She was, as she had always been, the embodiment of a living portrait. Swirls of cream locks hovered around her white face, just a few shades lighter than the ivory V-neck dress she wore, which vee-d beneath her neck, its cloth wrapping under her arms, shaping tightly against the crests of her breasts and hips. Though she looked like she was about to rush off to her own wedding, the vision was so stunning that, had she worn it to a strip club, Treycore was sure the only side remarks would have been attempts to identify the goddess in white.
But for Treycore, all this beauty was a blur next to those wide, perfectly symmetrical aquamarine eyes, framed by two perfectly-arched eyebrows, a few shades darker than her hair—certainly the Almighty’s way of drawing attention to the glistening pride of his creation.
The sight of those eyes made Treycore’s thoughts cease.
She remained still, as if the picturesque state she found herself in had been permanently captured.
He didn’t speak. He wanted her to initiate the exchange. Considering their past, he felt he needed an invitation to interact with her. She might have been reluctant, but their intense history, coupled with her generous heart, made him certain she would allow him to vocalize his request. Whether or not she would grant it was another issue.
She wasn’t quick to speak, and she didn’t appear unsettled by the silence. It seemed like she was allowing a moment to adjust to the presence of this figure from her memory.
“Trey,” she finally said. Her high-pitched tone was like a symphony to Treycore’s ears—even more so than the one produced by her humming.
He waited for her to add a greeting or a remark, but she just stood there, staring.
Her gaze finally released him as she scanned her surroundings, as if trying to remember where she was.
“I should’ve cleaned.”
It was an odd comment, filled with innocence and lacking any mortal or immortal etiquette. It was the sort of oblivious comment Treycore would have expected from the higherling when they were together, when she felt safe to be at ease around him. It brought him relief. Made him feel that hardly any time had passed since their last encounters.
He smirked. “It’s fine. It’s good to see you again.”
Her free hand rushed to her face and massaged her cheek. Her eyes widened as they would if she’d seen something horrifying. “Oh, I—”
“You look flawless, Eilee.”
“Oh, no, no.”
She hurried up the steps and rushed across the patio, into the castle.
Treycore followed.
They passed through the magazine labyrinth and the stacks of books that Treycore had encountered when he’d first entered. Eilee didn’t comment or seem aware of them as she hurried along. Rushed as she appeared, she didn’t manage a pace faster than one that permitted her hips to shift ever-so slightly—in a way that Treycore remembered all too well. The way that kept all the higherlings, male and female, lusting after her physique.
Treycore followed her through a series of halls and stairwells to a room, which he assumed was where she slept. Like the other rooms, magazines and books littered the floor. These were open and ripped apart. Various scraps and pieces of articles and passages were collected in patterns on the floor. Again, he wondered, if she was no longer with the Council, what need she had for this cultural hoarding.
Eilee paid equal attention to this mess as she had the ones downstairs. Approaching a vanity adjacent to a wall-sized window, she sat and rifled through boxes, perfume bottles, and makeup cases. She gazed at her reflection, searching it, her critical eye surely scrutinizing every immortal pore, every crafted dip in her flesh.
Treycore stopped beside a bed a few feet from her, waiting for her to finish her inspection.
She fiddled with various vials and cases, making small, precise adjustments, like an artist fine-tuning his masterpiece. Although, had the Almighty seen her adjustments, He would have surely been furious Eilee believed He had somehow erred in her creation.
Several minutes passed before she finally pulled her attention from the mirror. She shifted her body in the chair, arching her back slightly, stepping one foot from a knee-high slit in her seeming wedding gown.
She looked like a model, posing for her photographer. Even the smile that slowly spread across her face seemed little more than a performance to accentuate the most elegant parts of her face—as well as make them appear effortless.
Treycore had been away from her beauty for so long he could hardly recall the magnitude of its brilliance. She was more aesthetically pleasing than Vera ever could have been, for the Almighty had done no one the service He had done his dear Eilee.
“Eilee—” he began.
She shook her head.
“No, no,” she said with a playful smirk. “Not here.”
He followed her back downstairs, to the patio, and they walked through the yard, into a garden.
White, cream, and yellow flowers lined the green of tree-high bushes and eye-level shrubs. Cages were weaved into the arrangements, containing more white doves that perched quietly, as if biding time on the way to their inevitable end. In the center of this garden, a geyser spewed from the beaks of two dove statues. The water made an “M” as it arched out and splashed into a fountain, where two swans glided effortlessly about.
