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‘What else did you do in London? Aside fro forced into the co hihtness about hied so ypt two years previously Or she had Or both of them

‘I had to attend endless balls and asse me squirm’

‘No, I wouldn’t Was it terrible?’

‘Sometimes Other times I actually enjoyed myself’ He brushed so his brows together ‘It pulls you in, that world Everything appears soeasy We barely survived the war and yet they are all so gay, so full of life It tips the scales back a little; washes away the blood and dirt and pain and you can begin to believe London is the truth, noteverything else That you are who they see’ He hesitated, gathering back the sand he’d scattered into a little mound ‘Everyone calls me Edward or Lord Edward there’

‘Well, those are your names’

‘I know, but I have been called Edge for years Ever since a certain annoying six-year-old on her first visit to Qetara decreed I didn’t look like an Edward or Lord Edward Edgerton and rechristened e’

Saain

‘I still don’t think you look like an Edward, and Lord Edward Edgerton sounds like a particularly pompous character froe, they did that all on their own’

‘Yes, well, you had a way of dragging people along with you And I didn’t object I liked that it was uncommon Edward is my father’s name’

‘Oh’

‘Yes Edward Raphael so The two erton males’

‘If you don’t like the you Edward, tell theh not to call me Samantha’

He frowned ‘As you said, that is my name It is who I am’

Sa at all—Poppy and Janet and everyone still called hie and he had not objected Absently she traced a little pyraathered between them and he added a crescent of a moon

‘Deep in the desert, by the light of a silver sliver of afeatures was hoell he read aloud There was little entertainroup did their best with the material at hand, from cards to charades to books Since childhood she’d loved the e a book to read aloud It wasn’t merely the depth and tie with the tale She would close her eyes and see every word he spoke, more vivid than a drea to excuse all his lectures about her lack of decorunore her absolutely when she annoyed hi a tale to life could not be wholly humdrum