Tallulah was packed and ready, but it still felt like something was missing. She’d yet to make arrangements for Lilly- Tallulah had contemplated bringing the bander, but it just didn’t seem possible. She was leaving everything behind. Everything. She had to, if she wanted to give herself and Artemis the chance they needed. The chance they deserved.

The white bander was lying at her feet, snoring softly, and Tallulah was curled in her large and rarely used bed, sketching random little memories and people and mostly Artemis. Her head was filled with Artemis. But there was this doubt tugging at the recesses of her mind, something distant and growing nearer. What if it didn’t work out? What if she was just being stupid? Wasn’t this all a little too rushed, a little too chaotic? Didn’t it seem slightly unfair? They’d barely been given time to fall in love, much less revel in it, before having to- and then it hit Tallulah. Her sketching stopped as a surprised little noise made its way past her lips. ‘We’ve never said it’

And they hadn’t- not really. It’d been alluded to, the subject of love, but it had never really been spoken. Perhaps it was because the only love either of them had ever had was tainted with pain. Perhaps it was because they were both afraid the other one would run screaming in the opposite direction. And all of a sudden, the doubt doubled, and Tallulah had to fight to hold on to the shining light that was her memory of Artemis’s embrace.

Lilly stirred in her sleep, a small growl that was almost like a purr slipping from her lips. Gods…Only a month.

She’d moved the date of her party to the twentieth, instead of the thirtieth- both so they were free to leave sooner and also because she wanted the damned thing over with. She’d shoved the responsibility onto her dear friend, Miss Chiaro Viverti, who’d actually offered, but that was beside the point. All Tallulah had to do was show up, and not dump punch on anyone’s shoes- which, of course, she’d never do. Unless they insulted her artwork. Or she didn’t like them.

Heaving a sigh, she stretched her legs out, pushing Lilly aside and closing her sketchbook. On impulse, she glanced at her bags, sitting in the corner. The doubt rushed back, but so did that unmentioned emotion, both fighting to take hold in her heart.

It was going to be a long night.