“Show who what?” Leela asked. “I am only trying to bring Sera home.”

“Home is not always what we think it is when our journey begins,” the will-o-the-wisp said. “And it can change along the way. Home is ever shifting, because it is not truly a place. It is a feeling.”

Leela wasn’t sure what she meant by that. “But I miss her,” she said.

The will-o-the-wisp glowed brighter. “You will see her again,” it said. “But my children have forgotten who they are and it is time they remembered. It is my fault—I was broken with grief and I let this City drift out of my sight. By the time I recovered, I could not find it.”

“Why not?” Leela asked. She felt as if the will-o-the-wisp should be capable of anything.

“It stopped moving,” the wisp said sadly. “If the City does not move, I cannot see it. And it has been still for so very, very long. There was a dark time when I worried I might never find it again. Little lights winked out one by one and my love was too far away to be made tangible anymore.”

“The moonstone,” Leela whispered, and the dream stone grew hot in her hand. “That’s why it stopped appearing. Because you could not find the City.”

The will-o-the-wisp shuddered in a way that Leela took as a nod. “But it lives in the City still,” the wisp said. “It cannot be destroyed, only hidden.”

Another image came to Leela, an unfamiliar one, of a fountain being torn apart out of fear.

“Why?” Leela asked. “Why would she hide it?”

The wisp did not need to ask who Leela spoke of. “She is consumed with guilt. She thinks she is doing what is right. But it has been too long. She thought she could withstand all those years, thought she could be strong enough to protect the City. But it is not protection. It is desperation. Her time has come to live in my light and love, to let go and allow the change she so desperately fears to happen.”

“How can she live in your light and love after all she has done?” Leela asked.

“She is my child,” the wisp said. “Just as you are. All children make mistakes. It is not for me to reject but to forgive. And her story is not over yet. There is still time for redemption.”

Leela did not quite agree with that, but felt it best not to say anything. The wisp was far older and wiser than her.

“But if she destroyed the fountain, then why not the statues or the obelisk?”

“Even she would not destroy the images of my daughters,” the wisp said. “And the obelisk, too, is sacred. But all other pieces of my love have been locked away. They are yearning to be touched once more, to be owned, to be connected.”