Those words sink hooks into her heart and drag the organ in opposite directions, but Dyeawan doesn’t allow the sensation to reshape her expression. She sips her tea silently, bowing her head in thanks to the kindly attendant.

Riko enters the chamber, her gaze clearly overwhelmed by its features and its mere existence. The lithe builder’s tanto-edged bangs are bound up in a topknot, and there are fresh grease stains streaking her tool-encumbered vest.

“This room is impossible,” she observes, her eyes soaking in every feature like a thirsty sponge. “I mean… like, truly impossible. Architecturally, I don’t understand how it exists.”

“This room is only the beginning of the impossible,” Dyeawan assures her.

Riko cocks her head, regarding the winding stone snake with Dyeawan as its head.

“This table doesn’t make much sense,” she says. “It’s not impossible, it’s just… stupid.”

Dyeawan grins. “I think it’s meant to be symbolic.”

The bridge of Riko’s small nose becomes a mass of wrinkles. “I detest form over function.”

Dyeawan shakes her head, never ceasing to enjoy the bluntness and honesty in Riko’s perception of the world and the people in it.

“Will you come to sit with me? Please?”

Riko leaps up onto the outermost circle of the stone slab, gleefully skipping across each interior circle with a smile untouched by the judgment of others until she reaches the center point beside which Dyeawan’s tender rests. Riko hunkers down with a giggle and sits atop the table, folding her legs comfortably. She uncoils the toggles of her overburdened vest, its dozens upon dozens of tools jostling and jangling as she slips it from her slight shoulders and lays it next to her.

Riko leans back, resting on the heels of her palm. “I feel like we’re getting away with something being here, yeah?”

Dyeawan nods. “I know precisely what you mean.”

Riko’s impish smile fades, the clouds of dark memory sweeping across her eyes.

“I’m sorry about Edger,” she says. “I know he meant a lot to you.”

“He will always mean a lot to me,” Dyeawan admits, and that much is true.

More than the act itself, Dyeawan regrets not being able to tell Riko the truth about Edger’s death. Riko is her truest friend, perhaps the first one she’s ever known, but she wouldn’t understand. She can’t understand, not yet, not without having seen inside Edger’s head the way Dyeawan did and having witnessed the results. Perhaps one day, when Riko knows the whole truth about Crache, Dyeawan will be able to reveal everything to her.

Riko leans forward and whispers almost conspiratorially. “Are they really going to let you lead the planners? I mean…”