the goodbye look;
“I’m sorry,” he says, and all she does is smile vapidly in response, as if he hadn’t reached into the nightingale’s cage, palm outstretched. She acts as though she does not understand, does not feel as deeply as he has gone and assumed, silly boy, she is stupid, don’t you see?
“I suppose we must” - look up to the masters - though, he says, he’s unbelievably clumsy. She grins, huffs a little in disbelief, an almost-laugh. She wants to say something about his wings, and thinks better of it, but not because she knows anything; she simply does not want to say out loud: I will never fly, and because of this, I am far clumsier than you will ever imagine yourself to be. The thought is there. Perhaps it thrums in the library like a heart. Perhaps it doesn’t; after all, they are both grounded birds.
“If you insist, but I’d rather stroke your ego than my own. The Arkwrights don’t need less humility, by any means.” Mesnyi dips her head, crystals flashing at the end of her horn. She looks up at him through a silver cloud of hair. “I expect plenty of stroking, then, to make up for it.” She winks, offers a flash of teeth, and slips out of the aisle without another word, Arkwright Masterworks tucked close to her side.
Somewhere else in the library, a unicorn settles into a pile of cushions, walls of books around her. She flicks through a wide tome, pausing at an intricate drawing of a dagger. Hugo Arkwright is written below. She doesn’t know who that is, but she thinks, what a sensitive mind.
@
"You see, women are like fires, like flames. Some women are like candles, bright and friendly. Some are like single sparks, or embers, like fireflies for chasing on summer nights. Some are like campfires, all light and heat for a night and willing to be left after. Some women are like hearthfires, not much to look at but underneath they are all warm red coal that burns a long, long while."
![[Image: 26y3cfu.png]](https://i.imgur.com/26y3cfu.png)
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