for is pleasant,” Emily said. “Walking arm in arm with somebody you’ve got a deep unrequited affection for is torture.”
“Your affection is not unrequited,” he said softly.
“Really?” She bit the word. “You leave without saying good-bye. I send you a letter, and you don’t write back. And when you finally do write, it’s to congratulate me on going home to marry another man. How could I have failed to recognize such a bold and heartfelt declaration?”
Stanton was silent, then he took a deep breath.
“What do I have to offer you, Emily?” he said. “Ten years—or less? The fact that I’ll leave you young enough to make a pretty widow? You’ll be better off this way.”
“Which way is that?”
“Going back to Lost Pine. Going back to your lumber—to Mr. Hansen.”
“I’m not going to marry Dag,” Emily said. “I don’t love him. If I did, I wouldn’t care if he was going to die tomorrow. I’d marry him and be glad for every moment. But I don’t love him. I love you.”
“And I love you,” he said. “More than anything I’ve ever loved or could imagine loving. And that’s why I won’t let you be hurt.”
She lifted her ivory hand. “That hurt,” she said. She touched her chest, the place where her heart beat. “This doesn’t.”
Stanton said nothing, but reached up to pluck a petal from where it had lodged in her hair. He let it drop. “You won’t even be out of your thirties,” he mused softly.
“Why must you always make things so complicated?” She stomped a petulant foot. “You’re alive now. I’m alive now. Forget the rest! Didn’t Ososolyeh teach you anything?” She dropped to one knee and clasped his hand earnestly. She looked up at him, making her eyes big and cowlike. “Dreadnought Stanton, will you marry me?”
“For heaven’s sake!” Stanton said, looking around. “Get up! You can’t do that. It’s not …”
“Proper. I know. But I’m not expected to be proper, I’m a skycladdische, remember?” Emily said.
“And I’m still half a sangrimancer,” Stanton said, softly. He crouched down to look into her face, resting his elbow on his knee. “Remember?”
She looked into his eyes. They had changed color, she noticed. They used to be bright green, but the blackness had not left them entirely. Perhaps it never would. Perhaps they would always remain as dark as polished serpentine, veined with deep rills of ebony.
“I know what you are,” she said. “And I know what you’re not.”
He did not say anything for a long time, and Emily began to feel annoyed. She stood and brushed off her dress.
“Of course, if you’d rather not marry me, I suppose we could come to some other arrangement,” she snapped. “I’m a woman of independent means now. I don’t have to marry anyone.”
Stanton caught her arm, rose. He took both her hands, living and dead, and held them tightly. He looked down into her face. A sudden breath of warm wind rustled the trees, sending showers of blossoms swirling around them.
“Miss Edwards, I would be proud and honored if you would marry me and be my wife.”
Emily shrugged diffidently. “I’ll think about it.”
He blinked at her, face falling; then he smiled. “You’re insufferable,” he said.
“Yes, we’re well matched that way. Shall we keep walking? I want to see the castle you told me about. And Charlie, the enchanted swan who can recite Dante.”
“The moon’s not full,” Stanton said. “Besides, I just made Charlie up. I’m sorry.”
Emily heard the echo of Mirabilis’ words. All credomancers are liars.
“But there is a castle,” Stanton hurried to add. “And a reservoir with Croton water. And irises and blue flags. Honestly.”
“Then we’ll just have to do without Charlie.” Emily tucked herself in close to him. He was so warm, so wonderfully warm. They walked down the avenue of blossoming trees, and Emily was astonished when she saw that the shifting leaves, for one indefinable moment, spelled out a word.
Yes.
She blinked, lifting a hand to point, but in a breath of wind, the word was gone.
New York trees really were different from California trees, she realized with sudden amusement.
Stanton looked down at her. “Do you remember when we first came to the Miwok camp? When Komé kept rattling on at me? You thought it was about the stone, but she was really saying something entirely different.”
“You said she congratulated you,” Emily said.
“She did. On finding such a suitable wife. I told her I wasn’t married, that I did not intend to be married, and that I certainly wasn’t going