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utumn slowly crept onto the palace grounds and announced itself with a few wet shakes.

Laila observed the spatter of it against the glass doors to her balcony, now kept closed in order to hinder the fat droplets that showered profusely from the heavens above.

She had been longing for a decent storm but the weather now was disappointingly tame and mournful. So it was with a heavy sigh that she tied back her curls with a pink ribbon and practised smiling before the mirror.

There were still times when she woke up and expected Léandre to walk through the door.

She would be lying in bed in her depressive stupor, listening to the continuous dripdripdrip- against her window pane and she would think: this was it, this was the day he lost patience and came into her room. This was the day he would walk in with his brisk soldier’s stride, peel the covers back from her bed and command her to face all the harsh grey interludes between the rosy parade of her existence.

But now she was forced to face them all without him. And how could he just leave her here when she was still floundering to keep herself afloat of her mind’s oppressive tide, when she still needed him to guide her, to be the beacon she swam to when she was left hopelessly adrift.

She let her forced smile fall as tears came to her eyes before she blinked them back. She knew he would want her to be stronger than this. That he would not have left her if he didn’t think she had the capability to learn to swim without his aid.

She just wanted a little while longer with him. She wanted to climb to the pinnacle of her potential with him still there to cushion her falls. Yet here she was all the same, putting one step in front of the other, breathing easy as she presented herself before her mother’s company in her solar.

“Well, isn’t this a surprise,” Amira declared over a delicate bite of her cinnamon-scented fried toast. “I was starting to think I’d need to send someone to drag you out of your room.”

“Good morning, Maman,” Laila responded with grace as she took a seat beside her at the table.

“Good morning.” Amira raised her cup of cappuccino to her lips. “Finally decided to stop sulking, did you?”

Laila knew that was bait and so she did not rise to it, instead helping herself to a cup of drinking chocolate and a lavender-almond croissant. “It would’ve been appreciated if you and Léandre had discussed it with me before making your decision, but I respect that you both felt you were doing what was best.”

“That’s a far cry from your earlier response when you were screaming the temple down like a banshee, but I am pleased that you eventually came around to my way of thinking.”

Laila clenched her fist as she felt a violent pulse of electricity surge through her veins and held it until it passed. The last thing she desired was another shock from her mother if she believed her daughter to be getting too unruly. She picked up her cup with a steady hand and sipped, closing her eyes in pleasure from the silken texture of her chocolate.

“But you are looking… presentable now, at least.” Amira bit into her toast with a punctuated crunch. “Any particular reason you decided to finally grace me with your company?”

A warmth flooded Laila’s cheeks as she remembered the feel of Darius’ lips and hands along her skin. “No reason.” She sniped the memory before it could continue.

She thought it would help to be in his arms again but after he left she only grew more aware of the emptiness in her room. And so she’d decided to depart from it. Even Amira and her barbed wire quips were preferable to being tormented by her longing.

“Well, I suppose your timing is impeccable all the same. You’ve just missed Darius Calantis as he’s left for Mortos.”

She tried and failed to stop the lurch in her chest from emerging. “Oh? Already?”

“Just this morning in fact.” Amira slathered her croissant with broad strokes of cornflower butter. “I know just how fond you became of him, so I thought that you might like to know.”

Laila reached deep within herself for the whimsical starlet who let her lovers go without a fuss, casting them off with the rest of her jewel-encrusted trinkets to be replaced anew. It didn’t work quite as well as before, for the polish was chipped and the smile was dimmed. But Amira didn’t expect an immaculate performance.

“Thank you, Maman. It was very kind of you to let me know.” She rose up from her seat, dropping her croissant unfinished on her plate.

“And where are you going?” Amira demanded in affront.

“Not hungry all of a sudden,” Laila answered as she drifted out of her mother’s solar and into the hallway. To walk out on her mother, mid-meal no less, was an impulse so impossible to fathom it was a wonder lightning did not strike her just for thinking it. Yet the sheer outpouring of grief that filled her upon news of Darius’ leaving was enough to eject everything else out. She collapsed against the wall and slid her hands into her hair. She could feel a scream rising up her throat but she obstructed it, biting down hard on her lip until she bled and the desire deflated.

Outside, the rain had faltered to a pitiful sputter, so she thought nothing of rushing out into the drizzle in her peach chiffon blouse and white pleated skirt—the scant needles of rain dissolving into beads against her skin as she ran to the tower.

Under the dimmed gloom of the sky, the marble bricks had adopted a grey surliness that seemed especially unwelcome to visitors. Laila craned her neck up towards the lone window and found it blackened, no signs of any life stirring inside it.

She climbed the myriad of steps and entered the room to find all of it, everything, pristine—as though he had never disturbed it. Seeing that confirmation only sent her mother’s earlier words hurtling to the forefront of her mind and Laila released a soft gasp as though backhanded, a few hot tears rolling down her cheeks.

She closed her eyes and let herself slip down the wall onto the floor as the first of her sobs rolled through her in waves.

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She wandered out to the rose garden shortly after.

Upon discovering the alabaster bench still damp, she cast an enchantment to dry it before slumping wearily on top of it. Even in autumn, the gold roses were still vicious in their vibrancy and she let her fingers trail across the lustrous petals with a smile and a little lift in her chest, something telling her it would all be okay.

“Thought I might find you here.”

Her head whirled, loose curls batting against her face as she saw him standing there; his broad figure eclipsing the opening of the pavilion.

She blurred her way into his arms in an instant, clutching him to her as she flattened her cheek against his chest. “My mother told me you left,” she murmured, pausing to inhale the scent from his shirt as she clutched him tighter.

Darius rested his chin against her hair, kissing it briefly. “Not yet.” He took her face in his hands and brought it up to him. “I wanted to see you first.”

She exhaled in relief, a smile broadening her lips as her hand enclosed around his wrist. “Thank you.”

He smiled back at her, a hesitancy flickering across his features. “I admit, part of me wondered if I still couldn’t convince you to leave with me.”

She nuzzled his palm as he stroked his thumb against her cheek, finding herself wanting to tell him so many things. But when she opened her mouth to speak her tongue only tripped itself over the barrage of words unspoken.

Her silence, however, told him all he needed to hear.

“I know you’re not ready to come with me, Laila. But perhaps one day, a decade or so down the line, you will be. I have to hope.”

He leaned in to kiss her forehead before letting his hand drop from her cheek with a parting smile.

She watched him leave without a word in response, a sheet of tears clouding her vision.

“So he’s gone then?”

She heard Lyra approach to sit beside her on the bench. Close, but not too close. She knew neither of them were ready to make that step.

“Yes,” Laila answered, wiping her tears with the edge of her finger. “He’s gone.”

Lyra nodded in response and for a moment they just sat together, the silence between them spanning a conversation on its own.

“Why didn’t you tell me he was going to do it?” Laila asked, deflating the silence when she could take it no longer. “I know why he wouldn’t have told me because I would only try to convince him not to go through with it. But I know he would’ve at least told you. So why didn’t you warn me? Why keep this a secret?”

She knew Lyra did not need elaboration to know which he she meant. “Because the moment my uncle became your Lightshield I have watched as he bent over backwards to protect you. Often at the expense of everything else. Including me. So when he told me what he was planning to do I thought… I thought about how nice it felt to have something between us that was only ours for once. And so I kept it from you.”

To that, Laila could say nothing. Though her heart still felt heavy with the loss of those final days, days she knew she could never reclaim, it was nothing compared to the abundance of years she’d had before it.

Yet she’d always been greedy, even for the crumbs.

“Did he tell you why he did it?” Laila asked.

“He said that it was his time, that he had lived a long life and it was time for me to take up the mantle while he protected the weak and innocent.”

Laila snorted with derision. “What a foolish, foolish thing.”

“It’s not foolish, Laila,” Lyra chastised in response, her eyes going hard. “It’s our ways.”

But she was tired of hearing that. Tired of being told continually about tradition as though it was some immovable stone in the path to progression. “Then change your ways.”

Lyra raised her shoulders in affront before sighing heavily. She took one of her sprite braids between her fingers to trace the labyrinthine pattern and the miniature blossoms tucked within. “You know, my people have always taught me that there are monsters and there are the people you protect from monsters. No in between. I consider you the person that I protect. I also consider Darius Calantis a monster. Tell me, then, why I stood aside and let you have your heartfelt goodbye rather than slaying him where he stood? I think my ways have changed enough.”

“It’s because they’re not all bad, Lyra. They deserve a chance to prove to us that they can be reformed.”

“And suppose they can’t be, are you ready for that?” Lyra asked, genuinely desiring to know.

“I don’t know,” Laila replied honestly, “all I know is it would be wrong of me not to at least try to believe in their betterment.”

“Well, you’re more hopeful than I in any case.”

Laila sighed, resting her head on her shoulder. “What do you say we take a break from all of this then? I’ve been aching for a decent holiday for months now. Somewhere warm and tropical, the furthest thing away from a northern climate that you can think of. We can warm ourselves on the beach and drink from coconuts and have muscular merfolk give us massages.”

Lyra chuckled, resting her head atop hers. “That sounds marvellous.”