Quill sat numbly, in total silence, for a long time…how long he had no idea. He stopped watching Gabby, except when he spooned water into her mouth. It was too painful to see the vacancy in her face. Instead, he thought about Gabby with her halo, Gabby with golden light around her body. It should be a comforting thought, he told himself. She had slipped through his fingers like the rosy light that had surrounded her—except…except …

A harsh sound burst from his throat. “Don’t, don’t! Don’t become an angel, Gabby. I need you here.”

Silence answered him. And shame came with it. Could a servant have heard his outburst?

He looked back at Gabby, and he didn’t care if the entire household was listening outside the door. She was gone—she was gone. She had left him. So quickly, in the breath between a quarrel and a laugh, she had left him.

“No!” He screamed it now. Quill had never shown pain, but he had never encountered a pain that could not be silenced. “You must not leave, Gabby. You must come back. Please, please, don’t leave. Life”—the words caught in his throat, twisted, came forth unintelligibly from the heart—“life is nothing without you. I love you.”

All pride was gone. “Without you, I have nothing to say to anyone, Gabby. No one ever made me smile the way you do. There is no color—” But his voice failed him. He stretched out next to her on the bed, putting his head on her chest. He could hear a faint, comforting heartbeat.

And finally, in the depths of utter exhaustion and despair, he slept, ear pressed to that distant heartbeat, to the bit of Gabby left in this world.

IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN HOURS LATER, or it might have been minutes. Dream Gabby’s voice called to him. “I knew you’d come to me,” he mumbled. “I knew I would see you again, once again.”

He couldn’t hear her response. He tried to open his eyes, but he was so tired, so very tired, that he couldn’t do it.

“My wife is dead,” he told her. “The real Gabby has left me, and now there’s no one but you, an angel, I suppose.” His voice caught and then steadied. “You have to go away, Dream Gabby. If I can’t have my wife, I don’t want you. My Gabby is the only one I love.”

Dream Gabby sounded a bit irritated.

In his dream Quill shook his head. “I don’t want you,” he repeated. “Go away.”

“Hmmph,” said his dream wife. But she sounded rather amused.

Quill supposed that he had better make an effort. He opened his eyes. For a moment he stared, puzzled, at the hand before him. It was a familiar hand, with slender, intelligent fingers.

Without daring to breathe, he looked up.