time in Delamer. Most of my childhood was in the mountains.”
“What was it like, living in the mountains?”
“It was home. For the longest time I did not realize that not everyone lived in a castle—and that not every castle sat on a mountain range that moved. Did you ever get a glimpse of the upper terrace of the castle?”
The first time she had visited the castle, she had been in the form of a canary. Usually mages retained no memory of the time they spent in beast form, under a transmogrification spell. But she did on that particular occasion, because then they had been linked by a blood oath.
“Yes, I saw it while you were walking down a corridor with open arches that led onto the terrace. It had a beautiful garden.”
“It is several hundred feet above the courtyard level of the castle. My mother and I used to stand at the balustrade and pretend that the garden was in the sky, drifting along, because we could see the mountains move. She loved that garden, and I often found her sitting under a vine-covered pergola. That vine gave small clusters of golden flowers, and we used to make circlets of them to wear as crowns.”
In the teaching cantos of the Crucible, each ruling prince or princess since Titus III had a classroom of his or her own. The inside of Titus VII’s was a garden, with vines knotted into intricate arabesque patterns on the walls, and spreading into a lovely canopy overhead.
“Your classroom in the Crucible, you made it look like your mother’s favorite spot on the terrace.”
“I did. We had some wonderful hours there.” He combed his fingers through her hair. “Did you have a garden of your own?”
“The Conservatory provided housing for faculty members. They were small town houses built in a row. In the front there’s barely enough room for a patch of grass and two rosebushes. In the back the view is nice, but the land drops off too steeply for gardening.
“But behind the faculty library, there is a garden open only to professors and their families. And in this garden, there is a fountain. When Master Haywood needed to do some work at the library, I would read in a corner of the garden. And sometimes I would play with the water of the fountain and make it look to those inside the library as if it had started to rain.”
“I always knew you were rotten.”
“Oh, to the core.”
They were silent for a minute. The he turned her toward him and kissed her gently. “I wish this night would last forever.”
“‘A moment of grace echoes in Eternity,’” she quoted the Angelic Canon.
He cupped her face. “You have been all my moments of grace.”
Her heart clenched. “Why are you speaking as if this is already our last hour together?”
“Because our last hour together I might be in no condition to tell you that you are the best thing that has ever happened to me.”
She didn’t want reality to intrude, but reality was always just outside the window, banging. “All right then. Here’s what I have been saving for the bitter end: I have no regrets, none whatsoever.”
He gazed at her. “Really?”
“Well, except the raining hearts and bunnies part. I’d have liked to see that.”
He thought for a moment, then got up, a sheet wrapped around himself, and left the room. When he came back, he had two more snow-globe-sized spheres. And when he had set them off, it rained hearts and bunnies.
She laughed until she could scarcely breathe. Until tears once again threatened to fall. She pulled him back into her arms and held him tight. “Now I truly have no regrets. Not a single one.”
Memory returned as it always did, an assault to the mind.
Titus did not scream. He did not smash the furniture. He did not crumple to the floor, sobbing.
He lay perfectly still, listened to the soft breaths of her peaceful slumber, and wept in complete silence.
I love you. I will love you until the end of the world.
CHAPTER 9
TITUS KNOCKED ON THE DOOR with a seam of light at its bottom edge.
Soft, quick footsteps moved across the floorboards. The door opened. Kashkari did not appear at all surprised to see Titus, though his jaw tightened—it was not every day that the Master of the Domain arrived before his friend with red-rimmed eyes. He stood aside to let Titus pass, then closed the door and set a sound circle.
The room’s furnishings were rudimentary.