The Starless Sea - Page 89
Mirabel shrugs. “People? Progress? Time? I don’t know. She might have succeeded if it wasn’t for me. There were only real doors once upon a time and she’d closed so many before I figured out that I could paint new ones and now she tries to close those, too. Close it away and keep it from harm.”
“She talked a lot about eggs and keeping them from breaking.”
“If an egg breaks it becomes more than it was,” Mirabel says, after considering the matter. “And what is an egg, if not something waiting to be broken?”
“I think the egg was a metaphor.”
“Can’t make an omelet without breaking a few metaphors,” Mirabel says. She closes Sweet Sorrows and hands it back to Zachary. “If it does belong in the Archive I don’t think Rhyme would mind if you kept it, as long as it stays down here.”
As she turns to refill her wineglass Zachary notices an addition to the numerous chains around her neck.
A layered series of chains with a gold sword much like the one around his own neck, accompanied by a key and a bee.
“Is that necklace gold?” Zachary asks, pointing. Mirabel looks at him curiously and then glances down at the key.
“I think so. It’s gold-plated, at least.”
“Did you wear it to the party last year?”
“I did, you reminded me with your origin story in the elevator. I’m glad it was useful. Useful jewelry is the best kind of jewelry.”
“Can…can I borrow the key?”
“You don’t have enough jewelry already?” Mirabel says, looking at his compass and his keys and Dorian’s sword hanging like a talisman.
“Look who’s talking.”
Mirabel narrows her eyes and sips her wine but then she reaches behind her neck to undo the clasp. She untangles the chain with the key from the rest of her neckwear and hands it to him.
“Don’t melt it down,” she says, letting it drop into his open palm.
“Of course not. I’ll bring it back.”
Zachary puts the necklace in his bag.
“What are you up to, Ezra?” Mirabel asks and he almost tells her but something stops him.
“I’m not sure yet,” he says. “I’ll let you know if I find out.”
“Please do,” Mirabel says with a curious smile.
Zachary picks up her glass of wine from the table and takes a sip of it. It tastes like winter sun and melting snow, bubbles bright and sharp and bursting.
There is a story here for each bubble in each bottle, in every glass in every sip.
And when the wine is gone the stories will remain.
Zachary isn’t certain if the voice is the normal voice in his head or another voice entirely, if maybe Mirabel’s wine is made of stories like her weird tin filled with not-mints.
He isn’t certain about anything.
He isn’t even certain that he minds not being certain about anything.
He downs the rest of his sidecar to wash the story voices away and when it settles there is a question on his tongue instead.
“Max, where’s the sea?”
“The what?”
Source: readsnovelonline.net