“She was mostly quiet and reserved. But she seemed proud of me when I was declared Wanted,” Aaron said, “though she didn’t say anything about it. I could tell it in the way she helped me pack for university. The pride was in her touch. Her… step, I guess. Perhaps she lifted her head a bit higher after that. Glad that I’d be treated properly after what had happened to Alex, being Unwanted. I wonder…” He shook his head. “I wonder what went through her mind all that time. Stuck in Quill with no way to escape. Staying silent and living that oppressed life. Then having the girls and finding out they had her black eyes… That must have been so meaningful to her. We never knew any of it.” He looked at the black-eyed people gathered there. “No wonder she gave up her life to save them when the wall fell. She must have known they had an important future. And perhaps a way out that she couldn’t fathom for herself.”

“She must have known we’d need them,” said Rohan reverently.

“I wish I had more answers,” said Aaron. He thought about the wall coming down and the leadership changing, and how that must have given his mother hope all those years later. A new will to keep the girls alive so they could go back to her land. She’d never had the chance to tell them about it.

Henry looked up, wearing a sanguine expression. “So many stories were lost in Quill forever. What a soul-sucking place it was.”

Maiven’s eyes were glossed with unshed tears. “Thank you for telling me about her.”

On that melancholy note, the party broke up, and most slipped away to their rooms. But Aaron headed upstairs to the kitchenette tube to go home to the Island of Shipwrecks for the night, which he could easily do. He was feeling an urgent longing to hold his wife and son, and to thank Ishibashi for believing in him.

No One to Tell

Rohan lay down, but he couldn’t sleep. The newly revealed truth about his mother swirled around him. She’d been forced by the usurpers to help the pirates abduct Princess Nadia Taveer. She hadn’t been working for them by choice. It changed everything about that image, and Rohan was shaking with eagerness to explain it to Thisbe after feeling so bad about what his mother had done to hers. Beyond that, he’d kept the story of his parents close to his heart and hadn’t shared much about them with anyone before, because his memories were few and unsettling. For the first time, Rohan wanted to tell Thisbe everything but couldn’t. After tossing and turning for an hour, he got up and found some linen blotting paper in the living area of his magical apartment. He sat in a chair and began to write Thisbe a letter.