Back in her own cave she fidgeted. She tried singing for a while, but the fluid beauty of her song didn’t absorb her attention the way it always had before. She raised a wave with one thrumming, endless note and sent it winging in circles through the shadows, but somehow her heart wasn’t in it and after a minute she let the wave collapse with a disconsolate splash. Evening seemed so far away, and with the weather so dismal Dorian probably wouldn’t show up anyway. Knowing that didn’t stop the twisting sensation in her chest every time she thought of him. She gave up trying to practice and sprawled on the stones, gazing at Dorian’s drawings. Dana had smoothed them all out, and they lay in a row just above the tide line. The paper was warped and buckled from its long submersion in the sea, crisped by dried salt, but other than that, the drawings were undamaged. The images were so beautiful, so dimensional; Luce especially admired the way Dorian had drawn dozens of broad curving strokes that followed the contours of each wave. It gave an amazing sense of depth, and it added to the surprising effect of her own pale face breaking through. It was impressive that he’d captured her so well from memory, too, as if her face had burned its way into him and these drawings were the scar . . .

Luce kissed the paper, soft and slow, glad that no one was there to see her do it. After she’d stared at the pictures for another hour she dug a shallow pit in the loose pebbles of the shore, as far above the tide line as she could reach, and carefully tucked the folded jacket and the drawings inside. Then she covered everything with a flat stone. There was no guarantee, after all, that Anais or one of her followers wouldn’t find the cave sometime.

∗ ∗ ∗

Before she went to look for Dorian, Luce tied wide leaves of brown seaweed across her breasts in a kind of improvised bikini top so that she wouldn’t have to feel self-conscious around him. Then she started wondering if the seaweed looked ridiculous. It felt a little foolish to be worrying about that, though, when she was almost certain he wouldn’t be there.