Helix drew in a breath, sweet with the scent of growing things. He closed his eyes and focused: yellow thornvine, daybell, starwort, and loose pollen from the firevale tree. All plants native to Tiralan, flaunting their stamens in the wind, and the aroma was heady, spicy and green with a hint of loam. At first, he could not name what he was experiencing, but Qalu answered questions with infinite patience, and he now had the capacity to acquire information on his own, though it was slower than before.

There were pleasures in the physical world—to feel the wind on his skin, the warmth of the twin suns, though the days were short during eclipse season. According to the calendar Qalu had shared, the next occlusion would occur soon, and darktide would last twice as long. Perhaps the event would inspire him to create something unique, a quality that so far eluded him.

Opening his eyes, he crouched and touched fragments from the wreckage, silver and black, dusty and bubbled from the heat. Qalu had not exaggerated in calling it a catastrophic detonation. Then he picked up the shard, wanting to keep it for murky reasons, a memento or a souvenir or a relic; such impulses were new to him.

“How is it possible that I don’t understand my own processes?” he muttered.

“Why are you keeping that?” Aevi asked.

He had known the little Pherzul was shadowing him when he left the habitat, but since she seemed disinclined to interact, he ignored her presence. But now she was suddenly here, skittering around his lower limbs, rear extensor whipping with curiosity. She reared up on her hind limbs and before he could stop her, she scaled him, bouncing off various parts until she came to rest on his shoulder. Her feathery extensor twined around him, and she let out a soft sound, similar to a Barathi churr.

The vocalization comforted him and made him feel lonely at the same time. Now, at least, he had a term for the feeling, a hollow ache that made him want to see Zylar and tell him what was happening, to apologize to Beryl once more, because now that he was stuck in a strange place with little control over what befell him, he understood what he’d done to her. The fact that it ended well didn’t absolve him of responsibility.

“I am unsure.”

“I see. I see. Sometimes I do that too. Qalu scolds because I steal shiny things and sometimes she needs them, and I don’t know why I do. But I have to hide the shiny things; they’re mine! They should all be mine.”