Page 628 of Flirting with Darkness

Which meant he would learn to wield the magicks himself. He would learn to control the mage clock. He would find a way back to that other world.

He would find her again, his wife.

He would find herbeforethey met that first time, as already-wedded mates. He would find her and woo her, and she would be his wife once again.

She would love him again.

And the next time, it would be real.

He had only to unlock the secrets of the clock, the same way his father had done.

In preparation for that time, he would write it all down, he told himself.

He would draw everything of her and her life he could remember.

He would draw her, the strange buildings and horse-less carriages, the machines in the doctor’s rooms, the clothing and the hairstyles, the quality of the air. He would draw the streets and the men’s clothier, and the barbershop, and the auction house, and the exact clothes she had worn the first time he’d seen her.

He would write down all of it.

He would learn whatever magicks he could find.

He would return to her.

He would meet her again.

He would woo her, until she loved him like she loved him then, until she looked at him the way she looked at him when he last saw her.

And he would marry her.

He would marry her, damn it.

And they would live happily ever after.

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