New Years
The party was over and all the guests gone home. It was just the four of them still in the drawing room. James was curled up on the rug by the fire wrapped in his father jacket so that the only piece of the boy that could be seen was his hair and one hand curled around a feather he had stolen from a lady's hat. Lucie slept as well but she was draped across the chaise with her head on her mother's lap.
Tessa played with her hair and smiled at her as the girl slept. She'd shaken her hair loose of its pins and the trails of it mixed with Lucie's between her fingers.
"Happy New Year," Will said coming to sit by them. He kissed her on the temple and looked at the children. "They're getting so big."
"I know," she said and the look in her eyes was faraway.
"Tell me what you're thinking," he said.
"I'm not," she said.
"Not thinking? I don't believe that. You're always thinking," he said frowning and trying to figure out what was making her look at him so serious. She wasn't quite frowning but she was thinking hard.
"I'm not getting any older," she said. He didn't answer her immediately and she continue, "I wasn't sure, how much does a person really change in five years of even in ten? Seeing Sophie tonight made me sure. It's only been two that they've been living in Idris and she looks different. Older. I don't."
Will got up and came to sit close enough that he could wrap his arms around her. No one else would be able to hear the anxiety in her voice but he could.
"We've always known that was a possibility," he whispered into her hair.
"I know but I've never thought much of it until tonight. Do you think they will be too?" she didn't actually say the word immortal as she touched her daughter's cheek. She thought of Magnus and Ragnor and the other warlocks she knew and wondered if she could ever wish that type of life on someone she loved.
"No," Will said gently. "I don't think so."
"But there's never been anyone like them before. There's no way to be sure," she said.
"Do you love them?" Will asked.
"Don't be absurd. I love them more than I thought I could love anything," she said.
"Then it doesn't matter. Whether they get 80 years or 800, they've got us. We'll watch over them," he said. She looked at him and he shrugged in acknowledgement of the thing she couldn't say out loud. He made is voice softer and gentler when he said, "Someday you'll watch over them but we've got many more of these parties to plan before then. We're barely started on this lifetime Tess, don't start worrying about the next one yet."
She leaned against him and the watched the children sleep as the minutes of 1893 ticked forward. The minutes felt different now, not just a mark of time but a tally of something dearer.