“I could have told you that.” She felt Nick’s hands slip around her waist from behind. Shortly, a whisper and soft kisses began nuzzling her ear. “Now can we please get out of here?”

“But...” Natalie looked forlornly at her meager collection of slides. “I still need to do a full blood panel, take skin samples, run a urinalysis...”

“Later.” He turned her around to face him. “There’ll be plenty of time for all that later. Right now there’s a sunrise about to put in an appearance. Routine stuff for you, maybe, but it’ll be my first in seven hundred and sixty-four years, and no offense intended, but I’d sort of like to see it from someplace other than the Coroner’s Building.”

“What?” Nat twisted to look at the clock on the lab’s green-tiled wall. “Sunrise? Already? Geez, Nick, I’m sorry. I completely lost track of the time.” She started gathering the slides. “Just let me put these away.”

He waited patiently while she fussed with the samples, but when she turned from locking them away in the lab fridge, he had his coat on and was holding hers open for her.

“Shall we?”

Nat sighed. “Well, I suppose the Saturday shift will be in here any minute getting in the way anyhow.” She slipped into the offered coat. “But first chance we get, we need to run a full battery of tests. There’s got to be a scientific explanation for the radical alteration of your  blood chemistry. It might have been something in that energy surge.”

“Sure.”

Nick’s tone said only too clearly that he didn’t believe a word she’d said, but Nat let it go for the moment. She knew how important seeing this sunrise was to him. They’d worked for two years to make it possible, and even if another’s efforts had somehow succeeded where hers had failed, Natalie wanted more than anything else right now to share this event with him.

“You have a particular vantage point in mind, do you?” she asked when they were in the Caddy and already speeding up Yonge Street.

“You could say that.”

The mystery only deepened when Nick eventually turned onto Avenue Road, drove up the steep hill and turned right. Five blocks later, Nat finally realized where he had to be heading. The street led to Casa Loma, a sprawling, faux medieval castle nestled on top of the hill and overlooking most of the city.

“I hate to tell you  this,”  she said  as he parked and hurried her out of the car, “but the castle isn’t open yet.” Maybe it had slipped his mind that flying to the top of the battlements was no longer an option?

“For us,” he said, taking her hand, “it’s open.”

And incredibly enough, it was.

A poker-faced night watchman met them at the wrought-iron gate, and with an acknowledging nod, opened it and waved them through, past the high stone wall and into a garden courtyard.  An astounded Nat restrained herself from asking how Nick had managed this. (Maybe he’d been off making phone calls while she’d been busy poring over those blood samples earlier this evening?) It also undoubtedly had something to do with the same extremely persuasive organization that had issued the Learjet voucher, and idly, she pondered just how much of a fortune Mr. Nicholas de Brabant-Knight was really worth. Then she felt oddly ashamed of herself for wondering. If he’d wanted her to know...

They made their way to the front entrance, where a woman in security guard uniform ushered them inside. Nick acknowledged her with barely more than a nod, then whisked Natalie past several rooms full of exhibits and beautiful medieval reproductions to a stone staircase.

On the third floor, they quickly wound their way through a series of connected attics, dodging rafters, and finally reached a narrow, metal staircase that spiraled steeply up to what the signs identified as the “Norman Tower,” an open-air turret on the castle’s roof.

And from the roof, you could look out over most of Toronto. Nick went straight to the stone battlements on the eastern edge, wrapped an arm around Natalie’s waist, and pointed. “Look there!” He sounded more excited than a kid on Christmas morning. “It’s starting!”

Nat couldn’t see anything at first. Then, slowly, the clouds hanging over the eastern horizon became tinged with a faintly luminous, golden outline. A few minutes later they were turning brilliant white, pink and pale blue, speared by a breathtaking array of radiating sunbeams.

As celestial light shows went, Nat reflected, it couldn’t possibly have been more spectacular.

When Nick pulled her close, Natalie enthusiastically returned the embrace. His awe and excitement were so infectious that she found herself marveling along with him at the simple splendor of those sunbeams. She’d never in her life seen anything so beautiful.

They watched until the rising sun’s glare forced them to look away. But Nick was far from finished drinking in the sight of everything around him as the light continued growing brighter. “Look at it, Nat. Look at the way the water sparkles! The trees, the streets, the buildings. They all shine so brightly. And you...” He was already squinting in the increasing glare but was far too euphoric to notice. He  caressed her hair with one hand. “Do you know I’ve never seen what you look like in the daytime?”

Natalie laughed. “Lucky you! Artificial lighting makes hiding the crow’s feet so much easier.”

“What crow’s feet?” He traced a finger under each of her eyes before kissing her. “You’re perfect just the way you are. Come on.” He took hold of both her hands and started back toward the stairs. “Let’s walk.”

And walk they did, for more than an hour through the castle’s six acres of English gardens, fountains and winding footpaths.

Eventually, they strayed from the grounds into the tree-lined streets of the surrounding neighborhood, strolling past brick and stone houses with their own flowering gardens. Many of these were tended by what Nat liked to call “weekend weed warriors,” people who often smiled from under their sun hats and said, “Good morning.”

Nick returned every greeting with unbridled enthusiasm, and commented with breathless, child-like wonder about the play of sunlight on every tree, every leaf, every bird. He rhapsodized over blue skies, drifting clouds and the rippling water in the garden stream.

Seeing all of those things through his eyes, Natalie gained a new appreciation for the wonders of ordinary things. She couldn’t begin to imagine what it would be like to live for centuries without ever seeing the sun.

“I guess we mortals tend to take too many things for granted,” she said when they’d retraced their steps to the front of the castle. “Remind me never to do that again?”

“Consider yourself reminded.”

He sounded more distracted than usual, so Nat turned to follow his gaze – and saw a small group of the morning’s first tourists, festooned with cameras and guidebooks, strolling toward them. In their midst, she spotted what had apparently captured Nick’s attention. A young couple walked with a red-headed boy of three or four between them, and the child had taken an obvious interest in Nick, grinning and waving exuberantly as they passed. She watched Nick wave awkwardly back, then took hold of his hand again.

“Something I should know?” she asked.

He nodded, gazing back out over the garden. “I used to look at children,” he said quietly, “and wonder how many never had the chance to be born because of me. Now... I don’t know how to explain it, except that the guilt is gone – and I guess a part of me feels like maybe it shouldn’t be.”

Nat struggled to make sense of that. “You’re saying that you feel guilty for not feeling guilty? Nick, what were all those pretty, reassuring words about forgiveness being freely given? Shouldn’t he have added that you also have to forgive yourself?”

“Yeah. I guess so.”

He didn’t sound at all convinced, but Nat was in no mood to argue the point right now. Her stomach had been complaining for hours, and she really couldn’t ignore its demands any longer. Maybe a little levity on that count would lighten Nick’s mood.  “I hate to sound like Schanke,” she said, “but if I don’t get some breakfast soon, I just may keel over and die of malnutrition. I know a great little place just down the hill that serves the best Belgian waffles in Canada. Come on, I’ll show you.”

“Belgian waffles?”

His completely clueless expression sent Nat into an involuntary laughing spasm. Lack of both food and sleep, she decided, was definitely beginning to make her giddy.

Nick looked no less bewildered when plates stacked with the steaming, aromatic confections were placed in front of them at the café. One whiff of her whipped cream laden breakfast, with its accompanying melon slices, scrambled eggs and hot coffee, and Nat was in heaven. Nick watched her intently as she took the first luscious bite of it, but had so far made no move to touch his own identical meal.

“You’re not really going to tell me,” she said around a bite of scrambled eggs, “that you’ve never seen a waffle before?”

“Uh...” Nick picked up his fork, though he looked as though he had no idea what to do with it. “I think I’ve seen a TV commercial or two for something you’re supposed to put in your toaster. Other than that, up until now I thought ‘waffle’ was usually something a suspect did when he wanted to tell you everything except the truth.”

“Mm. Well, that’s the verb. This is the noun.” Nat leaned across the table toward him. “Try it. Trust me, you’ll like it.”

Looking for all the world as though he expected the breakfast to bite him back, Nick turned the fork over twice, then finally maneuvered it into position to slice off a corner of one waffle. With the fork still inverted, he stabbed the separated piece and brought it to his mouth, hesitating briefly before he actually put it inside. Even then, he took a long moment (savoring the taste?) before he actually chewed and swallowed.

Nat couldn’t stand the suspense any longer. “Well?” she demanded.

Nick reached for the carafe of blueberry syrup the waitress had left on the table and immediately drowned the rest of his breakfast, eggs and all, in a small river of sweet purple goo. He then proceeded to tuck into the meal with unbounded enthusiasm. “I think,” he said, and flashed her an extremely silly grin, “I’m going to like being mortal.”

They retrieved the Caddy after breakfast, and Nick drove them all over the city, reveling in being able to keep the convertible’s top down in broad daylight. They stopped for lunch at a Greek restaurant in Willowdale, where Nick discovered that Schanke’s favorite feast of garlic-marinated souvlaki wasn’t so bad after all (even if Nat did threaten to boycott kissing him without a healthy dose of breath mints being administered first).

A day of playing tourist couldn’t possibly be complete without a visit to the CN Tower. And though heights this grand were not one of Natalie’s favorite things, she went along for the sake of letting Nick enjoy the daytime view. Her head was spinning long before they reached the tower’s summit and walked out onto the steel-caged platform. When a strong breeze gusted over them, she had to grip the rail and close her eyes for a moment. The world’s tallest free-standing tower it may be, but “Won’t shift in a brisk wind” wasn’t printed anywhere on the tourist brochures. Nat could feel the deck moving under her feet.

She’d judiciously avoided the section of floor made of thick safety glass, designed to provide non-vertigo-prone tourists with a straight-down view. Happily, Nick hadn’t headed for it either. He was much more interested in the view from the rail.

“Are you okay?” He’d put a concerned hand on her shoulder.

“Fine.” Nat managed to draw enough strength from his steadying touch to banish the vertigo – for now. “I’m fine.” She forced herself to smile. “I guess I’ve just never been crazy about really high heights.”

Nodding, Nick stared out at northwest Toronto’s gleaming streets and at the bright expanse of Lake Ontario stretching away to the south. “It looks so... different,” he said.

“Maybe that’s because you’re looking at it for the first time through mortal eyes. Speaking of which...” Nat slid one hand into his coat pocket to remove the pair of sunglasses he’d always kept there. “I know you’ve already been running all over town without them, but you really ought to wear these.” Unfolding the glasses, she positioned the temples over his ears and then playfully tapped the lenses into place over the bridge of his nose. “Mortal eyes are sensitive to sunlight, too,” she said. “Once it’s above the clouds, you shouldn’t look directly at it, even with these on. Got it?”

“Got it. You have a pair, too?”

She pulled a pair of discount-store-special sunglasses from her purse and put them on. “There.  Happy?”

“Ecstatic.” Nick planted a fast kiss on her forehead. “Let’s go.”

“Where to now?”

“You’ll see.” He took her hand and headed for the elevator.

It was well after noon when he parked the Cadillac in an underground garage on Queen Street. Natalie couldn’t suppress a yawn as he helped her out of the car. “Nick,” she said wearily, “please don’t take this wrong, but if I have to walk over much more of Toronto, I’m going to collapse from exhaustion. We have got to think about going home and getting some sleep.”

“Soon,” was his only response, and he leaned in behind her to get something out of the Caddy’s glove compartment. Nat glimpsed what looked like a passport, but it vanished into his pocket before she could be sure. Nick took her arm and started up the ramp. “You still have your passport?” he wanted to know.

What was this with passports all of a sudden? “Yeah, in my purse. Why?” She realized where they were heading even as she asked the question. Looming just ahead of them on Queen Street was the huge rectangular fountain in front of... “City Hall? Nick, the passport office is over on Victoria. And anyway, we don’t have to update mine right this minute. There’s plenty of time for that after we’ve...” She let the sentence dangle when he stopped halfway across City Hall’s plaza and turned to face her.

“I was thinking,” he said earnestly, “that maybe we could take care of another matter, as long as we’re here.”

“What other matter?” she tried to ask, but before she could quite get the words out, right there in the square in front of everyone, he pulled her into his arms and kissed her.
 

“Marry me, Nat.”

She backed up a pace, suddenly so dizzy that she might have fallen flat onto her backside if he hadn’t been holding her up. “What...” she sputtered. “What did you say?”

“I said marry me, Nat.”

“Now?”

“Right now.”

“But I... we...” Nat couldn’t seem to get her tongue untangled from her teeth. “We can’t just walk in and... not just like that! I don’t even have the right clothes or my hair fixed or...”

“Nat?”

“Or my make-up freshened up, or... or...”

“Nat...”

“Yes?”

“Just say...” He laughed. “Just say that again.”

“Say what again? Yes?”

“Uh-huh.”

He kissed her once more, and by the time Nat could come up for air, there was only one syllable she could manage to get out.

“Yes,” she said, and kissed him back.