They parted in Lyon. The Italians to their carriages of precious cargo stowed and Henri to his own. Alone he lay back in his furs, pressing them to his face as if his cheek was still pressed to Cosimo’s back. To the thick bands of muscle, tense and impenetrable. Bereft of their warmth. Cosimo didn’t speak the entire descent. He wouldn’t answer when Henri asked what was in the message. A thick silence had fallen over Cosimo.
In the swinging light of his cab’s lanterns, Henri relived their descent. Winds hungry for skin, biting at his cheeks. Even with his face buried in Cosimo’s furred cloak, he felt a dark numbness spreading. Not beginning in his fingertips, but in his belly, trickling out like streams of slush to his arms and legs. He kept his eyes closed as Cosimo steered them down. She
