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LIGHTNING CLAWED ACROSS THE sky, tracing veins through the clouds andthe pulse of the universe itself
I sighed happily as rain slashed the carriage s and thunder rumbled so loudly we could not even hear the wheels buolstadt
Justine tre her face in ht white clarity before rendering us temporarily deaf with a clap of thunder so loud the s threatened to loosen
“How can you laugh?” Justine asked I had not realized I was laughing until that moment
I stroked her dark hair where strands dangled free fro doors Stor But I had made certain she had endured none of that in the past two years It was so odd that our separate origins—si in duration—had had such opposite outcoood person I had ever known
And I was—
Well Not like her
“Did I ever tell you Victor and I used to cli storms?”
She shook her head, not lifting it
“The way the lightning would play off the h atching the creation of the world itself Or over the lake, so it looked like it was in both the sky and the water We would be soaked by the end; it is a wonder neither of us caught our death” I laughed again, re My skin—fair like my hair—would turn the most violent shades of red from the cold Victor, with his dark curls plastered to his sallow forehead, accentuating the shadows he always bore beneath his eyes, would look like death What a pair ere!
“One night,” I continued, sensing Justine was calrounds not ten body lengths from where we sat”
“That !”
“It was glorious” I s the temperature ben
eath reat and terrible power of nature It was like seeing God”
Justine clucked disapprovingly, peeling herself froive me a stern look “Do not blaspheme”
I stuck ue out at her until she relented into a smile
“What did Victor think of it?”
“Oh, he was horribly depressed forwas that he ‘languished in valleys of incomprehensible despair’?”
Justine’s se Her face was clearer than any of Victor’s texts His books always required further knowledge and intense study, while Justine was an illuminated manuscript—beautiful and treasured and instantly understandable