Closer than she thought, one of them puts a hand on Naomi’s shoulder. She turns. Oh. Vincent has very fine fingers, long and pale, has a very fine smile, looks very fine with tears in his river-water eyes. I already knew, Naomi thinks, hating him, how beautiful you are. Oh, Helen fair, beyond compare, I’ll make a garland for your hair.

“I owe you a debt, Lady.” He speaks with faltering music; how used he has become to their language. He swallows, licks his lips. “Thank you. I—I don’t even know how to. I was so—”

Naomi does not say, Don’t go back. This is not how to thank her; she does not want his thanks. She wants to ask him if he thinks she made the right decision, but she has no reason to trust his answer.

She still does not like this boy at all. She can remember being in love with him, she can remember his long hands on her shoulders and his quickening breaths against her lips, and she can remember his hairless, shivering skin under her palms. She knows, for him, such new and tender love. She knows, for him, a little angry pity, because he is just a child.

“Don’t touch me.”

He takes his hand away, holds it against his chest like a wounded thing. He shakes his head. “Color,” he says, eventually, looking past her over the river. “Do you know what it’s like to forget color?”

Naomi follows his gaze for a moment, and then does not care to see what he sees. “I bet red.”

He shrugs. One sharp shoulder, just like before he kissed her. She has one kiss from this man, now, that he has never given her, and that Ari has lost. She hasn’t decided yet what she does and doesn’t regret. “I bet everything.”

Then he turns, and he is walking fast away from her, to the other side of the river. He is stretching his legs and his vision and his joy. He reminds her of a newborn foal. If she were to see him at the game again, she could call him Horseman.

“I don’t know why you did that,” Ari says. He says it suddenly and close to her ear, but Naomi jumps not even a little. He has, after all, been closer.

It’s good, to take in some fresh air, after being under-the-hill. Going in and out of the ground, like a ritual of rebirth. Naomi breathes deeply before she answers him. “I can’t give it back to you.”

“What?”

“The memories, the songs.” She reaches into the pocket of her bag, and she hands him his own fingers. Cooling a little now, but still soft to the touch. “You can have those.”