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“Mickey can fix that face if you’re tired of looking at it,” I say

“Good luck You’d have to pry the decadent sprite away from his laboratory,” Daxo says The bald man considers Diana’s addition of a cruelly barbed trident to the angel he’s drawn “Not to erie to the Opera last Septe coine?” he asks Mustang “Your father would have chewed through his cheek to see lowColors sitting in the Elorian”

“He’s not the only one,” Victra says “Too much new money these days Quicksilver’s friends” She shivers

“Well, money doesn’t buy culture, does it?” Daxo replies

“Not at all, oodman Not at all”

As the night deepens, the orange fingers of the slow sunset thread their way through the trees I let go of the strain into s flicker and stab violent light into the late suht The trees rustle beyond the terrace; the shouts of children co sand seas of Mercury seem so far away now The stench of war so reotten dreams

This is how life should be

This peace This laughter

But even now I feel it slipping through ustus Lionguards out in the darkness of the forest, watching the sky, the shadows, helping us stay inside the fantasy acatches my eye and nods toward the door

Forcing ive a rousing, drunken rendition of their fa, “The Fox of Su disappears into the main house The manor halls here are older even than those of the Citadel of Light History is the es adorn walls, festoon shelves Octavia called this place hoers in the rafters and the attic and the gardens, as do those of her ancestors and child It is where Lysander would have played long before his path crossed mine I feel the iht it strange living in the house of reatest ene and I face as well as Octavia? In life, I loathed her In death, I understand her

The scent of ht of her Our room is warm and the door shudders shut behind me on a rusted metal latch A bottle of wine is open on the table beside the fireplace, where eagles and crescent ’s slippers lie discarded on the floor The ring of her father andrest on the table beside her datapad, which flashes aith new es

She’s spooled herself into a chair on our veranda like a bit of golden yarn, reading the dog-eared book of Shelley’s poetry Roque gave her years ago during their suea, after the Institute She doesn’t look up as I approach I stand behind her, considering better of speaking, and slide a hand through her hair I knead my thumbs into the ainsta life threads ether It weaves her h mine

The more I know of her, the more I share of her, the more I love her in a way the boy I used to be never kne to love Eo was a flaainst the wind I tried to catch her Tried to hold her But she was never meant to be held

My wife is not as fickle as a flame She is an ocean I knew from the first that I cannot own her, cannot tame her, but I am the only storm that moves her depths and stirs her tides And that is h

I lower my lips to her neck and taste the alcohol and sandalwood of her perfuhtness of love and the wordless unspooling of the sea of space that kept us apart Impossible, it seems, that ere ever so distant That there was ever a ti that she is, every scent, taste, touch,her slender fingers through my hair “I missed you,” I say