She would have given anything to have heard those words before now, in a way she supposed she had given anything - she'd given her husband an opportunity to die before he'd uttered them. These past months, truly years now, she had been drowning without them, had wanted nothing more than for the ship to creak and Evander's fissure to crack. She'd reminded herself time and again that he must love her, that they were too different for him not to have married her without love, but her resolve had faded more each day until she'd felt grey and limp like a photograph whose enchantment had worn off and had stilled in its frame.

But now, hearing them, now, they made her angry and happy at the same time. She could cry, she could laugh, she could rage. "I know." She told him, a smile on her lips, for it was the truth, no matter her doubt - doubt which crept unbidden into her tone, cross and scolding. "It wouldn't have hurt to tell me before you were almost eaten by a dragon though." Caroline found herself scolding him, full of contradictions and emotions, a sea of which she had bottled up and now spilled about them.