its head against Zachary’s leg again, nudging him in the other direction.
This way there is stone expanse that terminates in a ridge. There is a glow beyond it.
He can hear the waves.
“Are you coming?” Zachary asks the cat.
The cat does not reply, but it also does not move. It sits and calmly licks a paw.
Zachary takes a few steps forward, moving closer to the ridge. The cat does not follow.
“You’re not coming?”
The cat stares at him.
“Fine,” Zachary says, though it is not what he means. “You can talk, can’t you?” he asks.
“No,” says the cat. It bows its head and turns, walking off into the shadows, leaving Zachary staring dumbly after it.
He watches until he can no longer see the cat, which is not long, and then he walks toward the ridge. When he is high enough to see what waits beyond it he realizes where he is.
Zachary Ezra Rawlins stands on the shore of the Starless Sea.
The sea glows, like candlelight behind amber. An ocean caught in perpetual sunset.
Zachary takes a deep breath expecting sea-salt sharpness but the air here is rich and sweet.
He walks down to the edge, watching the waves coat the rocks as they approach and retreat. Listening to the sound they make: a gentle, lulling hum.
Zachary takes off his shoes. He places them out of reach of the waves and steps into the gently rolling surf and laughs as the sea clings to his toes.
He reaches down and runs a hand over the surface of the honeyed sea. He lifts a finger to his lips and tentatively licks it. He has been given sweetness when he expected salt. He is not certain he would want to swim in this sea, even though it is delicious.
He would think it impossible had he not succumbed to believing impossible things much earlier.
What happens now? he thinks but almost immediately the question leaves his mind. It doesn’t matter. Not right now. Not here in the depths where time is fragile.
For right now this is his entire world. Starless and sacred.
In front of him the Starless Sea stretches into the distance. There is the ghost of a city across the sea, empty and dark.
There is an object on the ground by his feet, where the sea touches the shore. Zachary picks it up.
A broken champagne bottle. It looks as though it has been here for years. The label has worn away. Its broken edges are jagged and sharp and dripping with honey.
Zachary looks up at the cavernous darkness. The structure looming above him almost looks like a castle.
Beyond it, Zachary can see the layers and the levels spiraling up. Shadows that are deeper than others. Spaces that curve and move outward, speckled with lights that are not stars.
He marvels for a moment at how far he has come, turning the broken bottle over in his hands and picturing the stairs and the ballroom so very high above.
He hears footsteps approaching. Appropriate, he thinks, to have found Fate again now that he’s finally reached the Starless Sea. Now that not yet is just now.
“Hi, Max,” Zachary greets her. “I found your—”
There is a strange swift motion as he turns. For a moment his vision is a shadowed blur and when it focuses, it is not Mirabel standing in front of him.
It is Dorian.
Zachary tries to say Dorian’s name but he can’t and Dorian stares at him in eyebrow-raised shock and Zachary can’t breathe and he’s never met anyone who literally took his breath away before and maybe he is actually in love but wait, he seriously can’t breathe right now. He feels light-headed. The glow from the sea is fading. The broken champagne bottle falls from his fingers and shatters.
Zachary Ezra Rawlins glances down at his chest where Dorian’s hand is wrapped around the hilt of the sword and just as he begins to understand what is happening everything goes black.
excerpt from the Secret Diary of Katrina Hawkins
I was at the Gryphon sitting in a booth in the back so I wasn’t in anyone’s line of sight drinking and reading and this older woman in a white fur coat sat herself down across from me like I’d been waiting for her. She had one blue eye and one brown eye and a crystal-clear martini in her hand with two (matching) olives in it. The glass was still frosty, she must have just picked it up at the bar.
“You’re a difficult woman to locate, Miss Hawkins,” she said with a