There was something about Camille that reminded me of Magnus. No, not the ring on her finger. The way she carried herself. The two of them both had this attitude... Like they owned the world and everything in it. Even the people.

"Alexander!" She gasped when I walked in. Her voice was song-like and the strong French lilt made her annunciate each syllable. Magnus did that too, in his own accent which I was convinced belonged uniquely to him. For all his individuality, though, he was certainly unsettlingly similar to his wife.

I managed a smile for her, only just. Thinking about their similarities only ever made me see how obviously perfect for each other the pair of them were. Good for them.

"Mon petit." Camille sighed, looking at me in the half-concerned the way you look at a stranger in pain. Her high heels clacked on the hard floor of the old subway. The place hadn't been frequented by anybody but rats and runaways in years. The dust we were stirring floated in clouds through the pale, limited light. "You don't seem at ease."

Of course I wasn't at ease. Somebody would find us. It didn't matter that the place was abandoned, with my luck tonight would be the night all the homeless realised it was an empty shelter and swarmed in. How had Camille even gotten there without being spotted? Her dark sunglasses wouldn't fool anybody. Given that it was night they probably drew more attention her way.

"I just can't think what you want to talk to me about." I said shakily. I looked around for an old bench to sit on; feeling unsteady. Being around Camille was like seeing rumbling black clouds fill the sky when you thought the storm was over.

She smirked. "I'm sure you have some idea."

I hastened over to the first bench I spotted, scratched and defaced with initials and slang. She followed me and stood with perfect posture. I was pretty sure you could take a picture of her from any angle and she'd still look better than the best picture of me. No contest. It did nothing for me but I could see why girls admired her so much. She must have driven the straight guys wild. And the guys like Magnus with less of a preference.

"You want to talk about your husband?" I snapped. Then I immediately felt bad. No matter how she saw her relationship, by my standards I owed Camille every apology in the world. I was in no position to get short with her.

She didn't seem offended by anything other than the grime as she took a seat next to me. Camille wasn't dressed for the cold. Her usually flawless skin had goose bumps and there was no substance to her scarf because it was only for decoration. I kind of wanted to give her my jacket but I doubted she would take it.

"I'm worried about him." She began to explain. She said, flipping her curled hair over one shoulder. It was arranged perfectly. Was there ever a time when she didn't look her best? It was sort of irritating. "I can tell that Magnus misses you."

I wasn't sure how to react. Or how she expected me to react. I almost wanted to say 'So?' But that wasn't right. That made it sound like I didn't care, and I did care. I was just weary of showing that.

Camille continued in a drawl. "He hasn't taken anybody else home since I found out about the two of you."

"Just because you haven't met his latest affair doesn't mean he doesn't have one." I reminded her. She seemed surprised that I was able to talk about it.

"This is different." She said.

"How?"

As Camille looked to the ceiling as if for divine inspiration, or the internal strength to continue the conversation, I caught the signs of aging on her face. In the selective light, and in person with no airbrushing.

She didn't say anything for a few seconds longer. When she spoke she looked contemplative. "Magnus has been my best friend from childhood. I just know."

I stared off into the dark, wishing that there was something interesting to look at so I wouldn't just be gazing into empty space while she spoke to me. So they went pretty far back. She knew him better than I'd ever hope to. Way to rub it in.

"I don't really understand what you want from me." I told her. We could talk about her husband all night but what difference did it make? When all was said and done I was going home and she'd be the one to go back to him.

Her eyes looked tired and less bright than I remembered. She'd really lost sleep over all this. "I want to know that you haven't written him off completely." She explained. "It would be a mistake for me to leave him knowing he can't have the one he loves, either."

I could do nothing but gawk at the woman beside me. She couldn't leave Magnus. I couldn't be responsible for breaking up a happily married couple. Okay so they weren't happy on their own but that wasn't the point. Magnus had never even hinted he wanted to end what was going on between the two of them.

"He loves you, Camille." I stressed. I had to make her see that she was only going to hurt him.

"No, we were never in love, Alexander." She snapped. She said it like it was an obvious fact. As if she'd said something like 'Daemons aren't real, Alexander'.

Out of the blue, I was angry. Furious, even.

Never in love? Was I the only person who thought that love was a pretty vital thing to have in a relationship before you put a ring on somebody's finger? How did that even happen?

My teeth ground together as I willed myself to keep my mouth shut. It was their life, and whatever had compelled them to get married had probably done so before I was even legal. It didn't seem fair that if I was the one who'd loved him, Camille was the one who had him; but it wasn't as if any of us could have known how things would pan out.

"I was never one to settle down." She sighed again, scooting closer to me. I nearly jumped up from the bench feeling her hand against my leg. What the hell was she doing?!

Stunned, I took hold of her wrist about a second after she had her fingers wrapped around my phone. She raised a shaped eyebrow and I released her, relaxing.

Normal people would just ask instead of going for the random molesting route.

"It's nice to have a constant, I suppose, but I'm single at heart." She said as she started typing away. Not long later her phone buzzed and I realised that instead of putting her number in my phonebook she'd called herself so that she had mine.

"Camille. Even if you did leave him, it's not like I can forgive him just like that." I managed to say. The woman was overlooking what I thought completely. Even if she was hoping to help Magnus - and I got the feeling she wouldn't have if it didn't benefit her too - making him single could never change the fact that he hadn't been single.

It wouldn't change his nature, his habits. Magnus was 'single at heart', too.

"You think so lowly of him now." Camille's smile was sly, like she was having her own private joke. Somehow she found it all quite funny. It wasn't serious to her.

Camille was like Magnus. Camille was casual. She didn't understand that I'd been hurt; I could tell that much. I wasn't expecting empathy from her any more than I expected my Mother to pity Annamarie, but surely the woman had to understand why I couldn't just go running to catch Magnus if and when she dropped him.

"Magnus is more loyal than you think he is." She continued, standing up and brushing her clothes down for settling dust. "If you let him, he would give you everything. I just never let him."

I squinted at her slightly, unsure of what she meant. It sounded like a confession more than anything. I knew then that she was the one who brought Magnus to her way of thinking. I wondered what he was like before Camille. Before she got those polyamorous ideas into her head herself. Back when he knew that marrying somebody is giving them everything.

Was he still in there? That's what Camille seemed to think.

"Don't let that sister of yours delete me. Give me a call when you remember you're in love."

I got that out there faster than I thought I would. I hope that it was alright, reviewers seemed nervous about what was going to happen; so of course I got nervous about writing what did happen! Next chapter is "Late Nights" (Yup, I even made some progress).