A/N: OMG I AM FINALLY FALLING DOWN THIS RABBIT HOLE.

The letters are ash long before your tears are dry.

Ambition, Angelica said, and somehow you were not quite surprised to see that her heart was broken too. Ambition, and once you spoke of Macbeth—of the man who would be king.

You think now that the lake upstate would have been too hot under the summer sun. You think that there is no shadow long enough for you to hide in, or in which you can take comfort. After all, he has cast a shadow for a long time, and you found no comfort there.

You wonder if he even knows the length of that shadow, how dark and cold it can be. He looks only towards the light. He is drawn to its power.

Icarus, Angelica called him. And her arms were around you, but her heart was pounding in her chest. And you wept for what he had done to you, to your love, to your dreams.

You, you, you. Foolish girl, the too-sweet Schuyler sister. You thought you might be enough.

Palaces in the clouds, you dreamed of. Marble heights and mountaintops because that is how much you wanted him to love you.

He gave you up. He gave you up, and all you can do is burn.

You don't know how you might have loved more. You don't know how the sun could have burned brighter.

But love you did, and burn it did, and it is all too close, too close.

You wonder what it was, really, that Icarus wanted.