—Oh, sir, things change—
“We’ll go now,” Sybille says softly.
He nods. He makes no other reply.
“We’ll see you after your drying-off,” Zacharias tells him, and touches him lightly with his knuckles, a farewell gesture used only by the deads.
“See you,” Mortimer says.
“See you,” says Gracchus.
“Soon,” Nerita says.
Never, Klein says, saying it without words, but so they will understand. Never. Never. Never. I will never see any of you. I will never see you, Sybille. The syllables echo through his brain, and the word, never, never, never, rolls over him like the breaking surf, cleansing him, purifying him, healing him. He is free. He is alone.
“Goodbye,” Sybille calls from the hallway.
“Goodbye,” he says.
It was years before he saw her again. But they spent the last days of ’99 together, shooting dodos under the shadow of mighty Kilimanjaro.