Normally Acton was an observant man – you had to be, when your livelihood depended on fooling others, on misdirecting attention, on studying marks. But he had dropped all pieces of the illusionist as they fled Denocte like refugees or criminals, a flight that drew up foul memories like brackish water from a well he’d hoped to never visit again.
Here he was angry, and so he was blunt and blind. No lively fire but smoldering cinders, charred ash that illuminated nothing but got others dirty, too.
It was an ugly look on anyone.
So he ought to have caught the shifts in Sabine’s face before now; she was too good, too honest to hide well, and he hadn’t been watching, anyway, as she wandered beneath the lantern light that spilled rainbows onto her skin. His gaze had still been on those gathered across a field, indistinct shapes, pieces that did not fit into his life.
But then: Forever, she said, and there was something like heartbreak in it, startling to hear from such a young tongue. It drew Acton’s attention, and more than a little of his shame.
“Oh, I bet you’re right about that,” he said, and looked at her, his gaze a little sharper, a little more comprehending. He remembered that she was only a little girl, and her own person besides – not a summation of Rhoswen and Raum. That was too much to put on anyone, and it wasn’t fair, and it wasn’t right. “No prettier forever than a Delumine sunrise, perfect rose to perfect blue.”
He didn’t want a beautiful forever – that sounded awfully boring, and stifling besides – but this moment was not about him. What an ass he was, to have to remind himself of it.
The buckskin stepped nearer, and huffed a ticklish breath just behind her ear, stirring the petals of the daisy. It was only an illusion, but it moved real enough, and it was a prettier color than any true one, anyway.
“Aw, don’t mind me, Sabi. I’m just a grumpy old man. Tell me – do you plan on joining in the festivities, or only spying on them? There’s a couple games I spotted that I could use a partner for.” Gently he bumped her shoulder with his own before stepping away, glancing back at those heartbreaker-blue eyes with his own brows raised, half-question and half-dare.
@
these violent delights have violent ends
