DESTINE MADE HER way to him, watching the man's sullen expression gradually change to an altogether brighter one as she stepped into view up the small embankment. Despite the elixir healing his cuts and bruises while he had slept, Quaint's face was as worn and weather-beaten as usual, a mainstay of his mature years that he would have to live with. Not that it bothered him, and Destine was used to the craggy rock-face, and had rather warmed to it over the years. She smiled as she approached him and noticed his mop of ivory curls, peeking from underneath his tophat.
'I love your hair,' she said.
'Apparently it makes me look wise,' replied Quaint.
'Well…that is certainly a much needed improvement then.'
'Et tu, Destine?' asked Quaint.
She smiled, and wrapped her arms around him. 'What on earth are you doing standing out here all alone, Cornelius?'
'Oh, nothing really, Madame, I'm just pondering the meaning of existence. Would you care for a tot of brandy?' he asked, offering Destine a small silver hip-flask.
'Merci,' Destine said, raising the flask to her lips. 'So what have you learned?'
'About what?' asked Quaint.
'About the meaning of existence…are you any the wiser?'
'Not a jot.'
'So what will you do? Continue as normal and hope to find the answers in time?'
Quaint looked at her and smiled, taking back his flask. 'Madame, I doubt that I shall ever see "normal" again.' He quaffed a hearty mouthful of brandy, and wiped his sleeve across his mouth. 'No, I have made a decision. I have signed over the circus to Butter as caretaker owner whilst I take a little sabbatical. I know it'll be in good hands whilst I'm gone.'
'You're giving up the circus?' gasped Destine.
'Temporarily, Madame…I care for those people down there too much to desert them for ever. I just need to stretch my wings for a few months. I'll be back.'
'My, you certainly have changed.'
'I'm not so sure I have, Destine, and that's the point,' Quaint said.
'How so?' asled Destine.
'I think that it is the world that has changed-and I have remained grounded. I have allowed the ghosts of my past to rule me for too long. It is high time that I concentrated on the here and now, and started to live again.' A sudden wind whipped at Quaint's clothes, as if trying to drag him away with its breeze. 'The world is a big place, full of wonders, Madame, and now I feel as though I have a renewed lease of life with which to see it all.'
'So, you feel it too?' asked Destine.
'Like warm water trickling through your veins? Yes, I feel it too, Madame,' Quaint said with a roguish smile. 'Something happened to me…to us, last night, something…almost miraculous.'
'So says the conjuror?'
'I am serious, Destine, think on it! I was shot only a few hours ago…but that wound has all but disappeared. You yourself were on death's door…and now you look more than ten years younger. I ask myself how that can be possible.'
'When my…when Renard gave me the poison, he said "a fool of a priest believed this to be an elixir of immortality"…apparently he assumed that it was not true.' Madame Destine's concerned expression bloomed into understanding. 'But now, I find myself thinking perhaps he was wrong. Perhaps there was a spark of the elixir's original purpose left dormant, and this was reignited somehow. It is obvious that the antidote reversed the poison's effects just in time-but more than that is bordering on the fantastical!'
'I agree,' nodded Quaint. 'Whatever befell us, I am just grateful we are still alive to ponder it, Madame.'
'As am I. If you are to see the world, where will you go first, my sweet?' asked Destine.
'Egypt,' answered Quaint without missing a beat.
'I rather thought you might say that,' Destine smiled.
'Perhaps I need a holiday, Madame.' Quaint turned to look at her, his jet-black eyes speaking more than his voice ever could. They held Destine's attention like a lamp attracts a moth, and pulled her into their dark, enveloping void. 'I haven't set foot in Egypt for a long time, and you know how I have always wanted to return there.'
'I seem to recall you mentioning it,' Destine lied.
'Sampling the local delicacies; boat trips down the Nile; maybe a little digging around near the pyramids of Giza,' said Quaint, a vague smile resting on his lips. 'I hear that all sorts of things can be uncovered if you look in the right places.'
Destine nodded in silent understanding. 'And on this new adventure, my sweet…would you care for some company?'
'Madame Destine,' said Cornelius Quaint, offering the Frenchwoman the crook of his arm, 'I thought you'd never ask.'