Chapter 13: Whose Handwriting

"I didn't send you a letter," James said.

Felix went very still against his chest.

"I never wrote you anything," James said. "I've never met a man more worth writing to, and I still didn't."

"The old James wrote it. A year ago."

"The old James didn't either. I have his memories, and there's no letter in them."

James sat up, which took effort, and dragged his trunk across the rug with one foot.

He dug under the spare shirts until he found the folded square at the bottom.

"I found this on my first day."

Felix took it with both hands and read it.

I read your letter. Don't write to me again. F.

"That's mine," Felix said. "That's my hand."

"I know. I've been carrying it around for weeks like a bruise."

"You never said."

"You were being nice to me. I wanted to keep it."

"Keep what?"

"The bruise. It was a reason not to get attached."

Felix stared at him.

"That's the stupidest plan I've ever heard."

"It had a ninety percent success rate until the ivy."

Felix laughed once, helplessly, and then his face broke.

"I thought you'd been laughing at me," he said. "For a whole year. I thought you'd written that, signed it, and gone back to your books."

"What did it say?"

Felix did not answer.

He reached into the breast of his shirt and drew out a square of paper worn soft from handling.

"You kept it on you?" James asked.

"I didn't know where else to put it."

James unfolded it carefully.

It was written in a fine, slanting hand, and it was signed James Phoenix with a flourish under the P.

The letter said that the Phoenix family had no memory of the Ashfall Winter.

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