The resin was cracked.
One of the two lotuses - the bigger one, the first one Enya had ever given him - sat in his palm with its protective shell fractured into a web of thin, jagged lines. The clear coating that had sealed it, preserved it, kept it looking exactly the same as the day it was made, was now broken.
The flower beneath the resin looked intact. The black petals were still layered, still holding that impossible perfection that had made the vendor frown and say they showed no signs of withering. But the shell around them was ruined - pieces of it already flaking away at the edges, exposing the dark surface of the petals to the open air for the first time since they'd been sealed.
