and helpless and, like so many men, liked beautiful, helpless wo queens

Were she mortal, perhaps she’d have spent a life with him because, for the most part, he left her alone

Soht she was lost in a reverie Soht she saw sadness in his eyes, but attributed that to an odd trick of shadow and light

He see She didn’t knohat, and frankly, didn’t care

She aiting to die

She could no longer feel the earth except in a far dimmer, more muted version than Zara once had Diluted by her Fae essence, cut off froic, she had only a shallow connection to the world around her, yet she forged on, by rote perforrateful the earth was dying and would soon take her, because living in such fashion wasn’t living at all As queen of the Fae, power, care for her race, and immortality had been her compensation As a powerless immortal that couldn’t experience sensation, there was no benefit

If he’d wanted to make love to her, she would have done it If he’d wanted her to sleep or eat or dance, she would have done it It didn’t matter what she did or didn’t do anymore

When, one day, he took her hand and said he wanted to take her somewhere, she went because there was no difference between staying and going

Life was long and blank and tiring