Page 137 of The Moorwitch

“Why are you fidgeting like that?” I ask. “What’s wrong?”

He blinks at me, and I can tell his mind has been far away.

“I have something important to ask you,” he says.

“Well?”

“When you—when we’re back home, and this is all behind us ... what will you ...? What I mean to say is, What are your plans, specifically, for the year and, er, the future in general? See, I was just thinking ... if Sylvie does come home with me, and she wishes to continue learning magic—not faerie magic, no more of that—she’ll need a governess.”

“Conrad.”

“Eh?” He looks at me, flushed and flustered.

“I would love to be Sylvie’s governess. For a little while longer, anyway. After that ...”

“After that ...” he echoes, and he swallows hard.

“After that, who knows? I never want to play Fates again. Perhaps they are Weaving our destinies, or perhaps we weave them ourselves. But I do know what choices we make are our own.”

“Whenever you’re ready, then. Perhaps we’ll go abroad together.” He lets out a laugh. “It’s strange to say that.We’ll go abroad.My duty to Morgaine always kept me near the estate. But now ... travelingisin my blood, as you know. And thanks to you, we have a map to follow.” He traces the patterns winding around his mother’s shawl, a path which takes his fingers across my shoulders and down my back. “We can see the Dolomites in Italy, swim on the beaches of Crete, try new foods in Damascus. We could visit the ruins of Palmyra, and I will buy you all the thread in the markets of Jerusalem ...”

He goes on, doing something I’ve never known Conrad to do—ramble. His brogue thickens as he talks, until I have to struggle to understand him. But his enthusiasm is infectious. I rest my head on his chest and close my eyes. His voice rumbles through me; I feel the pounding of his heart against my ear.

“But listen to me,” he says at last, his hand rubbing my shoulder and his chin resting atop my head. “I’m going on and on about what I want. What about you, Rose Pryor? What do you want to do next? You have your classroom in London ...”

He leaves the question hanging between us.

“True,” I say. “But I still have eight months’ leave to fill. Perhaps some Mediterranean air will do me good.”

And after that ... I do want to return to the Perkins School, if only to prove to Mother Bridgid and Sister Agatha once and for all that Icanchannel, thank you very much. But I am not sure if that is where I belong anymore. I think about the plans I dreamed up while lying inthe faerie queen’s palace, of gathering up magically inclined children off London’s streets, children like Carolina with nowhere else to turn, and making my own little school of Weaving—perhaps, even, in some remote manor on the moors of Scotland.

But most of all, right now, there is only one thing I want in all the world, and it’s right here, so close I can nearly taste it.

“I want you to kiss me,” I say, and he does.