"For good reason," Yseult disagrees, with a mock-dark look, "You know what you did." As she says it, her hair tumbles loose over a shoulder, riffled by the breeze, ruining the effect. It doesn't last long anyway, her expression softening into something warm but weighted. She lifts fingers to tangle with his.

That sunlight casts him bronze, like a handsome statue come to molten life, and she lets him press her hands down until she can feel his heart beating behind the carved planes of his chest. I could put off the anguish knowing it would end, he says, and the direction the conversation might turn is hanging there again at her back, what-ifs piling on shoulders too heavily to keep ignoring. Her head drops first, and then she slides back to set her cheek on his chest, arms folding, one bare foot hooking around his shin.