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Though I could tell from the slight curve of my mouth that Lucinda had probably just whispered something amusing to me—she was always doing that sort of thing.

For a moment, I was transported back to that long-ago afternoon, when we'd spent hours sitting for the portrait and she'd kept making me laugh whenever the artist wasn't looking.

"Who is she?" Celeste asked softly.

I swallowed, feeling the familiar ache of grief.

"That was my wife," I told her. "Lucinda."

"Oh." Celeste looked back at the painting. "She's beautiful."

"Yes," I said quietly. "She was."

For a moment, neither of us spoke. Then Celeste looked up at me with a gentle expression.

"You must have loved her very much."

"Indeed, I did," I told her. "She was a wonderful woman, and we were very happy together."

"How long were you married?"

"Nearly twenty years," I replied. "She died ten years before the witch cast her curse upon me."

Celeste shook her head sadly.

"I'm so sorry, Garrik."

"Thank you, sweetheart."

I looked at the portrait again, remembering how devastated I'd been when Lucinda died. For a long time afterward, I couldn't bear to enter her rooms or walk through the garden she'd loved so much. Everything in the house reminded me of her, and I'd spent years wandering through those memories, wishing I could somehow bring her back.

But I never would have opened the Gateway to do it. Lucinda herself would have been horrified by the idea.

And now, as I looked from the portrait to the lovely woman standing beside me, I realized something which surprised me. For the first time in a very long while, remembering Lucinda didn't make me feel as though my life had ended when hers did.

I still loved her, of course. I always would. But the woman beside me was not Lucinda, nor was she trying to take her place. Celeste Kinderson was an entirely different person, with her own sharp tongue, generous heart, and maddening habit of arguing with everything I said.

And somehow, in the space of a single day, she'd made me feel more alive than I had in a hundred years.

"She looks happy," Celeste remarked, studying the painting.

"She was," I said softly. "At least, I hope she was."

Celeste turned to me.

"Oh, Garrik, of course she was! Look at the way she's looking at you!"

I glanced at the portrait again. Lucinda was indeed gazing up at me with unmistakable affection.

"And look at you!" Celeste continued. "You're trying so hard to look all stern and important, but you can tell you're about to smile."

I couldn't help chuckling.

"Yes, well, the artist kept telling me to look dignified. Lucinda found that extremely amusing."

"I'll bet she did!" Celeste laughed. Then she looked at me with those lovely green eyes. "You know, I bet we could have been friends. I think she would have liked me."

I looked at her for a long moment.