Not a fortnight had passed since the Abbot had last seen Flann in strikingly similar circumstances. The gentleman was not the same, and Aelfden had been awoken from his sleep this time, but if he was not mistaken it was even the same hour.
Manhood had stolen upon Osh as winter came upon the trees. Leaf by leaf his elfhood had been dropping away.
“Don’t be putting your prayer book away just yet, now, Father,” Flann growled.
Flann took a short, sharp breath — and another, and another — until through short, sharp breaths she had filled her lungs and could not breathe.
Overhead the sky was still as dark as iron. Aelfden had spent enough sleepless nights to know that another good hour would pass before the dawn.
Ogive sniffed loudly and pointed her nose precisely in the direction of the middlemost paragraph of her book. She would not give Caedwulf the pleasure of thinking she could be excited merely by an unexpected visit.
Araphel had to lean against the door merely to open it: some disobliging weight had to be slid away across the floor.
“No elven ears do I have,” Cat said slyly, “but if mine do not deceive me, I believe the bridegroom is coming!”
“Mina.”
Paul might call her by his affectionate nickname for her, but Cat knew that tone of voice, and she stopped.
As soon as Osh had unclasped the first medallion from Flann’s hair, her little shy voice peeped, “May I hold it?”
The answer seemed almost absurdly self-evident, and yet Osh was delighted she had asked, for he knew she reserved her little shy voice for his ears alone. Of the rest of the world she made demands.
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