She was still thinner than she had ever been before, a gauntness to her cheeks, and she couldn’t breathe as well as she used to. Her wooden fingers and leg still remained under her gauzy green dress. All traces of her own magic had been wiped away the moment the earthquake happened. She could no more spell a fireball than she could a pebble, and her wooden prosthetics had been unfeeling, drained of her magic. At first, the loss was devastating. She was happy to be with Fione again but seemed listless, and struggled to eat well or sleep well, the loss of magic deep in her.

It was harder still when she had to teach him, struggling and without the ability to demonstrate, how to forge a wooden hand of his own to replace the deadened one, and how to reanimate it with a constant low hum of magic. He figured out the latter mostly on his own, with Nightsinger’s occasional help, and together, the two of them finally managed to breathe enough magic back into Varia’s wooden parts that she could move them again—not nearly as well as if it was her own magic, but enough. That seemed to cheer her, if only a little.

She wasn’t the same, but then again, no one was. They were all new people, in a new world, learning. Magic still remained in Arathess, but different. It was not quite the same dark whisper, but it was there, nonetheless. It was more difficult, deeper, harder to pin down, and all witches in the world had to readjust accordingly. It would take years, perhaps decades, to return to the status quo of magic again, but he knew it’d be better this time. Truer.

He’d refused Varia’s idea of making him a glass eye that moved, too—he wasn’t particularly partial to glass anymore. He preferred his eyepatch, if only because it gave him an intimidating edge in negotiations with foreign lords.

“There you are!” Varia breathlessly smacked her wooden hand on his shoulder, and he staggered at the force. “How did the Pendronic meeting go?”

“Awful. They tried to marry me again.”

“Bastards, the lot of them,” she determined breezily. “Where are you off to?”

“More importantly, why do you need me?” he drawled.

“Because you’re my beloved baby brother, baby brother.” She laughed, head back, the indent marks of the Bone Tree’s choker now nothing more than faded, whitish scars on the skin of her throat.

“Speaking of babies.” He blinked. “How’s my nephew?”

“Oh, fine.” Varia sighed, flipping her hair over her shoulder. “Just fine. They tell you the twos are the worst age, but everybody says three comes around and then you know the true meaning of pain. And sleeplessness.” She smiled at him in that pleading way. “Any chance we could reinstate the royal nannies before then?”