“Where? Where?” shouted others.
“Move! I can’t see it!”
“Quick, Hilda, get out your sketch pad!”
“It looks nothing like its picture in the newspaper.”
Peep peep!An intense light burst forth from the little white bird. Everyone winced, and when they looked again the cage was melting away, gold drops falling to the earth, leaving only the handle in Beth’s grasp.
“Oh no,” she said—
And the caladrius flew up, singing, singing.
—
As the smallwings flapped valiantly, carrying the bird intocleanfreshnot-too-horribly-polluted sunshine, Beth’s spirit lifted along with it. Fear seemed to dissolve like old thaumaturgic energy being shed in flight. Panic faded into a quiet sigh. The bird flew swiftly upward, trailing magic in long, beautiful feathers of light: all the infirmities it had absorbed since being captured and brought to England by IOS agents, all the pains it had transformed into hope. Throughout Kensington Gardens, plants whispered and stirred. The music ofthe brass band dwindled into one exquisite melody from a clarinet.
Love filled the air.
It was magic, but more. It was pure healing, right down to the core of life, where only truth existed. Among the crowd below, a plethora of broken words, strained silences, and simple everyday distresses melted away into peaceful resolution. People began turning to embrace each other, weeping tears of joy; making protestations of love, apologies, promises; signing university enrollment forms. Beth noticed the PRESS agents kissing each other with such passion, their bowler hats fell off. Even the IOS committee were in paroxysms of emotion: shaking one another by the hand, even going so far as to pat a shoulder or two. And within the crowd—
Smack.
“This is all your fault, Oberhufter!” boomed Hippolyta’s voice. “That bird should have been mine!”
Laughing, Beth turned back to Devon.
He was gone.
Looking around confusedly, she was bewildered to discover him on one knee before her. “Oh,” she said. The confusion tipped and spun until her thoughts became a blur. All she knew then was the rush of her pulse and the safe, heavy darkness of Devon’s eyes gazing up at her.
“Well, this is embarrassing,” he said as he took one of her hands in both of his and held it gently, loosely, so that she could slip away from him at any second, should she want. “Nothing like being forced down on one knee in front of crowd by the magic of a tiny bird.”
“Sorry,” Beth whispered.
He smiled. “No need for an apology, my angel. I don’t need magic to know I love you. And I always intended to do this, just perhaps a little more privately. With, you know, flowers and champagne, and a prettier view. Then again, I’m grateful the caladrius is giving me the courage it might have otherwise taken a while to gather.”
“Youneed courage?” she asked, amazed.
His smile wavered. “More than you know.”
Indeed, his hands were trembling around hers. Beth wanted to take them, hold them against her heart, so he might know how it beat for him. She could not move, however, mesmerized as she was by the enchantment he was weaving, had been weaving this past week, with his good cheer (and his even better kisses).
“You’re allowed to say no,” he assured her. “You’re allowed to turn away and leave, never mind all the people watching right now.”
Beth glanced around, swallowing heavily as she realized the entire crowd had already forgotten about the caladrius in the face of the far more interesting spectacle Devon was making of himself. She glimpsed Rose Marin, the hijacking professor from Edinburgh, grinning brightly; and Hippolyta, wide-eyed; and the magnificent mustache of Monsieur Chevrolet…and was that the Chaucer Inn landlord and his daughter, waving to her from beside a hydrangea bush?
“But should you wish to stay,” Devon continued—then paused to brush the hair away from his eyes with uncharacteristic nervousness. Several onlookers shuffled impatiently;“get on with it, man”could be heard within the ranks of the IOS committee. “If you do stay, um, then I’d like to propose that we marriage. Er, get married. We could travel—um, whereveryou want. Psychic territories of the giant moa. Eyries of American eagles. We could have fun, rescue a lot of birds, make a lot of—um. Yes. Well. There you have it. Never mind. Goodbye.”
He began to rise, but Beth hastily set a hand on his shoulder, holding him in place. Devon looked up at her with a vulnerability, and yet a love, that made her think of the first moment a bird took flight from a tree branch into the peril and promise of the sky. She smiled back at him, entirely certain, and just a little smoldering.
“It requires very little analysis,” she said, “for me to conclude that your proposal has copious merits, and that acceptance would be the most profitable response on my part; therefore, please do take remittance of it.”
His expression emptied. “What?”
Urgently seeking a translation from within the wreckage of her overwhelmed brain, she received one instead from her heart.
“Yes.”
