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“West.”

He turns over his shoulder. “That isn’t a place.”

“It’s a direction.” I thumb the slate. “Places come later.”

“How long will it take us to get to our destination?”

“An hour.”

“An hour.” He stares out at the passing landscape, his mouth tightening. “An hour.”

“Is that a problem for you?”

He snorts. “Of course not. It’s not like I get a say anyway.”

Beneath us, the city thins into low buildings with gardens on their roofs. Beyond them lie fields, and then nothing anyone has touched.

“What’s that?”

“What’s what?”

“That blue over there.” He’s got his fingers on the glass again, pointing. “There, past the trees. That whole shape.”

I look where he’s pointing. “You mean the lake?”

“That’s a lake?” His fingers stay against the glass. “And whose is it?”

I turn my head toward him. “Whose?”

“The lake. Who owns it?”

“Nobody.”

He frowns. “What do you mean, nobody? Everything’s somebody’s.”

“Then it’s mine.”

That gets me his eyes, finally, for about a second. Then he turns back to the window.

Our destination appears farther ahead, its pale stone tucked into the green beside a ribbon of water.

“It rains like this all the time?”

I smile without looking away from the traffic, watching the rain drift between the flying cars. “Not very often. When it does, people say it’s the old gods shaking silver over Tempest, which means somebody’s about to get lucky.”

Twenty minutes later, we pull into the drive, silver still drifting through the trees. I kill the engine, and we step out beneath it together.

The house sits on a bend in the river, its pale stone glowing softly beneath the rain, ivy climbing its walls and wide windows catching the silver light off the water. The garden runs all the way to the bank, rain pattering across the leaves as the river slips quietly past.

Jade just stands there, looking. “What is this?”

“Ours. I bought it yesterday.” I look back at the house and shrug, though I’m giving myself a mental fist bump. Yeah, baby, he’s impressed. “You love the green. I love the river. Now we have both.”

We cross the courtyard toward the door, water dripping from the broad stone eaves in silver curtains and disappearing into channels cut through the flagstones. “Come on.”

Inside, walls of glass look out over the river, winding past old timber, pale stone, and bookshelves built into the house as though they’d always belonged there. Jade slows without meaning to. His fingers drift across the edge of a table, then along a carved banister, pausing on the cool stone around the fireplace before he turns another slow circle.

“Let’s celebrate our marriage, pet.” I leave him standing there as I pull a bottle of champagne from the fridge and find two glasses. The cork pops free, and I pour us each a glass.