Note: this chapter contains an explicit consensual scene between adult characters.
It is not written as romance or fanservice, but as part of the story's philosophical and psychological arc.
"Oh, you don't want to live so fiercely — as though she had died not seventeen years ago, but only yesterday!"
The girl was sitting on the dirty floor, bent over her dying teacher. She had rushed to his unconscious body the moment the three other teenagers left the room. She was doing everything she could to save him: blood was slowly returning to veins and arteries, wounds were closing, the body reviving — but the soul… the soul was receding.
Resentment turned to anger; resolve thickened into despair. All of it burst from her chest in that cry. Not for the first time. The last time — when he had finally gained the position he had long sought — she had told him she would not let him die.
"Today I am mourning not her, but you." He looked at her with his black eyes. They had never been empty for her. But now anyone looking into them would have seen it plainly — love. "I know you are going to your death. Just like the boy. And that, like him, you will not refuse it. I cannot survive another loss. Please — don't make me."
The anger fell away. Shame took its place. She had not told him. Not properly. Who had he heard it from? When? He had had every reason to question her while he was training her mind. He had not. Why? It no longer mattered. She had failed him. Again. She had promised to save him — and she could not.
Pain tightened in her chest; tears blurred her sight. To lie now would be worse than cruelty. It would be disrespect.
"I wish we could both live," she said quietly, not looking at him. It was one of those rare moments when she could not meet his eyes.
And then something shifted.
For an instant her face went still, caught by a thought that crossed her mind like a white bird over an endless sea. The instant was enough. She caught it, held it to herself, believed it. It would not disappear. She could examine it later, turn it over slowly, understand it.
But first she had to keep him from surrendering.
"And I think we can. I think I've found a way." She turned back to him. "If I promise you to live, will you promise me the same?"
He stared at her, bewildered.
"Will you? If not, I won't even try!"
"I will!" he said at once, pushing himself forward as though to seal the vow — and to read her at the same time. "But why do you want to die? You are not threatening me. I can see that."
Each beat of the white wings carried an image.
One of them: a small home library. A man — her teacher — holding a woman close, looking at her as he had looked at his student a moment before. The woman resembled her — only older — responded in kind. She understood she was seeing herself. A farewell, unwelcome and inevitable, tangled in time.
But what prevented that life here?
Essentially — nothing.
She had never thought of him in that way. Not until now. Yet if they were both willing to live for one another, it had to signify something. Didn't it?
An unreadable smile touched her lips. She leaned closer. For a second their eyes met — and he saw, to his surprise, a glint of audacity there.
She kissed him, gently, on the lips.
"Remember your promise," she said.
And she left him — astonished, shaken, afraid, happy — and alive.
Everything unfolded as planned, and the girl stood beside her own lifeless body — an invisible presence, nothing more. All she had to do was want to breathe. Want to open her eyes. That was all: to want.
"I have to come back, I promised."
For some reason, that wanting was the hardest thing of all.
"Evelyn!"
A familiar voice rang out from the other side of the clearing. A familiar figure ran across it and dropped to his knees beside her body.
"Evelyn, don't die. Don't go. You can come back. Do you hear me? You can come back!"
Of all of them, he was the last she had expected to see. She had expected no one. Least of all him.
"Let's go."
Answering the blond boy's raised eyebrows, she took his hand. She spoke calmly, with her usual directness, looking straight into his eyes.
"Come with me. We both need it."
The castle was empty, unnaturally quiet.
"It seems it's over. My father lost."
She walked from courtyard to courtyard, past shattered walls, from hall to hall, through broken glass and scattered stone.
"We have to find the survivors. He must be among them…" She tightened her grip on the young man's hand. "He must…" Tighter still. "He promised."
At last they reached the place where everyone had gathered. She scanned the first rows quickly, then stepped straight into the restless crowd, studying every figure with sharp, urgent attention. It was enough to glance at the clothes to know it was not him.
Again.
And again.
And…
"Teacher!"
Her fingers slackened; the hand she had been holding slipped free.
"Teacher!"
At the moment she found him, the professor was speaking to someone. But at the sound of her voice the world around him narrowed to that single note. He turned. And when he did, the girl rushed to him, wrapping her arms around his neck.
"Alive…"
His hands closed on her back.
"Alive…"
A sigh of relief escaped his throat.
"I found…"
The whisper came out softer still, because he did not fully understand where those words had come from.
The entire school watched the reunion in silence. Only three understood what was happening. Everyone had heard about these two: a favorite professor and a favorite student. And only one knew — not favorite but beloved. The young man did not judge her. What right had he? He did not betray their secret. Love is always a secret; it belongs to those who bear it, and they alone decide whom to trust with it, and when. She had trusted him. It was her gratitude for what he had done for her.
At the trial she kept her promise — to be there for him. She attended every hearing, before and after her own testimony; she let out a quiet breath when the acquittal was pronounced, gave him a small smile, and left the hall. As she left his life.
Her teacher was waiting for her outside the doors. The Ministry building was the only place where they could meet and speak without explanation. Their conversations there were usually inconsequential. Today, he took her to the cliff.
Everything was unchanged: sun, wind, waves, the vast horizon. And yet she was surprised.
"How did you find this place?"
"From your recollections."
"Do you know what it means to me?"
"Yes."
"So this is a test?"
"No. A reminder."
He softened the surrounding sounds so they could hear one another.
"You have already passed that test. And it was not I who helped you through it. So why are you here with me now — and not at the courtroom doors with him?"
"In my view, the answer is self-evident."
Her voice was low, composed. They walked without direction along the broken edge of the shore, across brittle grass, past stones pushing through the earth.
"One honest and courageous act does not undo what has been forming for years. Even if it proved decisive."
She watched the ground as she spoke, studying each stone. It reminded him of an empty classroom and a row of steaming cauldrons. He clearing them one by one, explaining the subtleties of non-verbal magic; she summoning water into each, testing for purity — always twice. Only now, she was lecturing.
"He helped me. But his words were only one piece of my puzzle. I owed him. Today I repaid that debt by becoming one piece of his. But I came back for you. Not for him."
"He loves you."
"And you?" She stopped and stepped onto a low stone to meet his eyes. "Do you love me?"
"Of course I…"
"As he does?" she interrupted.
He hesitated. To say it would be to hear it in his own voice. He tried to turn away; she would not release him. At last, he yielded.
"Yes."
She had expected no other answer.
"Then what is stopping you?"
"I am no longer young."
"I am no longer a witch."
"What does that change?"
"Exactly as much as your age. Do you still not understand? I love you." Their eyes broke apart. "I do not need theatrical passion. It does not interest me. I need you." She sought his gaze again. "I do not want young rapturous fools. I have lived through too much. I want you."
"But you…"
"I am not your student any more. You are not my professor. I am eighteen, and I want this. The only question is whether you do."
He wanted it. In a way he hadn't wanted for a long-long time. Not entirely true. In a way he had never wanted before. Wasn't that why he had made the promise to live — and kept it? Back then he had only guessed at it dimly; now he knew. He had never thought of her in this way. And he would never have done so if she had not said it first. But she had. And he could not even imagine that this would actually happen. Then, he had thought — hoped? no, feared — that she was under the spell of the moment. That once it passed, she would leave him. But she stayed, returning his confusion.
She had never felt romantic feelings for him before. He knew that, because he had spent as much time in her mind as her father had — and had seen far more. There had been awkward moments, yes, but they had been dictated by other things: trust and care. The fervour with which she told him she would not let him die. The year before, the same fervour with which she had defended his honour before the whole House against the foul mouth of that girl. Was this really it all this time?
In their first lesson, to begin her training, he had asked her: if you stood before your father, what would you wish to hide from him? After only a few seconds, scenes had begun to flicker through her mind, one after another. All of them were about him. His black eyes hiding pain behind emptiness. His pale hand with the dreadful black mark on the forearm. His wax-like figure in the stadium stands, meeting the resurrected past. His quiet laugh dissolving into semi-darkness.
And when he told her to try to reach one of his memories — even one she already knew — she did not pierce his mind like a hot needle to make his heart bleed again. She entered gently, like warm air, to embrace it and melt the ice around it. She reached perhaps his only truly happy memory and showed him children laughing, smiling at one another.
She did not hate him after she learned that he had served her father. For a moment he thought he had lost her. 'Is it true?' — her gaze implored him to deny what she had heard and what the Headmaster had just confirmed. 'If it is, will it change anything for you?' — his own look asked her to judge not by the past, but by the present. But what could he truly appeal to in that present? The fact that, on the very day she understood what she could have only sensed at their first meeting, he had tried to kill her? Yes, he had only feigned the intention, to test whether she could really read such things. But she had been twelve. And she had trusted him. He remembered that look in her eyes. She looked at him the same way at thirteen. At that age, they do not forgive much. Yet she replied, 'No, it won't change anything'. That was how their silent exchange ended. In both cases, she did not run. She stayed. Why? Out of pity? No. Out of loneliness? Again — no. He did not know for certain why.
Yet he knew his ward well enough to see that, beneath her outward composure, she was afraid he would say no. And he understood something else: if he refused her now, she would eventually leave him. She would not throw herself from the cliff; she would not go to the young one; she would not look for a substitute. No — all that would already be finished. She would simply go, and find something to live for. The only question was whether he would.
The girl began to turn away, hiding her longing behind a mask of disappointment. That was what he could not bear. He caught her by the nape of the neck and pressed his lips to hers. Her breath broke on an uneven intake; the answering exhale trembled. She had already given up hoping he would do this. Relief moved through her chest. She lifted her hands to his face, opened her lips and kissed him back. His other arm drew her closer. At first everything spun inside her; then the world itself seemed to shift.
Still kissing her, he freed the blouse tucked into her jeans. As he unfastened the buttons, one by one, going down after his hands, she had a moment to glance about. They had reached a small bedroom — plain, clean, lived-in. There was little else to say of it. In that brief pause she understood what was coming — felt happiness, then fear, then happiness again — and then he stopped.
He stepped back and straightened, looking down at the floor.
"You know that I've never…"
"I know," she said quickly, sparing him the rest. "Neither have I."
She took off her blouse herself. Unfastened her bra and removed it, also herself. He stood aside, yet the tension in him was visible even through his clothes, in the line of his shoulders, in the tautness of his neck and brow. After a moment, she reached for him in turn. She wanted to see the hands that had once lifted her from the floor as though she weighed nothing, nearly lifeless, and steadied her until they left the hall where her father had sat, and she had finally let herself lose consciousness.
"Professor?" she exclaimed, with exaggerated surprise — touched with mock reproach. "Who would have thought you did sport?"
"Well… sometimes I move school cauldrons without magic."
He said it with the air of a man inadvertently revealing a sense of humour he generally preferred to keep hidden. She burst out laughing — partly at him, partly because her nerves were fraying.
"Miss Greenwood, focus," he rebuked, with a severity that was also not entirely genuine.
"Sorry, Professor."
She forced herself to stop, though the corners of her mouth still twitched, a faint hiccup betraying that the brief hysteria had not entirely passed. Within moments, it did. Soft bed linen met her bare back. His warm lips — and, in contrast, his cold fingers — moved over her in light, attentive touches, tracing what was already uncovered, uncovering what was not, awakening each nerve until her body seemed nothing but sensation. The first time, he did it carefully — not to hurt her, but to let her discover a pleasure she did not yet know. So that, later, the memory of it might steady her, might give her the strength to endure the pain that would follow. He did it, too, to learn her — to understand what she liked, how she responded, what stirred beneath his touch.
"And now it's going to hurt," he said apologetically, allowing her a moment to catch her breath, yet giving her no choice.
It hurt. She clung to him as tightly as she could, pressing herself against him to feel the rhythm of his heartbeat, as if it might foretell his next movement. Tears trickled onto the pillow — blood onto the sheet. Her nails dug into his back, scoring his skin — not to hurt him in return, but because she gathered all her strength into her fingers in order to loosen the rest of her body. And she was rewarded for her endurance. Pleasure returned — even greater than it was before. And if she silently stood the pain, then she was unable to stand the pleasure likewise; if she concealed the pain, then she screamed that delight at the top of her voice.
Slowly descending from the heights of bliss, breathing hard, she looked at him with surprise, joy, fear — and a question. It took him a few moments, too, to regain the clarity of mind required to think at all.
"Oh, my little girl," he said, drawing her damp head against his heated chest, "what have I done with you?"
"You've made me your little woman," she whispered, smiling. After a while she felt the remorse leave him, and something steadier take its place — a quiet peace.
Gently, unhurriedly, she kissed his lips — the lower, then the upper — his nose, one eye and then the other. She ran her fingers over his forehead, smoothing the few but deep lines there, traced them down along his cheeks, brought them together at his chin, and began again.
He closed his eyes and let himself sink into her ritual, listening to the silence, thanking the stars — not yet visible — for having taken this particular position among all the possible ones in the sky. Space and time seemed to loosen, to fold into something without measure. It might have gone on indefinitely — but suddenly ended.
For a while she only watched his peaceful face. Then she stretched her leg as far as she could, reached his foot with her toes and gave it a light tickle.
He opened his eyes slowly and saw her looking at him, her face lit by a smile at once mischievous and calm.
"We have to go."
***
"May I use your bathroom?"
While the girl was taking a shower in the master bedroom's bathroom — in truth no different from the guest one — and dressing, the man used the second bathroom with haste. Then he went downstairs. He checked the larder and, without a moment's indecision, took several flasks of liquids, boxes of powders, and bags of roots. In the kitchen he chopped, ground, dissolved, and mixed them methodically, speeding up heating and cooling only with reluctance, which forced a brief adjustment to the recipe. When he returned to the bedroom, the girl was almost ready.
"Drink this," he said — a command, though his voice never rose.
For a couple of seconds she stood motionless, staring at the small bowl in his hands. Then she flushed and cried out:
"Oh my God! I didn't think of that at all! How could I?!"
"This is a typical mistake of your age," he replied, still coldly.
"Yes, but… I'm sorry, prof…" She didn't want to call him that any longer, yet habit left her no choice.
He sighed — sharply, as if condemning himself.
"We both did it." His voice was much softer now.
She drank the potion in one gulp and went on getting dressed. He stepped aside and waited, patient and silent.
She felt at once how the pulling, stinging pain inside her receded, and her mind drifted back, thinking as she moved. She remembered that day — the first of several that later became fodder for gossip. It had been the fourth day of her detention.
That morning she had been cursing her own stupidity. Her back itched unbearably; the dull, incessant ache gave her not a moment's rest. She couldn't think, couldn't concentrate, sit, stand, or walk. In other words — she couldn't exist. Instruments and ingredients slipped from her hands, liquids missed the cauldron entirely. Only by some miracle did she avoid cutting off a toe when the knife — the largest, as usual — somersaulted and buried its tip into the floor.
The Head had noticed. This student might never be called neat, but what she was doing that day exceeded even her usual chaos. At the end of the lesson he called her forward.
"What was that? The worst performance from you I've yet… What's… Are you ill?" The tone of the last question was alarmed, and he came round the desk with a speed that made it clear he meant to catch her as she began to sink to the floor.
"No… everything is fine…" Everything swam before her eyes as though in fog; her legs could barely hold her. But she could not imagine how to explain — much less show — what had happened.
"So it's fine," he said, disappointed. Then, in irritation: "You have a fever. And blood on your shirt. Why? Speak."
"Not here." There was no point denying anything.
The professor's office lay in semi-darkness, crowded with cabinets packed with flasks. Like a network of mirrors, they helped scatter the light from several dim sources. He preferred it that way. He needed no sun, no open space — only a room where he could be alone. Finding the brightest spot available, the student turned her back to him. She gathered her hair, undone a few buttons of her shirt and lowered it, baring her shoulders and upper back. The breath that passed over her skin told her he had stepped closer and bent to examine the writing.
"What is that?"
"The detention. A quill that writes with the author's blood. But things didn't go the way she planned. I filled all the pages — there was room for it only on my back."
"So things didn't go the way you planned either." The irritation left his voice, though it made no space for pity. "And what did you write?"
"Oh, nonsense! Please don't ask." She was mortified before him.
"Ah. I can see well enough." He drew her shirt back over her shoulders with deliberate care. "Go straight to the hospital wing. I'm excusing you from classes for the rest of the day."
"No!" She fastened the buttons quickly and turned to face him just as he reached for a sheet of parchment to write notes for the staff. "Please. No one else should know. There'll be a fuss — who needs that? Nothing will be done to her anyway, while this may affect the others… Is there anything you can do about it?"
"The others…" He rubbed his chin with his forefinger, thoughtful. He knew perfectly well there were no "others", only another — the Boy.
"Say you can. Please, say you can."
"I can. Yes."
"Oh, thank you!"
"Come here again… after classes today." With two quick, precise movements he took the right bottles from the right shelves and handed them to her. "For now: this to bring the fever down, and this for the pain. Drink them and you'll be able to study calmly."
"Thank you, professor."
He clearly wasn't pleased to be yielding to her. Even so, he saw her shame and her gratitude. So he softened his expression a little and nodded towards the door.
In the evening, when all the lessons were over and the classrooms stood empty, she returned. The Head handed her a small jar of ointment. She did not fail to open it and smell it. At first a sharp, indistinct scent struck her; but then — if one breathed slowly and at length, patiently — the fragrance thinned and revealed itself: loosened soil soaked with meltwater, sap running under the bark of waking trees, the soft green of swelling buds; then the sweetness of honey-plants and the spice of pine needles warmed by the sun; the astringency of overripe apples and rotting leaves; and, at last, the brisk sting of frost crystals.
Breathe out.
"Apply this to washed cuts once a day. It will take several days for full healing, but you'll feel relief in the morning. Don't worry — there will be no scars."
"Thank you."
A silence followed — awkward, because they both knew she could not manage it on her own. She turned the jar in her hands, tapped the lid with her finger, bit her lip, and drew in a long breath.
"Could you help me?" she asked, and only then let the breath go.
"If you let me," he replied, barely audible, after a long pause.
They found a well-lit corner again. She sat down on a tabouret. She put her shirt on backwards, leaving the buttons open. The teacher brought a bowl of warm water, a clean cloth, and sat on the edge of the chair behind her.
"Keep your back straight."
He worked with care, methodically, dispassionately — like a true doctor. As he had instructed, he first washed the cuts with water and then — "It may sting." — began applying the ointment. She flinched. His hand hovered at once.
"I did warn you."
"No, it's not that, it's… your hands are cold. Sorry…"
"Oh. They always are… Your back." A short silence. "Cold hands — that's why I never became a healer."
"Oh, really?"
They laughed quietly. She thought it was a pity she couldn't turn round — she had never seen him laugh. He continued. The ointment had a gentle texture; his movements soothed, and the cold of his fingers, in contrast, kept her mind steady. Her cheeks and ears were burning, but she trusted him completely. She knew she wasn't mistaken. She trusted him not because the Headmaster had once told her this man would always stand by her, but because he truly had — always. And his concern for her was not only on the old wizard's behalf, but his own. She understood that on the day the Headmaster ordered him to show her the mark her father had burned into his forearm.
The girl found herself standing, adrift, between the bed and the bathroom door. Catching herself, she went on looking for her socks and a small shoulder bag. The man watched her quietly from the window.
"I'll walk you home. I need to speak to your foster father."
She nodded, thinking, then lifted the edge of the blanket and was relieved to find both socks beneath it. All this while one thought had been circling in her mind, but she had been too occupied to attend to it. Now she could. What business could he possibly have with her fosters? She came to herself sharply.
"About what?" she asked, wary.
"About that," he said, perfectly calm.
"I can speak for myself. You don't need to be there at all."
She straightened, offended. It wasn't that she meant to hide what had happened — she simply wanted to speak about it at the right moment, in the right words, with her arguments in order…
"A hand is usually asked for in person."
His words stunned her — dumbfounded her — knocked every sense of balance from her. She didn't know whether to sit or stand, to be glad or to panic. Or possibly to be furious.
"But you're not obliged to… we're not in… the nineteenth century…"
"I am not obliged to," he continued, as calmly as before. "I want to. I don't want to look for excuses to see you or hide my love in the shadows. Isn't that the sort of youthful foolishness you have no patience for? I want the right to it."
Her mind reeled. On the one hand, in his voice — harsh, severe — it came out unexpectedly moving. On the other, to go along with people who treat a signed piece of paper as proof of love, who lean on it as a guarantee… Yet they would be living among those very people. Had the blond young man stood in his place, no one would have raised an eyebrow. But their age difference, their former statuses — all of that altered the public gaze. Wasn't it foolish, then, to protest over something so small, so important to them and so negligible to her?
"Should I have asked you first?" he added.
"No, of course not. Didn't I propose it myself? I was thinking about something else."
"And now?"
"Gone."
"Good. If we are a family, I can perform a ritual that will give you magical protection through me. You'll need it here, in this world."
Her proud look collapsed under a wave of remorse. There had been no grounds for pride. She felt suddenly wretched. What a child she still was — and she had been boasting of experience. And he… he had thought of everything, accounted for everything, found answers to everything, in a matter of minutes. She was close to tears from sheer vexation with herself.
His face softened at last. He came up to her with a slight smile and drew her gently into an embrace, resting his chin on the top of her head.
"Don't fret — you'll grow up. Now you've every chance… You can already find your own socks." A small, tearful laugh escaped against his chest. "But I'd never want you to surrender to age."
***
"She is coming… arm in arm with her father. The foster father, of course. In a plain summer dress, white… She has never dreamt of a lavish wedding — of any wedding, really, nor of family or children. I have never seen anything of the sort in her thoughts, nor in her dreams. I've never seen a future in them at all. And now she looks at me as though she has been waiting for this day alone… She idealises me… So beautiful, so young. Why did I let myself be led by her? Prone to melancholy and yet cheerful, quick, alive. How could I not?… Steady and focused in one thing and impatient in another, at once grown and childlike. She wants to be surrounded by magic — to see it, hear it, breathe it… since she can't craft it herself, then at least this… And I can give it to her. And I can protect her. Is that why she's here? That clerk wonders too — whether I'm coercing her, or whether she wants some advantage. Foolish clerk. No, no. She loved me that day, truly — who would know it better than I? Besides, she has never known how to lie; she never even tried. So tender, and so fierce. She brought me back to life…"
"... do you take this woman as your wife…"
"I do.
That's it. For her the ceremony could have ended there. I gave my consent — the rest hardly matters. Now I have the right. And now she will expect me to use it. Yes, she will. I can see it in that sly glint in her eyes. Left to her, we would be alone already. The young… they discover something new and want to drink it to the last drop at once… Did she say 'I do' just now? Heavens, I wish we were alone already. But no. First — the rite…"
"... exchange the rings…"
"The rings. They look odd now, unfinished, but once the rite is done… Why are my fingers always cold, even when all I want is to give her whatever warmth I have… Her fingers are cold too. Naturally — she's nervous. So small… and so strong. Don't start that again…"
"... you may kiss the bride…"
"She's blushing — embarrassed by the eyes on us, even by those who raised her. But not by me. She has bared everything before me — her soul and her body. In our first lesson, to begin her training, I asked what she would want to hide from me. She could think of nothing. She would have answered anything, even knowing it would go straight to the Headmaster. So I didn't ask much. When I had to train her in her sleep, she only said: 'Professor? Just in case — people aren't responsible for their dreams.' And yet we made her one who is… The truth is, she trusted me with her body long before that night we spent together.
I wish she'd kiss me.
You may skip the rest. Let us sign, and your work is done. Thank you."
The ministerial clerk and her foster parents left.
"Finally."
He was still watching the three of them cross the green sweep of the lawn when he felt her palms come to rest on his chest. Smoothly, with a slight pressure, they slid up towards his shoulders and came to a halt — one at his neck, the other at his nape.
"You may kiss your wife."
Her voice was steady, her gaze clear, her face lit with calm. He brushed it with his hands and with his eyes for a moment; then he bent to her, and they sank into a long, unhurried kiss.
It was time for the rite. He gently removed her left hand from his neck and took it into his own. Lifting his right hand over their joined ones, he closed his eyes and began to speak the spell. His voice was low and measured, the words falling like lines of some ancient verse.
She watched in silence. She saw the skin of his face and hands — the only parts ever left uncovered — begin to glow, as though the fading light of the setting sun had soaked into it and was now being returned in a steady radiance. She saw that glow spill into the empty recess of his golden signet and harden there into a deep red-orange amber. Then a thin filament — visible only by its uneven shimmer — drew itself out of the stone. Fragile to the eye, yet untouched by the sudden wind that rose from nowhere, it wound itself several times around their hands and gathered into a small tangle between two stretched out to each other palms of her silver ring. The upper layers of that tangle softened into one substance which, smoothing and cooling, became a milky haze, still translucent enough for the shifting colours of the thread within to gleam through. She watched the shimmer of this white opal settle onto her skin, and felt warmth enfold her — a warmth that steadied her and filled her with quiet certainty.
The words faded. The light sank beneath the skin. What remained of it shone only in their eyes as they looked at one another with extraordinary tenderness.
"I have a gift for you," he said, glancing towards the sun hovering at the horizon.
"Another one! You've already given me so much — and I…"
"You've given me something priceless." He ran a hand through her hair and kissed her forehead. "This one is really for both of us. But we must hurry before it gets too dark. Fix your eyes on my face."
The journey was short. They crossed from one backyard to another — this one far larger, alive with flowers. It was not merely a backyard at all, but a true garden.
They stood on the threshold of a two-storey house, moderate in size yet entirely detached. Its dark red brick, broken by white-framed windows and a double door, was almost hidden beneath the woven vines of wild grapes. A stone stair of three curved steps descended to a broad garden path that ran along the side of the house in both directions, leading into different corners of a garden that was not vast, but quietly, unmistakably beautiful.
A lawn stretched before them. Its border — at once intricate and wholly natural — wrapped the grass in the shape of a Baroque pearl, filling the air with colour and scent. At the far end rose a great tree. Rope swings hung from its thick, gnarled branches; beyond them, behind a line of boulders and two light wooden gates, the forest murmured, already sinking into twilight.
To the left lay a rose garden. Its many paths, strewn with shavings, twisted into a small maze; yet each wound inevitably towards the centre, where the bushes grew taller and denser, sheltering the clean, narrow jets of an unpretentious fountain. To the right, behind a high brick wall draped in wisteria at the height of its bloom, several patches were tucked into its recesses — some planted with familiar herbs, others with specimens curious enough to puzzle a seasoned botanist. The ground here was cut by narrow channels, fed by a source within the greenhouse, where the strangest plants were kept out of sight.
"But how…? I thought you were—" she began, astonished, recalling the stark room in his own house, then checked herself.
"What? Poor? Penniless? I'm not wealthy, no. But I've savings. And… I simply never needed any of this before." He gave a small laugh. "Well? Could this be a home for you?"
"You are my home. So long as you love me, and I love you. As for this place — it's marvellous, like a dream I once dreamt and forgot."
The sun slipped away. The glass doors opened and warm light filled the rooms inside, glinting on varnished wood, sinking into carpets and fabric-papered walls, inviting them in. She stepped forward.
Walking slowly down the hallway, drawing out the moment, she tried to imagine the rooms. A library, shelves rising to the ceiling, old books pressed tightly together; a deep armchair in a shadowed corner, a tall writing desk by the window. A laboratory, no doubt, its cauldrons and cupboards crowded with jars and vials. A large, bright drawing room with a great fireplace… to warm her in winter while he was away at school.
She touched her ring, feeling its warmth spread through her. This time, though, the warmth came not only from the ring, but from the hand resting lightly against her back. And she knew that this warmth was not bound to the present; it had been with her before, and would stay with her in all the time to come.