She was moving all around him, a part of the ether, a disembodied voice buttressed by the soft singing and humming of her sister aeriads, her new family, her new life. He tried to see her in the sound of her voice, but he could not quite manage it. His memory of her was strong, but his efforts to form a picture from her voice alone were insufficient. He didn’t want her back in still life; he wanted her back as a living, breathing human being, and the images he managed to conjure failed to capture her that way.

He sank back wearily. “When did you decide to do this?” His voice broke as despair threatened to overwhelm him. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you talk to me about it?”

The singing rose and fell like a wave of emotion born on a shift in the wind. –What would I have said to you? That I love you so much that I cannot imagine life without you, but that I am old enough to understand that loving someone that much isn’t always the only measuring stick for making a life with them? That choosing love should never be selfish–

“If you loved me that much . . .”

–I love you that much, Penderrin. Nothing has changed. I love you still. But you were sent here for another reason, one too important to sacrifice for anything—even for me. I know this. I knew it from the moment that I heard the aeriads speaking to me. They were telling me what was needed—not directly, not in so many words, but in the way they sang to me, in the sound of their voices. I knew–

He shook his head. “I don’t think I can do this without you. I can’t even think straight. I can barely move.”

Matched by the voices of her sisters, soothing as a breeze on a hot summer day, her voice trilled with soft laughter. –Oh, Pen, it will pass! You will go on to do what you were sent to do! You will find your aunt and bring her home again. I am already a memory, already fading away–

He stared into space, into the place from where she spoke to him, trying to make himself accept what she was telling him, and failing.