Attingo ((full)) Now

Lena said nothing. The light through the high windows moved across the floor like a slow tide.

He raised his right hand. The two dead fingers dragged like stones. But the ring finger — still alive, still warm — extended itself. attingo

“Well,” he said.

“The pigment is friable here,” she said, pointing to the fresco’s edge. “Saint Sebastian’s robe. If you touch it, even with a dry finger, you’ll lift the azurite. It’s been dying for seven hundred years. Let it die in peace.” Lena said nothing

“Well?” she said.

He touched.

His voice cracked.