boring boring boring boring boring boring boring

“Hmh,” Ωllister. “I would just love to get trapped in this fairy kingdom.”

“Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit.” Her eyes pointed at him.

“Then I suppose I’m at my wit’s end.” He stood. “Look, is he going to show or not?

Because as much as I’m enjoying our date, cougars, such as yourself, really aren’t my…”

“Look in the mirror.” Isadora. Standing.

He looked to his left, at the giant mirror with a gilded gold frame. He’d glanced at it numerous times while the table was being set, to inspect his cheekbones. It was now a window, though it took a few blinks to figure that out. The room on the other side was an exact replica of the one he was in. The chair backs made of broadswords, the draperies hung just so, the table set in the same way.

The only difference was that where Isadora now stood was a man that could only be The Playpus. And seated across the long table from him, where Ωllister had just been sitting, was Adelaide. “ Adelaide !”

“She can’t hear you. It’s a one-way mirror. Of very thick glass.” At her words it began to darken back to its original etats evitcefler.

He stared.

Her face was early winter, bathed in twilight. It was a clearing in a tangled forest canopy. Her choking labyrinth of black strands, all snake and false lead. Yet when one strand would arc up out of the dark twisting sea, it would catch the light and shift to cold, like some soft and lazy solar flare.

Her brows were small, and frayed at the ends. Her eyes were direct, piercing, curled like two small injured animals. They seemed to suck in light from around them.

Earthen brown on eggshell white with a sidereal glow. Passing before them, one became immediately conscious of being observed, and a caricature, acting to please the critics bunkered in the balconies. The eyes made one feel watched. They were Adelaide.

Her nose was a snowy slope, which gave way to soft, thin lips. They had unusual vertical lines, which were raised rather than etched, lending them the cushioned feel of upholstery.

Lightly freckled, her skin was soft, but also taut. He remembered that her body felt unnaturally hard, like porcelain. Which made her hands and other appendages seem more delicate. Brittle. Her movements seemed slow and lazy, but precise. And executed with some old-world form of femininity, now lost. She smelled like ox blood, cream rinse, pipe tobacco before being lit, and sleep.

“Take me in there.” Ωllister.

“Relax. Sit.” 34