“Mrs. Gooch was well over a hundred when she died, judging from the, well, everything,” I say, gesturing to the room at large. “If it was the turnip leaves that kept her going, then who are we to judge?”
“I’d rather live a short life and enjoy my tea.”
“I have a bit of the proper stuff that Honey bought when it all first happened,” I say, hanging the kettle over the fire. “It’s nicer than the stuff I’ve been making myself. We can drink that.”
“I prefer yours,” he says, and though his back is to me, I smile and set the tin away. Instead I pull out one of my ownconcoctions, and take the teacups down: one pretty, one hideously ugly. “Do you want the nice one?” I turn and wave the two teacups at him.
“You must be feeling down if you’re offering me the nice teacup,” he says. “I’m quite partial to the ugly one. I’ve got one of my own, after all.”
I sigh. “Are you going to bring it back?”
He tilts his head as he takes the cup from me. “Probably not,” he says, carefully.
Something inside me twists in a painful, ugly fashion, and I realize my hands are shaking. I set my cup down and turn around so I don’t have to look at him, giving me the opportunity of putting offthinkingabout him for a moment or two longer. I hear him come up behind me and feel him slide his arms around me, and we stand there for a long moment, over the sideboard, two mismatched teacups putting off the inevitable for a little while longer. Eventually we slide to the floor, our backs to the sideboard.
“I’m sorry,” I say into his chest after a while.
“What are yousorryabout?” he says, sounding incredulous.
“I feel like I ought to have something inspiring or courageous or meaningful to say.”
“By the actual undescended testicles of the great green sea serpent,” he says, sounding outraged, “that’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. Do you honestly feel that you’ve got to give a rousing speech to me because we spent the night together?”
His sincere outrage makes me smile. “No, I feel like I’ve got to give a rousing speech because I’m sad, and I don’t know how I’m supposed to say goodbye to things that I care about. Rousing speeches are what they taught me to deliver when things feel…”
“Bad?” he suggests.
“Big,” I say.
“Well,” he says, relaxing a little, “that’s a bit more reasonable. But you don’t have to say anything. Just feel your feelings, for the sake of all that’s holy.”
“What about your feelings?”
“Myfeelings? Do you want me to say something? Confess my deep dark adoration? Fill you in on a few of my more thrilling secrets?” He runs a hand across my hair, and I lean into his warmth. “I will, of course, if that’s what you’d like.”
“No. I suppose I was asking if you wanted me to tell you how I felt,” I say.
He chuckles, a low rumble in his chest. “I have a pretty fair sense of how you feel,” he says. “We did take all our clothes off, you know.”
“I had this fantasy—completely unfounded, as it turns out; just a daydream—that if I ever kissed you, you’d turn serious for a little while and say something real,” I say, running a hand down his arm. I can feel the muscles beneath the soft fabric of his shirt. “But, alas,” I sigh.
He laughs, a real laugh this time. “That was your deep dark fantasy about me? That you’d kiss me and I’d turn into someone who says sensible things? By all the stars in the sky, I doubt anyone has that kind of power. Not even the sea witch herself could lay that curse on me and make it stick.”
“Please. The kiss of a princess doesn’t curse; itcurescurses,” I say, primly. The last of the early-morning light has left my little room, and I can hear the bells striking the hour, somewhere outside. Perhaps—indeed, almost certainly—today’s the day I’ll finally see the clock tower for myself. I missed it on my maiden voyage through Little Pepperidge, all those months ago.
“Will you really stay here?” I say, gently. “After?”
“You doubt that I’ll be trailing after your carriage, reading Salvongian love poetry to you, until the end of time?”
“I do, actually; Mother’s favorite palaces are all on cliffs overlooking the sea, and I don’t see that working in your favor.”
“Thatisan issue. I’ll have to post you my poetry, then.”
“You could look after the bookshop? While you look for a cure?” This, of course, is one of the subjects I’ve been trying, rather poorly, to find a way to broach.
He’s silent. We watch the fire die down in the grate. “I’ll stay if you want me to,” he finally says.
“It’s better than a barn,” I point out. “Fewer drafts. Less mucking.”
