477 Precious Minutes

GAHRYE

While Gahrye made sure they had all of Elia's things in her bag, including a strange collection of items from Anima that he hadn't seen before, and tried to coax the lioness to be close to him without fear, Kalle called her grandmother, but didn't get an answer, which she said was odd. But she hoped it meant Eve was down in the bowels of the library again, in the old records, where the coverage was patchy, whatever that meant.

A few minutes later, as the lioness clearly began to tire of him, Gahrye realized there was nothing to be done, but to wait to hear from Eve.

He got up off of Elia's floor, closing the door to the room and went to join Kalle on the couch—but when he got there she had her feet curled up next to her and tears tracking down her face and he just… melted inside. 

"We have some time," he said gently as she stared at him, her tears glistening on her dark lashes. "Why don't we take it while we can?"