Séraphine (Eternelles: A Prequel, Book 0.5) by Zee Monodee, Natalie G. Owens Page B

he had just mentioned, she’d likely have come out unscathed, without a single burn or smoke-related injury. She’d have looked the same way she’d gone in. Her phoenix blood ensured she would. What else Sera could possibly be, she didn’t know. Adri’s intermittent searches into her provenance had proved fruitless so far.
    She snuck another glance at the stranger, his profile thoughtful again. Could be he felt as lost, as disconnected from reality as she sometimes was. Maybe that familiar emotion was why he’d piqued her interest, plucked at a loose thread in her memory bank.
    Does anyone love you, handsome stranger? Do you love anyone? 
    She shrugged inwardly. It didn’t really matter for they all simply lived their lives—and for her, things had been good. Of all people, she had the least reason to complain of a heavy heart.
    After she let William pay for their meals upon his insistence that “a real man always took care of his woman”—the only one of her fiancé’s qualities that irked her mother, the ultimate feminist, to no end—they emerged in the crisp evening air.
    A cursory glance showed her the man no longer sat at his table, which had since been cleared and prepared for another patron. Sera frowned, oddly disappointed as she’d wanted to get a good look at his face from a better angle. When had he left?
    She brushed the thought away and took in Mayfair’s pretty electric city lights that sparkled over the busy establishments. The last time she’d see them for a while.
    Exhilaration thrilled the air as the largest ship ever prepared to sail the next day from Southampton: The Titanic. She’d be on it, a part of history in the making, standing on deck watching England become smaller and smaller in the distance. Her mother planned to leave at the break of dawn. She’d never understood Adri’s reluctance to travel under the cloak of darkness. Too dangerous, her mum said.
    Sera shrugged. She shouldn’t be thinking about all that. Her thoughts should be on the fact that she’d be with the man of her dreams, the love of her life, and soon-to-be husband. Her mother would travel with them and spend some time in America enjoying the glamor of New York. Sera couldn’t ask for more other than the person who’d meant most to her growing up would be present to share in her joy. Everyone she loved, right there, with her….
    “Are you sure you don’t want to call a cab?”
    Sera smiled. “It’s such a wonderful evening. Cold, but that doesn’t bother me much.”
    William shook his head. “I swear, you amaze me sometimes. As far as I’m concerned, I’m glad for this thick overcoat.”
    “I was sure living in Sweden had made you immune to these temperatures. Come on now,” she teased.
    After giving her a peck on the lips, he linked her arm with his and they started down the pavement.  They didn’t talk much, just enjoyed the sights. She turned and studied William’s handsome profile as they walked quietly together, a slow trek back to her home. He hadn’t changed much since the early university days in Lund, Sweden, where they’d first met and found their language in common as outsiders trying to fit in. The language of shared interests—the theater, music, art, beauty, books, and study. The language of love. Everyone had thought them made for each other, and Adri encouraged the relationship, wanting a normal life for her daughter. And so, their engagement was a matter of when rather than why. It seemed now that William’s parents were anxious to meet the non-American girl who’d stolen their son’s heart.
    In forty minutes or so, they found themselves on a street illuminated by electric lanterns, just one turn from Sera’s townhouse and around the back.
    William looked suspiciously ahead. “I prefer seeing you to the door,” he said when she told him she could go on alone.
    Her laughter tinkled in rhythm with their last steady footsteps together. “You would fit right in as a knight