Darlington made a hesitant, wandering circuit of the grounds while he waited, from the pond with its ever-verdant scum of algae to the sinister clumps of foxglove near the sunroom windows; through the overgrown rose garden down towards the hedge maze and back again. The slope at the back of the grounds now looks down on the rolling fields of Darrow's countryside, not the line of houses along Edgewood with the spires of campus just beyond, but everything else is no different than it might have been in New Haven.

He doesn't understand it, wants to question and investigate, tease out the how and why of this unexpected restoration of his heart, and perhaps in time he will. For today, it's enough just to marvel at it.

Hearing the sound of a car door slamming just behind him, he looks back, something in his chest soothed by the sight of Alex coming up the drive. She's just as awed, as disbelieving, as he had been, and when she's close enough he reaches for her hand.

"I haven't gone inside yet," he says. "I...it's absurd, but it felt like I might break some kind of spell if I did."