The Monocle's Eye

Chapter 26

 I woke up curled at the bast of the stairs after failing to make it back to our rooms yesterday morning, Illy beside me. Her eyes were open as I stared at her, the soft purple iris surrounding her pupil, and then the other. Each day it seemed less content in it's position, the red streaks swam, the dead pupil looked faded on the sides, like it was under attack, and it lay behind that monocle like a dog in a cage.

"Should I take it out?" She asked, stretching her cheek so the monocle fell into her hand.

"I don't know. Mortemine wouldn't like it if you did, but how else should we convince her, do we want to convince her? Should we run away? It all seemed to go so well last night, I almost feel like we're a kink in the gears now."

"We can't do that, as nice as it might be to do so. She'd hunt us down if we ran, and there would be no rest until we were back? Plus, the kingdom is bad off enough as it is, if we disappear and then they see a major change in mother, they might even think she killed us. It's going to take enough explaining as it is when we need to go public about all this." She reached forward and slipped my hair behind my ear, away from my face.

"I suppose I knew that. I just feel like we're sort of going fast now that I see them like that. It makes me want to run away and learn all I can about you, so no one in this world knows you better."

"You'll have plenty of time for that, I promise. But right now we've got to get back, and send for Silver so I can get this eye out of my head." Illy stood up and brushed off, holding out a hand to help me stand.

"It'll be strange, but perhaps I'll miss that eye. Yet I'm sure I'll like you with your own eyes better." I laughed, taking hold of her hand as we walked.

"I'll save the eye for you if you want."

"Ewww," I said as she laughed.

"I'm just kidding, I'll give it to Mother, I'm sure she'd like to have it."

* * *

It must have been the first time I woke up to a setting sun in a decade, but it felt like it had been much longer. I felt like standing was no longer the motion of a precarious statue, but a perching bird, effortlessly hung from the wire almost as though gravity had forgotten it, and I could tell in Rosetta's step as she approached that she thought the same, although it was as timid as it had ever been. "You don't have to be so scared of me." I teased, turning around to see her holding out my favorite suit on her arm.

"I'm not scared per say, I just." She began, but didn't say anything further, because it was much more trouble to explain than was necessary in thought. I took the suit and slipped the blazer over my bare skin, not caring for the white shirt she had brought with her. It's red handkerchief was folded artfully in the pocket, the pocket watch chain hung just right, and as I slipped on the pants I felt the hidden dagger on the waist and the piece of gum in the left pocket. It was little things like this I had missed, things like not needing to tell anyone what I wanted.

"I know." I replied, slipping my arm around her waist before she could stop me and pointing towards the setting sun. "What happened to my bride? I recall a love of dance in the rain, a skirt that never got the chance to settle on the knees, and someone I could take aside and give what you will give me regardless of my deserving it. You've become timid, and I'm all for timid, but in a bride, it is boring, and on you, it is just tense, for I know of so much more simmering beneath."

"I told you, she's gone." She muttered, chewing her cheek with discomfort. I just laughed.

"Don't kid me, you just don't want me to go through with this. I'm not asking what happened to her, because I know all that, and I know exactly where she is now. I'm asking what I've got to do to get her back." I didn't wait for an answer, but instead took her face in my hand and pressed a kiss to her lips, before slipping away and starting out the door. "I'll be back for dinner at five, do whatever you please as long as you're here tonight."