.:dangerous beauty:.

They've sent almost everyone, Marco and Mercutio and even Melina and her grandmother, and there's nothing I can do but wait here. Endymion's not well, and Liane...I don't know what to make of her. I just know what her measurements are. They're not helpful for knowing what to make of her.

Once this war's over, no-one is allowed to start another. I can't stand this waiting and waiting and watching and praying and hoping. For all that I know Jamie is a good soldier, I'm dreadful at being a soldier's wife, or a soldier's sister. I just want everyone here with me, home and safe and protected. Why can't it ever be like that?

If I asked the birds to come, asked them to deliver everyone home safely, safe and alive and well and whole...would they? Would the dark man do it? Or would it turn out as badly as Mercutio thinks?

It's wonderful here. It's wonderful and beautiful and it's home. There's all sorts of fruit to be had and everything is beautiful. I keep saying that, but it's true and I feel like if I close my eyes for too long, it'll vanish and I'll be stuck back in Bath in that dreadful little house with her, covered in grey and shadows and worries. But I haven't yet. I keep waking up to my Luce and to breakfast with Mamma and Pappa and my family and all the people who love me, and to sewing anything but altar cloths, and to walks in the conservatory with Luce, and to playing with Fiorella and Rosalia, and to so much more joy than I thought was possible. I'm still afraid, sometimes. I'm still afraid and I get lost in these black fogs if I sit and think too long on what happened, on the bees, and I feel like I can't get out. Maybe she was right, maybe there is a sort of madness in me. But Mamma doesn't screetch like she used to, she doesn't. I don't want to ever see Mamma angry, but I don't think she'd screetch.

And I found a kitten! Or rather, she found me. She's all white with these little red ears and a red splotch on her back, and big blue eyes. I'd seen her around a bit, one of the Manor cats had kittens--more than one, I'm sure, there are so many--but she just started following me around, and before I quite knew it, she had clawed her way up my skirts to sit in my lap, and so, my kitten found me. I think I'm going to call her Musetta, if Mamma says I can keep her. I hope so. I'd like to have something to cuddle when we go back to school, since I know I can't keep Luce in the dorm with me! I'm not quite ready to think of school outside of that. It's beyond cruel for the Gods to give me my family all at once, and then, two weeks later, demand I leave them to stay in that forsaken patch of Scotland. It's almost too terrible to bear!