The shattered glass sparkled like a carpet of sharp-edged crystals, beautiful and romantic and violent. A metaphor for their relationship, in some ways. Whenever they moved, the glass crunched underboot as percussion and the silvery blue light reflected back off every clean-cut surface like lights in a concert hall. Mallos pulled Croe a little closer at the waist and closed his eyes against it, wanting to focus on her. Only her.

The squeak and crackle of the chumbled glass did not remain solitary for long, accompanied shortly as it was by the distinctive notes of a Spanish guitar. Mallos opened his eyes again just in time to watch the shattered embassy melt away, replaced with the unique architecture of Barcelona. The Catalonian sunshine wrapped them in a golden halo, as they danced over paved streets to the gentle melody of the busker on the corner. Mallos remembered this, almost as well as Croe did: a rare, spontaneous, childless afternoon. Wandering hand-in-hand through the Park Güell. Dancing on the street corner. Being forced to make a quick exit from the Sagrada Família after being caught committing a Catholic sin.

For a moment, when she laughed, the memories felt more like reality than whimsy.

He wanted to laugh too. Mallos had never felt less like a supernova, dancing through an illusion with nothing but borrowed jeans and a vague sense of unease. The stone on the string seemed to weigh heavy around his neck, reminding him acutely of what he was missing. The absence of divinity burned his power down to the stub of a wick, dim and flickering even by the standards of the least practiced fairy. Which Croe most certainly was not. He could feel her magic like an electric current beneath her skin, raw and wild like a racehorse waiting to be let loose from the gate.

“I pursued you,” he pressed his lips against her temple, “precisely because you don’t fit into boxes.”

Movement slowed down his thinking, directing his mind down more linear threads. The details of the inviting shop windows didn’t seem to vie quite so aggressively for his attention, although the faces of the passers-by were still a point of interest. Mallos couldn’t remember them, but he knew Croe had recreated them exactly as they were that day – every freckle, every glance, every knitted brow. The precision of it – order and truth where there had only been chaos and confusion before – was calming.

“Don’t sell yourself short,” he murmured into her neck. “No one can do what you just did.”

MalloS