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Darcy folded the long chart with sudden haste. "Hold this corner, please."

"The sky is clear! There are no clouds!"

"It has omitted them," Darcy said. He was trying to fold the last corner without wetting the first.

Rain began falling. Not gradual rain. Instant deluge, like someone had overturned a bucket directly above them.

"You've forgotten the clouds!" Elizabeth called up at it, as if pointing out the omission might oblige the rain to go back and begin properly.

The rain intensified.

"I refuse to seek shelter!" Elizabeth announced to the uncaring heavens. "I will stand here out of pure spite!"

The rain became somehow wetter.

"Elizabeth," Darcy said, water streaming down his face, "I admire your commitment to rebellion, but we're going to be very uncomfortable if we stay here."

"We're not real! We're text! We can't catch cold unless the plot requires it!"

A tickle appeared in her throat. A cough building.

"...The plot is requiring it, isn't it?" Elizabeth felt the cough intensify. "Fine! Fine! You win this round!"

A conveniently located gazebo materialized through the rain. They ran for it.

"I swear that wasn't there thirty seconds ago," Elizabeth panted.

"It was not." Darcy stopped just inside, rain running from the brim of his hat. Then he began to laugh. "Elizabeth. Look."

"What?"

"It's the same gazebo from my data! Same posts, same bench, same angle!" He reopened the notebook at his sketch. "It's identical!"

Elizabeth looked from the drawing to the carved post beside her. He had even drawn the crooked edge. She put a wet finger against it and began to laugh. The universe had gone to considerable trouble to soak them, and none at all to find a different bench.

"We have walked straight into it," she managed. "With a drawing to warn us, too."

"We are terrible at rebellion."

"The rain was very aggressive!"

"It has the advantage of numbers," Darcy said, emptying water from his cuff.

"How would you rate this one?"

Darcy considered seriously. "Nine out of ten. Well timed, thoroughly wet, shelter supplied at the proper instant. I deduct a point for repeating itself."

"You're rating the rainstorm that just forced us into a romantic shelter?"

"I cannot give it a poor mark merely because I object to being in it."

Elizabeth collapsed onto the gazebo bench, laughing helplessly. Darcy sat beside her, and for a moment they just sat there dripping and giggling like children caught in a summer shower.

"I withdraw my objections to the length of your paper," Elizabeth said at last. "It has correctly described the building in which I have been defeated."

"The pencil marks have at least survived," he said, wringing out his coat. "But look—the pattern is changing."

"Something beyond gazebo reuse?"