"Yes," she agreed, but her tone was distant. "Yes, I think so." Lysander Darcy. She wished she hadn't had to know his name. It would make it all that much harder to leave, and to stay away. She had seen Darcy as a child, after all, so how could she keep herself from imagining all of the ways that this child might grow up similarly, or differently? How could she live in the shadows somewhere and not constantly be wondering what her son was like?

Not her son, Lyra thought firmly. Her contribution to the boy's life ended here; everything else she could do for him would only be to his detriment. She had carried him for nine months, and had labored to give birth to him, but now he was no longer hers. He couldn't possibly be hers. This was August's son, now, and maybe if she thought of him like that — and only like that — the idea of being apart from him might become bearable.

"I should get that dress, now," she said, her voice a little hollow as though her thoughts were far away from her actual words — which, of course, they were. "How much time is left before the sun comes up?"

  

August tugged his watch out of his trouser pocket, popping it open to glance at the time. It was a hopelessly normal gesture. "Four hours, just about," he said, squinting blearily at the watch. Was it really this late? Suddenly August felt tired, bone-deep - he was going to have to rid his home of the body before sunrise, probably wrapped in the bloodied sheets so that the maid wouldn't be too disturbed.

He closed the watch and slipped it back into his pocket.

"I love you, you know," August said.

---

  

---

set by Bree

Lyra paused, turning over his words in her head, or maybe cataloging them in her memory. "I know," she said softly. That August loved her was what had gotten them into this mess, on so many levels. There would not have been a baby if he hadn't loved her. The two of them wouldn't have tried to elope if he didn't love her, and maybe she wouldn't have been in the forest that night...

But that was all in the past, and there was nothing they could do to change the past. The only thing left to her was the future — an endless future, such that it was, without him.

"I love you, too," she said eventually, her voice laced with pain. "Goodbye, August."