Which shall above that idle rank remain

Beyond all date, even to eternity;

Or, at the least, so long as brain and heart

Have faculty by nature to subsist,

Till each to rased oblivion yield his part

Of thee, thy record never can be missed.

That poor retention could not so much hold.

Nor need I tallies thy dear love to score.

Therefore to give them from me was I bold.

To trust those tables that receive thee more.

To keep an adjunct to remember thee

Were to import forgetfulness in me.

Silence fell, just for a moment. Then a sweet voice, Camphire’s, began a song in the language of the Elflands, and one by one the people there who knew it joined in. I’ve never been good at translating words of songs on the fly, but the tune was beautiful, and not at all sad.

Vissa had been beside me the whole time. I’d wondered what he was making of the business, whether he thought it was appropriate, or shocking, or tasteful, or gauche. I didn’t worry about it, but I did wonder. But when Camphire began her song he moved suddenly at the edge of my vision, and I heard him draw an unsteady breath. Halfway into the second verse he added his voice to the rest, and it trembled with tears. Eventually the fiddle player caught it up, and the guitarist. Wolfboy beckoned me up to the scaffold, lit the torch, and handed it to me. For just a moment I thought about the symbolism of it; then I turned back to Vissa and held out the torch. He accepted it. Still crying, still singing, he sent his sister’s spirit forth.

•

Other people would stay to make sure the pyre burned down safely; that wasn’t my job. Sunny started to give me a brisk handshake when she left, but it transformed itself halfway through into a fierce hug, and she walked away quickly across the grass. I sent Vissa back across the Border with assurances that he would be welcome in Bordertown whenever he liked. I didn’t think he’d avail himself of the opportunity, but that was up to him. Eventually I went home, not to Tick-Tick’s apartment (it wasn’t hers anymore; I would have to get used to that) but to mine (my old one; I had two now, and I would have to decide between them soon). I had an hour to kill before dinner.

On the one hand, nothing had changed. Over there on the other, everything had.