Private Tales Sighing Shadows by the Light of the Moons

[Galen]

That got his attention. Well, more of it anyway - shocking since he’d been raptly stating this whole time, but at the mention of her willingness to learn his head came off the wall.

“You mean it?” His fingers tightened around her hand, “You’ll use it? You won’t just toss it away? Course I’ll help you, silly.”

Ideas ran rampant through his overactive mind.

“Well we already know you can do all kinds of stuff with heat and fire I’m sure, but there’s spells with light - maybe a photokinetic doplar affixment for translucency of an object. Wouldn’t that be something.”

He stopped blabbing, pausing to chew his cheek again. “I don’t know about the blood thing though, you’d uh… what prick your finger and paint it on me?”

That seemed… Galen stared at her in wonderment, half-appalled, half-enthralled by the thought.

He tried to ignore the part about the money. He’d just refuse. A man had to have some dignity. Wait, did she say three rubies?

Ciana

 

[Ciana]

She gave a small smile and nodded, fingers tightening lightly where his still held hers. “I’ll… try,” she murmured nervously. She wasn’t making any promises, just speaking the words felt like saying something out of a storybook. The very idea that she could wield any sort of real magic still seemed absolutely ludicrous to her.

Then he was off with his big words again, all strange syllables and impossible-sounding spells. She blinked, then laughed, her smile bright with amusement. “Uhm yes, photokintik dropal transluncar fixers, exactly.” Her head tilted at him, teasing. “If I can even manage being outside in daylight, maybe I’ll actually be able to attend some classes too…” she added with a shrug, chewing nervously at her lip.

Her attention drifted back to the inked markings on his skin, her fingertip resuming its slow tracing, considering the blood magic. “A little… garish, perhaps,” she said softly, “but if that’s how it works then… yes?” Her brows rose a little, questioning.

She fell quiet for a moment, tracing a small curve of rune before she finally decided to ask what had been on the edge of her mind. “Will you tell me,” she asked gently, eyes lifting to his, “about the people who hurt you? How much do you owe them exactly?”

 

[Galen]

Galen grimaced. “Oh. You looking for like, numbers?”

He chuckled nervously. “Would you imagine, every time I ask them the number gets higher? Something they call interest. Anyway it’s uh.”

Blue eyes skittered away from her, embarrassed and ashamed.

“It’s a lot. Like. Even you would think it’s a lot. My old master said he would pay for the college, so I took out the loans. Then he disappeared. I even tried joining a mercenary company to pay them off but… between the gambling and the boozing and the wh-“ he glanced sideways at her, “horrendous luck. Nothing worked. Now they want me to pay them back by the new year or… or it’s goodbye Galen. Anyway. I owe them um…”

The mage sniffed and shrugged the shoulder she wasn’t leaning against. He liked the way her fingertip felt tracing those runes. This had to be a dream. Except maybe one of the best he ever had.

Galen finally mumbled a number of a sum so staggering that he could have probably bought three of her mansions if he had it.

Ciana

 

[Ciana]

Her brow knit tighter and tighter as she listened, fingertips slowing in their tracing until they stilled altogether. “You really think they’d.. try to kill you?” she asked in a small, aghast voice. The thought alone seemed unreal to her, so far beyond the bubble of her sheltered life that she struggled to comprehend it.

When he murmured the amount, though, her eyes widened, lips parting in shock. She sat up a little straighter, panic fluttering in her chest like a startled bird. “Galen… How- you can’t possibly have...” she stammered, unable to even finish the thought.

Her hand slid over his, squeezing tight. “I… I can help with some of it. For now. Until we find a solution for the rest,” she said quickly. “Enough to make them stop hurting you, at least?" Her gaze searched his desperately, hopeful he wouldn’t refuse her.

Ciana never cared for money, or jewels, or gilded rooms she had no freedom to enjoy. She did like her dresses, yes, but what use were silks and satins when they hung unworn in a wardrobe? She had never wanted for anything in her life, save her health, and it made her priorities simple.

Galen mattered. Far more than anything material ever could.

"Do.. you have family? A home?.." she frowned, realising she didn't know, she hadn't asked.

 

[Galen]

He squeezed her hand back but his shoulders hunched defensively and he drew in on himself.

“No it’s ok I…”

The gap between their positions in life seemed like a yawning chasm. How could he ever understand the world she came from, or she understand him? He hated those thoughts. Horribly.

“I mean a little might help keep them off my back but,” he grimaced, “I thought I was onto a treasure trove once. Would’ve paid everything back in one go. They don’t care though. They’ll just keep squeezing until there’s nothing left. And then they’ll throw me in the river or something.”

He frowned a little.

“Because no… I don’t have anyone. Nobody would come looking for the body. The guards would just shrug you know. Like how they do when there’s a corpse that washes up and nobody knows them.” Of course she didn’t know about that, that was the life of the common folk of Elbion.

Galen stared at the floor, so he didn’t have to meet her eyes. Not having a family made him feel less than whole. Once he’d had a tutor, a master. A friend.

Not anymore.

His gaze switched to the ceiling, studiously avoiding her.

“I’ll figure it out. I always do.”

Ciana

 

[Ciana]

She could see the shame he tried to hide. Her fingers were cool and delicate as she turned his face back toward her, the insistence of her touch leaving no space for him to retreat into himself.

“I care… You have me…” she affirmed. Her thumb brushed absently across his cheek, slow and steady.

“We can figure it out…”

Ciana drew in a shaky breath and sighed, dragging up her own truths. “My mother had been sick for so long, for so many years, that she became less of a wife and more of a burden to my father…He married again, not so long after she died, and then I got sick, and I became the burden. He had a new wife and two new children to raise. He could barely look at me, I was just a painful reminder, he rarely visited my rooms. I had no friends, of course. My step mother kept my young siblings away from me, in case I was contagious. Life went on around me and I was left behind, just… waiting to die.”

She gave a little laugh at how pathetic it sounded, but didn’t pull the words back. “I wished every day for someone to care about me enough to figure out what was wrong with me… or just, to stay long enough to tell me things about the world that I didn't know about, or to calm me when I had one of my ‘episodes’…” her lips twisted faintly at the old word.

“Then I met you.” Her eyes flicked up, catching his, a soft arch of her brow as though daring him to contradict her. “And you did all of those things. And I will not allow anyone to throw you in any river,” she promised, quiet but fierce.

Her expression shifted, a resolute mask trying terribly to hide the pain beneath it. “I think I’ve known for some time that I was never meant to go back home… they had no intention of letting me return after what happened. But honestly I feel so much less alone in the last week than I have the last ten years, and I don’t... I don't want to go home. I don’t know if I’d ever fit into that world again.”

She swallowed, eyes shimmering as they held his. “I want to be in this one. In your one. Wherever that is. We can leave this place. You can teach me. I don’t need Elbion…” she drew a breath, voice soft but sure.

“Just you.”

 

[Galen]

Didn't need Elbion? Galen's gaze lurched from the ceiling and down to her, wincing at the ardor in her gaze. She'd really do it. Leave, just the two of them.

"I-" his throat grew very tight, constricting. She wanted him to just leave? He had tried before, with the mercenaries, but had never intended to be gone forever. He'd grown up here. Had dreamed as a child of going to the College. And now he was finally there. Finally making it.

Well.

Aside from the bankers and the mercenaries of course. And the dragon worshippers.

"Ciana, Elbion is my home. I can't just leave it. I don't want you to leave either. Why can't we just stay here, you know? I still have to finish my curriculum. Not even a real graduate yet." He left out that graduating the college could take decades. Most never truly did "graduate" in any real sense of the word, except to the next level of mastery over magic.

"And you can't either. I mean. Not really. Even if we did run off into the woods I wouldn't know how to teach you how to control it. Most of what I know comes from the books in the library and asking some of the maesters hypotheticals. They love hypotheticals."

The shimmering in her eyes of unshed tears crushed him. He couldn't bear to see her cry again. Not twice in one night.

"Don't you take that the wrong way. We've only just met, but every moment we spend together feels like... like... like I'm floating. Like I'm touchin' clouds. I don't think I've ever been happier."

He held out a hand and stroked her cheek. "I'm sorry about your ma. I get it. Mine died too."

Ciana

 

[Ciana]

Her cheeks burned crimson as the reality of what she’d just blurted out came crashing down on her. Gods, she really had read too many ridiculous romance books. She sat up and curled a stray lock of hair around her ear, staring at the floor, shaking her head.

“N-no… of course not, I—” she started, the words tumbling out awkwardly. She sat up straighter, refraining from the urge to bury her face in her hands.

A shaky breath escaped her, her gaze still fixed on the carpet as she tried to steady her voice. “I only meant that you’re not safe here, Galen. Curriculums don’t matter to dead men.” The words came sharper, but there was a tremor under them. “But if you think you can survive long enough to graduate, then…” she trailed off, fingers curling into the sofa on either side of her, as though bracing herself.

Her stomach twisted with a nervous, dizzying warmth as he spoke about how he felt, and then the quiet sympathy he’d offered her. It was too much and not enough all at once.

“This is all… really new to me. Everything. I have no idea what I’m doing with any of it…” she confessed in a whisper.

“If you need a safe place to stay,” she said softly, lifting her eyes at last to meet his, “I can give you the key to the spare suite across the hallway. But… you must be quiet. My staff think it’s empty.”

 

[Galen]

"Really? You'd do that?" For the fellow who burgled her not four nights back? Galen didn't deserve to be in her good graces. He watched her twirl a lock of her hair, transfixed. The boy smiled sheepish again, gaze drifting past her to the bed beyond. He swallowed.

"If... that's where you think I should stay tonight," he said, meaning the suite but looking toward that massive bed of course, with the posters and all the blankets. Far nicer than a bedroll. Better than the hard bunks the college afforded too. And entirely not the reason he found it appealing.

Cobalt eyes, very dark and very, very serious, looked back to her and her locks of golden hair spilling out around her face like a halo of sunlight.

"I can be quiet," he whispered.

Not really referring to sitting silent in the suite. No. Not what he meant at all.

Ciana

 

[Ciana]

Her breath hitched, heat blooming under her skin and painting roses on her cheeks. She knew exactly where his eyes had gone, exactly what he meant without saying it. The air between them seemed to hum with it, charged and unsteady, like the moment before a summer storm.

“I…” she began, her voice small and uncertain, then steadied it with a swallow. “You can’t sleep in here, Galen…” she whispered, as though her own staff, or perhaps even her father, hundreds of miles away, might somehow overhear them through the walls.

Her lashes lowered, casting little crescents of shadow over her cheeks, her voice soft and warm with an edge of breathless guilt. “The guest suite is just as comfortable… and it’s only across the hall…” she murmured, the faintest tremor of a smile at the corner of her lips betraying how scandalous the suggestion felt to her even as she said it.

"I take supper in my rooms most often.." she said. She was usually too weak to make it downstairs and back to the dining room. "Will you sup with me? Livinia thinks I'm too skinny and is forever trying to fatten me up, there's never a meal I don't return to her less than half finished.. I can just insist I've found my appetite.." she laughed under her breath.

 

[Galen]

A smirk appeared on Galen's lips at her bashfulness at his implication. Ah well, can't blame me for trying.

"Dinner and a suite, the Hotel de Ciana." He bopped her on the nose with a finger. "Course I'll eat with you."

His stomach threatened to rumble at just the thought of a fresh cooked meal. Mmmm. And maybe some warm bread. A nice stew. Gods, his mouth watered at the mere thought. He licked his lips.

"I guess I should go over there and pass out then. You... you're too nice and all, you know. Maybe while we eat we can take a look at those books. I've got to return them soon anyway. Can grab a few more from the library. Actually, library wouldn't be a bad spot to study too whenever you're feeling up to walking about again. College grounds are safe enough from the people after me. Usually."

Ciana

 

[Ciana]

Her nose still tingled faintly where he’d tapped it, and her eyes danced with amusement at the unfamiliar gesture. No one had ever done such a thing to her before. It was silly and playful and boyish and it left her cheeks warm. He wanted to eat with her, and he thought she was nice. Saints above. She dropped her gaze shyly, a little smile tugging at her mouth as she shrugged.

“Oh, yes please…” she said, excited at his suggestions of books and libraries. “There’s much I don’t understand in the books, and I would very much like to visit the library again. I didn’t really get to fully appreciate it last time.” A slight grimace followed, the memory of her last chaotic visit still too embarrassing.

“Alright. I’ll go arrange supper. I will fetch you when it’s time to eat.” Her tone lifted, light with the rare spark of anticipation that came from imagining company at her table.

After stealing a glance down the corridor to be certain no one lingered, she slipped across the hall and unlocked the spare suite for him. Though a little smaller than her own, it was still finer than most would ever enjoy: a plush bed piled high with blankets, shelves waiting to be filled, a writing desk, a little hearth, and even a washroom. The windows looked out over the sprawl of city rooftops, with the college’s towers rising beyond.

Leaving him to settle, she padded downstairs toward the kitchens. The cook and kitchen maid startled at the sight of her. She had never in her life ventured here.. She had barely left her rooms at all, except to see Galen. Both women curtsied hastily, questions spilling about her health.

“I’m quite alright, just feeling more hungry than usual today. Is supper ready? I can take it upstairs, no need to fret,” she assured them with a warm smile.

Though sceptical, the women helped her heap a tray with far more than one young woman could reasonably eat: a generous plate of roast meat, buttery vegetables, crisp potatoes roasted golden, a basket of warm bread that scented the air, sweet fruits, and a jug of wine.

“I can manage, I insist, thank you ladies!” Ciana said brightly, lifting the weighty tray with more determination than strength. The two exchanged a knowing look, given that last week she could hardly hold up her own books, and now she toted half a feast, but neither argued.

She took her time up the stairs, careful with each step, until at last she eased the laden tray onto the table in her chamber. Catching her breath and tucking a stray golden curl behind her ear, she crossed the hall once more. Her knuckles rapped lightly against Galen’s door, just a quiet knock, and waited at her table for him to join her..

 

[Galen]

He followed her out the door, eyes peeled for trouble although he supposed trouble in this case came in the form of angry maidservants. Absurdly different lives they led. She unlocked the door to his “suite” and Galen stepped inside.

For a moment his mouth hung open, surely this was the biggest room he’d ever stayed in. Then he immediately went over to the bed. He caught himself before launching onto it, remembering to take off his boots so he didn’t begrime the nice bed. He tugged them off and set them at the foot of the bed.

Then the very tired, very stressed mage collapsed into bed and all of the plush blankets. So warm. So soft. So… he yawned, stretched, and lay back.

Incredible.

She’s be back in a moment and he would just… would just… would…

Galen fell asleep.

So soundly asleep he didn’t even hear the rapping of her knuckles on the door until the last one, at which he startled up, hair askew.

“Oh right, dinner,” he mumbled.

Half a zombie, he made his way out the door and into her chamber, quickly taking a seat at the table. His stomach gurgled at the array of food.

“You get to eat like this whenever you like?” He asked, incredulous.

Ciana

 

[Ciana]

Ciana’s eyes softened as she took in his dishevelled appearance, realising just how exhausted he must have been. Her lips twitched into a small, amused smile as she smoothed out her skirts, brushing a stray curl behind her ear and nodding in response to his question..

“You should see the banquets we have whenever my father or stepmother are trying to impress someone…” she said with a light huff, a faint laugh escaping her at the memory. She reached across the table, holding out a fork and knife toward him.

“Help yourself,” she insisted, pouring two cups of wine with careful hands. Her gaze lingered on him for a moment, warm and watchful. "It's pheasant." she nodded to the meat. "Goes wonderfully with the redcurrant jam.." she said, stabbing her fork into a carrot.

 

[Galen]

Perhaps unfortunately for Ciana, Galen didn't quite understand the application of a fork. He accepted the instruments with a frown, then proceeded to use them in a manner best resembling a shovel and... another shovel. Two shovels at once, Galen started trenching up his plate with alarming speed. He dumped carrots into his mouth to the point he resembled a chipmunk, chewed twice, and swallowed.

"Guh, that's good."

One might think that he didn't get enough to eat on a regular basis.

They would be correct.

Galen started doing the same to the pheasant, taking her advice and smearing great gobs of the jam on top and then shoving whole pieces into his mouth, abandoning all pretense at utensils for his bare hands.

"Mmmmnnf," he gasped around a mouthful of the fowl meat. "Incredible."

He paused to catch his breath and rinse it down with a gulp of wine, then caught the look she was giving him.

"I uh... sorry. This is just really good."

Ciana

 

[Ciana]

Ciana had never in her life witnessed such a spectacle at the dinner table. Slowly, almost instinctively, she settled back against her chair and let the tray rest between them, delicately nibbling at the single roasted carrot speared on her fork while watching him in fascination. Amusement tugged at the corners of her mouth, and she fought to keep from laughing outright as he abandoned his fork entirely and tore into the pheasant with his hands.

It was endearing, in a way. And sobering too. Clearly, he wasn’t accustomed to meals like this, while she, who had always had them, had so often let her appetite waste away untouched. A thing taken for granted, she realised solemnly.

Still, that he enjoyed it so... audibly, brought a soft chuckle past her lips. Her head tilted, golden curls falling over one shoulder as she observed him. When he caught her gaze and stumbled through an apology, she shook her head, her lips curving warmly despite the mess he was making.

“I’m happy that you’re enjoying it so much,” she said honestly, setting her fork neatly down and dabbing at her mouth with her napkin after her solitary carrot. Reaching for her wine, she lifted the cup, Obanian vintage, and sipped, her eyes never quite leaving him, as though his delight was more satisfying to her than the meal itself.

"Will you tell me more about.. Well, you?.." she asked over the rim of her cup.

 

[Galen]

The mage pointed at his own chest, eyes wide, as he choked down another bit of fowl smothered in jam. He chewed, then gulped down another half of the glass of the wine. Damn, but it was good wine. At least, it tasted far better than the sour grapes he usually got at the taverns.

"Me? Oh, um, yeah sure," he frowned, not sure when the last time someone asked who genuinely cared. "Well... I guess..." he guess they started at the very beginning, "Mom worked for a madame in town and had me. I grew up around them for a while, then my mother died and the madame fell on hard times and all. I went out on the street. Did uh..." his eyes slid sidelong, "some urchin related activities and such. 'Til I discovered I could do small magic. You know just some flashy tricks, some illusions. Caught the eye of a mage who said he'd pay for my college and take me on as an apprentice."

His fork did idle circles on the plate.

"Until he disappeared and left me with all this debt."

What else did she want to know about? The Thronebreaker company? Drakormir's Tome? He was pretty sure he hadn't breathed a word about the Book of Wyrms to her. Not light reading. Prone to draw dragon cultists, even from far away Malakath.

Ciana

 

[Ciana]

Ciana blinked, tilting her head, golden brows knitting.
“A… madame? Is that like a Lady?..” she asked, her voice full of earnest naivety. She clearly had no grasp of what he truly meant, though her expression softened with sympathy as his story unfolded.

“Goodness… That must have been difficult,” she murmured, her heart tugging as she pictured him on the streets, alone. However he had survived, whatever he had done, well, she couldn’t bring herself to judge. He had simply been trying to live, just as he still was.

“Where have you been living now?..” she asked after a pause, her worry plain in the furrow of her brow and the way her hand hovered near her cup but never quite lifted it. She dreaded the thought that he might still be sleeping on stone floors and cold alleyways.

Her lips curved faintly then, though, at the mention of his magic. “Your magic is quite lovely…” she confessed softly, shaking her head. “I have never seen anything like it before. We didn’t speak of such things at home. I believed magic to be a vile and ugly thing, a terrible thing… but yours…” Her gaze lingered on him, wide and almost shining. “It isn’t like that at all.”

 

[Galen]

Galen's cheeks turned crimson. "Oh. Well thanks."

He didn't know how to tell her about the difference between a lady and a madame. That seemed like one of those show, don't tell moments in life.

"The college has some dormitories that they rent out and then sometimes at the inns when those aren't available."

The dormitories were mostly for visiting scholars anyway. Most of the students at Elbion were from rich households who'd bought their way into the college, so they all lived out in the town.

Galen finished the meal with her, chatting about their lives and constantly wondering over the gap between the two lives they'd led. Eventually, he went to bed. The next few days passed with a strange sort of routine. During the day, Galen would disappear to go attend a class or two and research in the library. At night, he would go over his notes and books while eating dinner and staying up talking with Ciana.

One day, before heading out, Galen asked her if she thought she should try venturing out into the daylight again.

"You have to try eventually, don't you?"

Ciana

 

[Ciana]

Ciana had grown used to the rhythm of their days, his absence when the sun was high, his return with stories of lectures and the strange world of the College that she tried to drink in like water after drought. Evenings were her favourite, when he spread his books across the table and translated all the words she didn’t understand, patient even when she asked the same questions more than once. She realised, with a quiet sort of amusement, that her staff seemed entirely oblivious to the new routine. Either that, or they had chosen not to see.

She had begun to look better, at least outwardly. Her cheeks had a healthier flush, her appetite had improved a little, and five ruby stones now sat safely hidden away, each humming faintly with the energy she had managed to pour into them. She managed to channel some of the energy in small ways, warming basins of water and cups of tea, and sometimes, when Galen was chilled by the night air, she dared let the magic slip free in the smallest measure, warming his hands or the space between them.

But the question of sunlight… of stepping beyond the safety of her shutters and curtains… that still weighed heavy on her. She remembered vividly the weakness, the pain and the sickness that clung to her bones like poison whenever she tried before. And yet, when Galen asked if she should try again, she saw the quiet encouragement in his eyes and knew he was right. She couldn’t hide forever.

“I… think I can try,” she murmured at last, reluctant.

She dressed with care, pulling her cloak tight about her shoulders, hood drawn low. Her hand found his arm, hesitant at first, then holding with trust, and together they stepped out.

The brightness hit her like a blow, daggers behind her eyes, but she endured. They made their way slowly through the park, where beneath the swaying veil of a willow tree she found some measure of reprieve. There, heart still fluttering, she lowered her hood and dared to look.

The pond shimmered with sunlit diamonds, the sky stretched wide and endlessly blue, white puffs of clouds lazily drifting by. Her eyes watered, but she refused to look away, not yet.

“This… is bright,” she whispered, breathless, a small laugh escaping her. She pressed closer to the tree’s shade, leaning lightly on Galen’s arm for courage, but her lips curled in something like wonder.

 

[Galen]

The wind rustled the weeping boughs of the willow which curtained them in shade as they stood beneath it, close to the old tree's big trunk. Galen watched the dancing branches and the sparkling blue of the pond in the citrine sunlight beyond and the green of the grass. Had he ever enjoyed simply being alive this much? Maybe when he was younger...

"Yeah. Sun's bright," he agreed simply, content to just smile and bask in the moment. Though the sun was bright, it certainly wasn't warm with fall approaching and Galen wore his big, dark coat with the collar turned up to shield his face. He'd found a beat-up tricorn and wore it as well, trying to conceal his features as she did hers.

"You feeling alright?" Concerned, he watched as she lowered the hood and looked around in wonderment.

"I mean... you have seen the sun before at some point, right?"

Had she never ever been truly in sunlight? That seemed... terrible. Galen certainly enjoyed the cool nights perched on some balcony, drinking someone else's wine and watching the city. But there was something about Elbion in the sunlight that couldn't compare.

"Never go to Amol-Kalit, by the way. The way the sand reflects the sunlight. I think you'd probably just turn into a pillar of flame on the spot."

Ciana

 

[Ciana]

"You have no idea," she murmured softly, still blinking against the harshness of the light, even in the shade. It seemed almost alive, stabbing through the delicate veil of her lashes. She turned to glance over her shoulder at him, a faint smile tugging nervously at her lips. “I have.. just not in many years.”

The sunlight had once been her enemy. It had stolen her strength, stolen her mother. Yet here she was, daring to face it again.

She let out a quiet, breathy laugh and nodded at his jest. “Noted,” she said, warm with amusement.

Then, slowly, she slipped off one of her gloves. The air kissed her bare skin, cool compared to the light beyond. Her fingers trembled as she brushed aside the curtain of willow branches. For a heartbeat, she only stared at the dappled sunlight flickering across her hand, and then, summoning her courage, she extended it into the glow.

Her heart thudded violently in her chest. The light met her skin like a living thing, not pain, but a pulse, a hum that tingled through her fingers. A startled gasp escaped her lips and she snatched her hand back, pressing it against her chest, breath coming fast and shallow.

Her wide eyes darted to Galen’s, searching. His presence steadied her, and she reached for his hand, threading her fingers through his as though anchoring herself to him.

Once more, she slipped her bare hand into the light. The tingling returned, stronger this time, a soft, spreading warmth that filled her veins like liquid gold.

“Don’t let go,” she whispered, voice small but sure.

Step by careful step, she moved forward until the sunlight crept up her cloaked arm, brushing her shoulder, her throat, then finally her face. She gasped, eyes squeezing shut at the sharp and sudden brightness, clutching tighter to him as though the light might swallow her whole.

“Goodness,” she breathed..