“Okay, try this on for size, Tall, Dark and Handsome. I won't be born for almost seven hundred hundred years. How's that strike you?”

“Yes," Bitterblue said. "I suppose you could convert everything into minutes. Twelve times sixty is seven hundred twenty, and fifteen times fifty is seven hundred fifty. So our seven-hundred-twenty-minute half day equals its seven-hundred-fifty-minute half day. Let's see...Right now, the watch reads a time of nearly twenty-five past two. That's one hundred twenty-five total minutes, which, divided by seven hundred fifty, should equal our time in minutes divided by seven hundred twenty...so, seven hundred twenty times one hundred twenty-five is...give me a moment...ninety thousand...divided by seven hundred fifty...is one hundred twenty...which means...well! The numbers are quite neat, aren't they? It's just about two o'clock. I should go home.”

“I would really like, in fact, to be born again in another two hundred years' time.”

“Fourteen hundred and thirty-one.” I blinked. “What's that?” “The year I was born, which is not, as you'll note, yesterday.”

“I wish I had a hundred years, she said, very quietly. A hundred years I could give to you.”

“It was the size of an ox, of a bull elephant, of a lifetime. It stared at them, and it paused for a hundred years, which transpired in a dozen heartbeats.”