Spoilers for Storm of Echoes!
OK - I've finally finished Book 4 of the Mirror Visitor and have to say something...
Ophelia and Thorn - It has taken a LOT to finally see Ophelia and Thorn together - over 1500 pages and 4 years. Yet description of their new intimate relationship is lacking for most of the book. I'm not talking about graphic sex scenes or anything, but sex has been the central 'thorn' in their relationship before they even laid eyes on each other ('Ophelia meet the only man you will ever be intimate with - sorry he looks like a polar bear'). Thorn has also never concealed his desire for Ophelia...beginning when Mime shows up at the Treasury and he puts his hand on her neck? Maybe?
Yet for their two brief encounters in two-thirds of Book 4, we get almost no context.
1 - The new couple are sitting on the edge of a fountain in an atrium and he "engulfs" her. They're at least gonna move to their room, right? Because these introverts are in a non-private area with a teenager and a ton of robots in the house. Not OK. Sadly, we also get no description of their goodbye the next morning.
2 - 100+ pages later, they are reunited in the "directors apartments" and he devours her. Is there is a bed or something? Or layers of dust because no one lives there? I have no idea because there are no visual cues for this important scene.
And just as vital...what about some pillow talk? Ophelia is only human. How can she resist asking the burning question we all want to know - when precisely did Thorn fall in love with her??? Does she tell him she read his dice? Does Thorn EVER sleep? Even the usually endless descriptions of Thorn's eyes are few and far between! Hopefully there is a bit of a different gleam in them after finally consummating their marriage...but we'll never know. Their scenes on the airship and in the olive grove towards the end are some of their most powerful moments, but their initial brief happiness deserved some space to breathe, especially considering, you know, the end.