Gods of Jade and Shadow(56)

He leaned forward, inclining his head. He didn’t seem like a powerful lord then, and she couldn’t explain the change, only that in the past few minutes, as they spoke, he’d become more tangible. He was very handsome, with that wonderful voice of his. But he was distant, like the face in an old painting staring at her across the ages. It was beauty you couldn’t hold. Then he looked to her, for a moment, very much a man, which startled her.

He drew back, leaned back and away from her, eyebrows furrowed.

“You need not consider my brother and his schemes. I will prevail and you will be rewarded for your assistance as was promised,” he said dismissively. Now he was not looking at her and he was a great lord.

He changed. He was always changing, a thousand tiny ripples, tiny tessellations and dark reflections. It threw her out of balance, and her breath burned in her mouth.

“With the finest jewels and treasures of the earth, which your servants will fetch at your command,” she said, not meaning to sound bitter; she merely remembered what he’d told her when he’d given her the silver bracelet. She gazed down at her wrist, running her hand along the piece of jewelry.

“With your heart’s greatest desire,” he said simply.

Ah, the ocean lit by the moon, night swimming in its depths; the automobile she wished to drive, curious about that beast of metal that roared upon the roads; the pretty dress reaching her thighs, made for dancing at clubs where they played all the music they mentioned in the papers, and which she’d never heard.

But when she looked at him to say may I have all that? the joy she felt, like a child who opens her Epiphany presents, was scattered.

It was nothing he did or nothing he said, since he was doing and saying nothing, just sitting at her side.

There was silence, a quiet that stretched out forever and was no more than a few minutes long. An emptiness that made Casiopea rub her arms, which filled the heart he’d spoken about. She waited for him to talk because she had no words and did not want to find them now lest she say the wrong thing, but he was prone to silences. She realized he would feel no need to talk.

So, yes, perhaps she was bitter, and beneath her bluster she was scared, and in turn perhaps he kept secrets, which only made it worse.

She sighed, raised her head, admired his profile for a second. She spoke, her voice as light as she could make it.

“Do you think they’ll have opened the dining car yet?” she asked.

“We can find out,” he said and they rose.

He brushed a few wrinkles from his suit, and she fixed her hair. He offered her his arm.

The dining car was empty but the tables were all set, with spotless white linens and gleaming glasses. Casiopea rested her chin against her hand and looked out the window, at the stars, which were fading. She longed. Not for one specific thing but for everything; she had longed for a long time. He’d made this longing worse: it followed her quietly, this awkward feeling under her skin.

“What do you dream about?” he asked.

“Sorry?” she replied, turning her head away from the window.

“When you dream, what do you dream about?”

“Oh. I don’t know. Lots of different things, I suppose,” Casiopea said with a shrug, tracing the rim of a glass with a hand.

“Do you dream about the things you see on the streets during the daytime and the people you know?”

“Sometimes.”

She wondered what he was going on about. He looked rather serious, and he rubbed his chin. She noticed the trace of stubble on his cheeks. Had he needed to shave before? He’d seemed very pristine to her, a statue in his perfection.

“I think I dreamed tonight. It’s difficult for me to understand it since I am unused to the activity.”

“My father had a book and it claimed that dreams can have secret messages. If you dream you are flying it means one thing and if you dream your teeth are falling out it means another. I do hate it when my teeth fall out in dreams,” she said.

“I dreamed about you,” he said, the voice deliberate, cool.

Casiopea coughed so loudly she thought the entire train had heard her, every single person in every berth and the conductor to boot. And then she blushed so brightly she seriously considered slipping under the table. She grabbed her napkin, tossed it on her lap, and fidgeted with it instead, unwilling to look at him.

“What is the matter?” Hun-Kamé said. “You are very strange sometimes.”

“Nothing is the matter with me. You dream about me and nothing is the matter,” she said, lifting her head and almost shouting at him. Couldn’t he see how mortified she was?

Now he looked irritated, as if she’d been mean to him. But she was not trying to be mean; it wasn’t the sort of thing she’d expected to hear.

“I shouldn’t have dreamed, not about you or teeth or whatever men dream. I feel like I’m standing on quicksand and I’m sinking fast. I’m forgetting who I am,” he admitted.

He looked utterly lost. She patted his hand, which rested against the mahogany table, in sympathy, not knowing what else to do.

“You’ll be yourself again soon,” she promised.

He looked down at her fingers resting on top of his. He seemed surprised, and she felt abashed, thinking she’d done something wrong. But when she attempted to pull away her hand, he gave it a squeeze and he nodded.