Your mouth was very dry when you said: “My affections lie buried in the Locked Tomb.”
“And let them lie,” she said, laughingly, and not very kindly.
[image description: a digital illustration of a scene from the locked tomb series. it shows ianthe leaning over to kiss harrow in a hallway in the mithraeum. harrow turns away with an angry expression as ianthe cups her face and kisses her cheek. text below, surrounded by a decorative border of bones, reads, “you said, ‘i appreciate your part in this, tridentarius,’ but before you could stop her, she drew you close with her living arm, and she bent her head to yours. you understood this inevitability only a second before it happened. perhaps there was a dark universe in which you reached for her; in another you exploded her heart in her chest. in this one, as she lowered her mouth, you turned your face away, and her kiss fell on the side of your jaw.”]