Star's Crossing

23: A Sundial in the Shade

Dust coated Mare's fingertips, and she lamented the days they'd been stained with ink.

But she hadn't lifted a pen since the day the boys returned from Almagest, and she felt like a stored gem, losing luster out of light, edges cut too sharp. She realized that beyond Camden's letters and a glimpse of Homer and the sonnet yesterday, she'd scarce read a word, either.

It was a strange malnutrition, this ignorance of literature and romance. It made her skin feel too loose on her bones and her blood run thick, leaden, through her veins. Mare needed a good book, or else she needed to write.

"Well?"

Mare turned from her open crate. She'd unpacked a dozen books, each taking a long turn between her fingers, lending her ample time to examine the love in the threading and craftsmanship of the thick, rigid parchment. Most endured a lift to her nose, so she might steal a single soft whiff of that strange and precious scent of new, brilliant literature.

Now Alison approached, hair curled over her shoulders, a pale day gown sweeping the wooden floor, spills of lace at each wrist. She looked like a waif, and without the bright, eye-catching cosmetics expected of most outings, she looked ages younger. A sweet and clever child, slipping between the shelves.

"Well, what?" Mare scrawled in Ethan Bard's open ledger at her side, and carefully slipped a pair of encyclopedias into the shelf.

"Has anything caught your eye?" Alison dropped into a chair beside the window, gazing beyond the glass, where Star's Crossing yawned to life. A messenger galloped by on a horse; a pair of farmers pushed a cart. Though it was summer, the heat had not yet begun to seep in at the edges of the main thoroughfare, and mist clung to the shadows and crevices like gossamer. "I love being awake so early," said Alison softly. She leaned back in the chair, eyes fluttering shut. "'The early morning has gold in its mouth.'"

Mare's fingers stilled against the spine of another book. Even Franklin's words danced through her mind, tinsel and flashes of silk; shimmers like moonlight on black tides. But she held her tongue. She'd all but confessed her part in the Gazette letters. Continuing to illuminate her reverence of written word and the great poets and philosophers would only incriminate her further.

"'Franklin," came a voice, soft as a chime. "Few men wrote so many adages for common use and poignant point."

Alison sat up, turning to appraise Lilith over her shoulder with a strange, curious set to her lips. "Indeed. Have you interest in politics?"

Lilith leaned against the shelf. She wore a gown in the lightest of lavender, akin to the hidden crescent of new honeysuckle. Her hair was drawn back in a braid, and the tiredness beneath her eyes lent them a subtle brightness. "Poetry, more. The men of enlightenment did have a talent for rendering the two synonymous."

Now Alison turned entirely, as though gauging Lilith anew in the deep, lush, mystical bookshop light. Mare watched, transfixed.

"I could not agree more," said Alison, breathless or leery of shattering the morning quiet.

Lilith wound her fingers together and peered at Mare. "You had a favorite quote of his, Mare, didn't you? How did it go?" Lilith's eyes gleamed as she feigned deep thought. "'Hide not your talents, they for use were made—'"

"'What's a sundial in the shade?'" Alison laughed, a pearl of wonder between her words. She sat turned entirely in her chair, gazing up at Lilith as an angel of Renaissance summoned in swaths of oil and turpentine. "I had no idea you were a lover of words. Even after Virgil."