The world needed the dirt to nurture it.

But it also needed the stone to support it.

“You have, and that is done. We no longer have Mum, but we have each other. And I will tell you that Lahn has brought a number of his warriors here. They are in Sky Bay, and I sense they would greatly enjoy a dalliance with a woman such as you. I have not noted they are fond of what is on offer in Airen. They go to the docks often. They return appearing in bad moods.”

“Well then, let us hope our journey to the Bay is a swift one,” she muttered.

I did not smile. It was not the time for smiles. My heart was heavy, and my limbs felt numb, but my mind was awash with too many thoughts.

And thus, I did not think one that I should have before I also turned to face the view and stated, “I am glad of this quest for a Korwahk warrior for you. And I am glad of your gnome friends. He was handsome, but I never was fond of the bent of Cassius’s decision to remove your attention from me, using that Trusted. Chu.”

“Chu?” she asked, her voice odd, croaky, but then again, perhaps not so odd as our mother had joined the veil not an hour ago.

“I hope you enjoyed him, my sister, before you were rid of him,” I said and turned back to her to see her gaze on me. “And it is good that his shenanigans necessarily meant he taught you how to be an apparently very successful spy.”

“Shenanigans,” she muttered.

“Indeed, and I will say now what I should have said earlier, but with Mum, and the fact we weren’t speaking, I did not. Well done in Notting Thicket, Serena. That was brilliant.”

“Yes,” she said as if it was not.

Then again, it was not the time to get effusive over compliments, or the accepting of them.

And Serena had changed, but she’d never been effusive over anything, and I had the feeling she did not change that much.

I returned to the topic. “But those games are over for us. Yes?”

“Games,” she said, and I started to get concerned due to her one-word answers.

“Yes. And they are over.” I turned fully to her, letting go of my shins to wrap my fingers around her forearm. “Because this is what we have decided. Though I will share the warning that this also is because Cassius won’t abide it. He’s ridiculously protective and it bothers me he has these worries or upsets. So, I am doubly glad we will not upset him.”

“I would not wish to upset Cassius. By the goddess, I have learned not to do that,” she said to the view.

Although, with that, she spoke more words, they did not give me a good feeling.

“Serena?” I called.

“I fell in love with him,” she told the night sky before a burst of sharp, humorless laughter came from her, a sound that alarmed me all the more.