They say she's gone mad since his death.
Magic can do a lot, but it can't restore a lost mind. And it can't fix such a broken heart.
He visits her once a week. It's always the same scene. Her bedroom is always dark and smells like a hospital. Her bed is in the middle of the room.
He wonders what she does. How she passes the time, just laying there. Wonders if she's looking for her mind. For her heart.
She won't get either back. They all know it. He took both of them, beyond the Ninth Gate.
He always goes when the nurses are gone. There's no lock on the door, so he brings the Charter Marks to his mind and locks the door himself.
He's always afraid (for her sake or his?) that one day, when he enters the room, she'll recognize him for who he really is.
But each time, she sees him and her face lights up and she reaches out her hand and he takes it and she says his name.
(No, not his name, never his name.)
"Nick."
The first time, he had told her who he was. The light went out of her eyes and she had turned away and made it clear she didn't want to see him.
The next time, and all the times after that, he had smiled and said the same thing.
"Yes Lirael, it's me."
She would pull him close and he would crawl into bed with her and snuggle up, his nose in her hair and his arms encircling her and bringing her close.
He had learned. If she asked, "where have you been?" he would murmur apologies and they would stay curled up that way.
Today it was the other option.
She turned into him, burying her face in his neck.
"I've missed you."
She kisses his neck, her hands fiddling with his shirt. Her hands are always cold.
"I'm right here," he tells her, shifting her so she rolls on her back. He hovers over her, balancing his weight on his arms and kissing her the way he had always wanted.
(He tells himself he's not taking advantage of her, because when she looks at him her eyes are sparkling and he knows she's happy, and isn't that all that matters?)
The way she kisses him makes him wonder if she really is sane, because surely someone who's lost her mind couldn't kiss that way, couldn't run her hands over his body and push her hips against his?
But then she whispers "Nick" and he's brought back to reality.
Every week he tries to push away, because this is wrong, in so many ways. A multitude of words run through his mind. Words like immoral .Words like best friend's wife.
Words like aunt.
But she's not his aunt. Because for the time he's in there with her, he's Nicholas Sayre.
She doesn't beat around the bush and so pretty soon they're both naked and he has one nipple in his mouth and one finger rubbing her core and not for the first time he's worried the nurses might come running.
They don't.
He moves his lips to her mouth and slips a finger inside of her and his brain fights a battle between good and evil while his body simply settles for what feels good (heavenlyamazingohLirael).
He has two fingers inside of her now, pushing and probing and she's writhing and his cock is pressed against her thigh and she reaches down and grabs it.
"Oh!" He lets out a cry as her cold fingers guide him to where his fingers are with surprising authority.
(It's at the times where she's the most far gone that she seems the sanest.)
Her cold fingers are soon replaced with the warmth that's inside her as he enters, and they've got a rhythm, a pattern, almost a song, that feels so good and he knows that fate messed up, because two people who fit each other like them should not be so wrong.
But it doesn't matter what's wrong or what shouldn't be, because she digs her nails into his back before whisper-moaning, "mmm, Nick."
Sometimes he wishes he could be Nicholas Sayre the whole time.
Faster and faster and faster he goes (where he'll stop, nobody knows) until she tightens up and then relaxes, shuddering, shaking, and he comes after her, collapsing and falling to the side so as not to crush her, burying his face in her neck and kissing her skin, sweat clinging to his body.
She waits until their breathing evens out before she whispers, "I love you Nick."
"I love you too, Lirael."
It's the only thing about him that's not a lie.