Page 80 of The Shape of Monsters
There’s no reaction from Shade except a simple, emotionlessanswer. “South. To seek a quieter place than this Moon-Eater’s wild city. I told ahz, ‘Look to the sea, if you need comfort that is not mine to give.’”
“Ahz?” Iriset says. It’s the opposite of an, toward woman instead of toward man.
The Moon-Eater huffs, then brushes his hand down the little hand-leaves of the nearest tree. “If Never had been here when Rabbit was born, az might have chosenitfor all the same reasons Never did. And if Rabbit were a little more like me, az could change ahz shape.”
“Why did Never chooseit?” she murmurs softly.
“Why do you want to know about Little Rabbit?” Shade counters to Lyric.
“I want to find ahz,” Lyric says simply.
It means he’s leaving. The realization is like a warm cloud turning to ice and falling falling falling through her blood. “And Never?” Iriset presses, to distract herself. She shouldn’t care.
The Moon-Eater leans closer to her, feeling like nothing at all. No body heat, no spark of ecstatic. “The first people we met, the first people who spoke to us, they saiditfor the wind anditfor the sky anditfor the fall of leaves in autumn.”
Iriset says, “That’s lovely. Why didn’t you do the same?”
Suddenly there’s weight to the Moon-Eater again, a pressure of four forces like any human standing beside her. “The first people we met were allhein their words, and I thought that was how humans were.”
“And that’s what you wanted to be.”
“Humans are happier than the wind and sky and fall of leaves.”
“And sadder,” Iriset feels like she is required to say.
Shade laughs. “And sadder!” he agrees, like it’s an amazing thing.
Then the Moon-Eater waves, rather casually, and darts away between two poplars.
Iriset stands there, beside Lyric, for Silence knows how long. She can’t think of what to say, but can’t follow the Moon-Eater. She wants to stare at Lyric again, look at his eye. Their eye. Demand answers, cuss him out for this Holy Design, for leaving, for getting exploded.
“I’ve always wanted to,” Lyric murmurs.
“Wanted to what?”
“Go to the sea.”
“I didn’t, not until she told me about it,” Iriset says. Why shouldn’t they talk about Singix? She’d loved the woman, and Lyric thought he had.
“If I make it that far, I’ll write about it for you.”
“That’s quads’ travel,” Iriset says, hearing the complaint in her tone. “Are you really…?”
Lyric says, “Come sit with me,” and then just walks away.
Puffing breath between her lips in aggravation, Iriset obeys. Ah, red god, Lyric is so annoying when he’s like this. Calm. Certain. Beautiful. Not accusing her of apostasy despite the evidence in his own face he’ll never escape again. There were nights she crawled into his lap and he read poetry or murmured to her about the city and balance, about what he thought of the soft flesh between her hip and her groin, the strength in the arch of her foot and the small of her back. He was like this then, those times, calm, certain, beautiful, hers. Those were the nights she forgot that everything between them was a lie.
Still is.
He finds a garden where the walkways are sand, not gravel, soft and warm and glittery pink. They twist like tiny tributaries around chunks of quartzite and broken geodes in half-circles and thick spears. The quartz is clear, amethyst, smoky, and one geode is so large Iriset could nest inside its cup.
Lyric takes her to a bench between two giant skulls—they looklike real bones, but there’s never been a horse as tall as a house to have a skull this size. (Has there?!) The other could be a mammoth skull, though, except instead of ivory tusks they’re smooth curving pink quartz, which does not grow in this shape without architectural intervention. The not-horse skull has a series of amethyst horns growing up its long nasal bone, and both its eye sockets are so covered internally with crystal they could be two littler geodes themselves.
Iriset should make a mask like that. For when the opal eye needs a break. A half-mask to recharge the forces in her invention. She’ll come back here when she has the lattice cap for her opal eye, to study the interplay of bone, fossil, crystal, whatever.
When Lyric sits, she chances a look at him, caught again by the heterochromatic change in his face. She can’t see any freckles. “I don’t know who you are without those freckles,” she says.
“Are you sure that’s the biggest change?” He rubs his hand over his shorn hair.
