Madeleine wondered if this was something non-Blues would be able to do, something related to the spirit or the soul, or if it was merely another newly discovered difference to make her less human. And whether she could possibly cope with the way she was feeling about this boy she’d known a bare few weeks.
"What are you thinking?"
She didn’t answer, shifting against him.
"Tell me. You’re bothered by something."
"I was wondering," she said, very slowly, "if we would have gotten together if all this hadn’t happened."
"No."
The answer was immediate, unhesitating, and she shrank a little. His arms tightened around her.
"We would never have met," he explained, voice dropping to a husky note. "I would have gone about my life and not thought I was missing anything. You would have – you would have painted obsessively, all those transformative images, and I would be someone unimagined and unknown, and I cannot decide whether it would be trite to call that a tragedy or if I should resent you for making this – all this death – somehow bearable, tolerable for the tenuous joy I have gained. You steal my anger and leave me dazed."
He stopped, took a shaking breath, then laughed.
"I sound like Pan’s understudy, failing to channel Shakespeare. There’s no way to do more than guess what would have happened if Fisher Charteris and Madeleine Cost met one day in a world which had never feared dust, any more than we can be certain of surviving two years, or two days. I can’t speak to what-ifs, but I know I will always be glad to have been here in this moment with you."
Chapter Nineteen
"When I’m having an apocalypse, I always insist on six star accommodation." Noi waved a gloved hand languidly, and turned so the skirt of her dress coiled and swirled. She considered herself in the mirrored wall dominating one side of the store. "Maybe a little too Grande Dame?"
"Try the yellow one," Madeleine suggested.
"All I can think when I see that is Fire Hazard."
"Which makes it a good thing the cooking’s all but done. And, plus, aprons."
"There’s not going to be any winning of arguments with you today, is there?" Noi’s smile was indulgent, and she disappeared into the dressing room with the fringe-covered yellow dress just as Emily emerged in a ruffled satin gown. "No, Millie, absolutely not," she said, before tugging the curtain across.
Emily eyed herself in the mirror and evidently agreed, selecting a white dress from the store’s limited range of evening wear and retreating once again.
The day had already been full. Madeleine and Fisher had emerged in time to help decorate the small function room chosen for the night’s festivities, and only smiled at teasing looks and comments. After lunch there had been swimming, and then a group effort at preparing an evening feast, Pan insisting on joining in because: "What fun is there in sitting by myself while you’re all off together?"
With only a few things needing last-minute heating, they’d separated to clean up and take advantage of finally locating the security codes to the foyer’s selection of expensive stores. Party clothes.
"Pity there isn’t a shoe place," Noi said, emerging to eye herself doubtfully. The yellow dress, a tight-fitting sheath covered in tiers of gold-shot fringes, shimmered with every tiny movement, emphasising her curves. "But I can live with barefoot in sheer silk stockings."
Madeleine looked down at her legs, glimmering blue through the semi-transparent skirt of the icy flapper-style dress she’d fallen for on sight. "I’m not sure stockings work for me any more."
"Mm. You’ve got a point. Shall I take the time to point out that you’re suddenly no longer trying to hide every inch of your starry starry skin?"
"Would there be any way to stop you?" Madeleine asked, and wondered how Noi would react if Madeleine shared her discovery that breasts were like tickling: a concept not fully appreciated until someone else was involved.
Noi took a few dancing steps, watching the fringes at her hips shimmer, then plumped down beside Madeleine.
"Okay, less teasing, more congratulations. You think you’ll work out? Long term?"
"Maybe." Madeleine had to admit to wanting there to be a long term. "If the Moths give us the chance. I…I think I fell in love with him this morning."
"What, not till then? Not that I’m arguing against try before you buy, mind you, but it took him all the way till morning to impress you?"
"Before, I knew I really liked him. A lot. But this morning when he woke up I was drawing him, and he asked if it was okay to move. And then fetched me stuff, instead of expecting me to stop. Most people, when they meet me, it’s completely obvious to them that drawing is important to me. But Fisher, he treats my drawing as important. The way that makes me feel…"
"Are you looking for a boyfriend or a groupie?"
"I’m not sure I could really…belong with someone who treated my drawing the way my mother does – a nice little hobby, admirable enough, but always to be put aside in favour of everything someone else thinks is important." Madeleine sighed, then gave Noi a steady look. "And are you ever going to give Pan a chance?"
Noi lifted brows in exaggerated surprise. "What, you think I’m falling over for want of someone warm to hold? You don’t get trapped with a small group of people and have one of them just happen to be your one true love. Or–" She broke off, and gave Madeleine an apologetic grin. "Well, the odds are against it, and I think you’ve used all the good luck up. Pan’s just a nice kid."
"Noi."
A single word to add cherry tones to Noi’s warm brown skin. The shorter girl looked away.
"The way I am about him, it’s not me," she went on, the words low and rushed. "I’m usually the together, lightly-invested one. But, hell, all I want to do is throw myself at his feet and beg to be the Tink to his Peter. I want to do flighty, charming things which make him break out into speeches, and then I want to do…everything. He treats me like his Mum."
"No, like Wonder Woman, remember? He thinks you’re awesome."
Shoulders hunched, studying her toes, Noi shook her head. "It’s all because of the Spires, the disaster. I can’t trust the way I feel right now. I wouldn’t have looked at him twice, in the real world. Well, I’d have looked, but I sure as hell would never have wanted to find myself a green mini-dress and a pair of wings."
"Tinker Bell’s an inch tall. I don’t think she’d be much use for…everything. Wouldn’t you be better off being the Noi to his Lee? Pan can hardly be the right role for him today, not on his birthday. And he really admires you."
"That’s not helpful." Noi was recovering, and shook her head so her curls bounced. "Enough. The whole world doesn’t have to fall in love just because you have. This is the day for fun, not serious talk."
She climbed to her feet in time to inspect Emily, shyly emerging in a delicate white shift. Approving this enthusiastically, Noi bustled them off to see to hair, and regret the lack of makeup. They decided not to risk the jewellery shop, the contents of which were locked away behind an extra level of security.
"But in a way I like the whole mix of formal and underdressed," Noi said as she led the way to the menswear store, patting the upswept Grecian style into which she’d wrestled her curls. "It’s a bit like a beach wedding."
She took several dancing steps, fringes flaring as she spun: a lively girl of eighteen more than a little tired of running and hiding and being sensible. Nash, the only one of the four boys visible in the store, turned to look at her, smiled, and then bowed and held out a hand. Noi dipped in return, and they waltzed over marble: Nash tall and fine in a dark suit, black hair swept back, wearing black socks and no shoes; Noi vibrant and shimmering, barefoot.