LYSANDER
He does not hear her question – that little word, so soft – but he sees her mouth make the shape of it, as he imagines he can see the racing of her heart, the running of her blood. His own pain becomes a distant thing as he searches the shadow of her eyes, studying each glint of amber and amethyst like a man reading signs from bones and stars.
There is a part of him that wants her anger, because he knows that it is better than sorrow and fear. Anger is a thing that fights, not a thing that lets go. That is why he smiles at her questions that follow, quick as thrown stones, and while he winces it is not from the tone of her voice.
Lysander knows there is no world where he could die with Florentine angry with him. She would never let him: the golden girl – whether as queen or princess or street-running pauper – would follow a ghost to the back gates of hell for an answer to any one of her endless questions.
So he does not mind that darker look, that slow burning question, more careful than its earlier sisters.
“Keep me alive, and I will tell you everything I can.” He says it like a dare, and licks his dark lips, and finally looks away. There is sunlight slanting golden over the smooth floor, and dust motes dancing like diamond dust, and he wonders what day it is, whether it is evening or morning. He gives these questions up at the sound of her voice; they are silly things anyway, less meaningful than dust motes. Time is nothing with Florentine. This truth, too, keeps him from worrying about the rift and its thousand enemies. Time is a river Florentine could step into where she chose. Not for the first time, he wonders how much of the magic is the dagger, and how much the girl.
Here, he knows, he will need them both.
Like a leaping fish, sunlight on flashing silver, the draw of her blade catches his attention. He says nothing as she ponders, as she falls silent; he is too busy wondering the same things. Too busy wondering what he might be doing to her, asking her this – to sully a perfect thing.
Oh, but Lysander knows better than most nothing is truly sacred.
What if it cuts a world within you? Ah, what a question it is; could she open a galaxy between his ribs, a cosmos in his marrow?
“We all have worlds within us,” he says, and shapes a shrug with bandaged shoulders. “You should know that better than anyone, anthousai.” It’s not the reassurance she is looking for – he knows he’s dancing around the question, and surely she can see that he’s wondering the same thing – but he smiles nonetheless. What a beautiful way it would be to die, rendered to nothing, his cells given way to creation and his blood to the air of some foreign universe.
It’s a fleeting thing, that smile – his gaze holds hers as the line of his mouth turns serious. As he considers all the worlds she might open, and the one that might save him. Almost, almost, he can smell the sea, and sunlight on ivy, and the whisper of wind through the trailing grapevines. Almost he can remember what it was to be a god.
“If it doesn’t seem to be working…try to take me home.” Each word is an effort, now, and each breath is bought with a new sting of pain. He knows they have spoken of his home before and he can only hope that she remembers, that it might be enough.
As she names him brave and foolish, he lays his head down on soft silk, the motion made awkward by the shape of his splintered antlers. “I’m desperate and faithful,” he says, and he is a thousand other things besides, things he would gladly tell her, if he were not running out of time. “And I want to live.”
His gaze holds hers for a moment longer, but even when he turns it to the window (bare branches sway outside like skeleton hands, waving hello, waving goodbye) it’s her face he sees. Carefully he slips away the bandages, bares the wound that will not scab, will not heal, will only bleed its rich ruby red.
“Now,” he says, and closes his eyes, and grits his teeth, and prays her knife will undo the damange of another.
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