raphael. 🦇

He let me lie for a while against him. He bathed me slowly. He had a soft gathered cloth with which he wiped my face. He dipped me back to wash my hair. And then when he thought I had rested enough, we began the kisses again.

It was then that Marius came. He was trembling. "Unburnt, whole," he whispered. "My son."

"Marius of the many names and the many houses and the many lifetimes. So you have chosen a lovely child." I shook it off. How had he read from my mind my desire for Amadeo?

I remembered the description of the making of Armand, how he’d taken the young Armand into a painted room in his Venetian palace and there [...] he had made him, offering the blood as sacrament with the most appropriate words. So different from my own making...

I drew sketches of Amadeo's face as he slept. How can I describe him? His beauty did not depend on his facial expression. It was stamped already on the face. It was all wrought up with his fine bones, serene mouth, and his auburn curls.