A blue-hued point-eared Urisk child peeks out, her sapphire eyes widening as she takes in Olilly. The sketchbook Mora gifted to the little girl is tucked under one of Ghor’li’s skinny arms. She’s dressed in Smaragdalfar attire: an emerald tunic and pants, and Mora has done the child’s hair up much like her own—braids tied back by a sparkling green cloth, and purple subland orchids decorating the child’s cornflower blue locks.

Ghor’li rushes out and grabs hold of Mora’s tunic, partially hiding behind her as she peeks at Olilly and Bleddyn.

Affection washes over Mora. She lovingly pats the girl’s head and smiles down at her, receiving a shy returning smile. Mora’s heart twists anew as she holds Ghor’li’s easily frightened gaze, a gaze that has seen far too much. But Mora bats the pain away.

“This is Ghor’li,” Mora says to Olilly. “Ghor’li, meet Olilly. She’s going to work for me and live with us, and we’ll all be good friends.”

Olilly’s face twists in further confusion as she peers at Ghor’li then back to Mora.

Why is this child here? Olilly’s eyes seem to say.

Because she’s an orphan, Mora thinks back but doesn’t voice, fished from the Zonor River with her drowned mother just a few weeks past by Vothendrile Xanthile and Trystan Gardner, of all people. And now she refuses to speak and will only draw. Mostly pictures of her flight East with her mother. The two of them in the desert. The two of them in the Dyoi Forest.

Her mother drowning in the Zonor.

But this is not the time to answer the questions brimming in Olilly’s eyes. There’s been pain enough here to last ten lifetimes. It’s time for the Xishlon festival’s purple light.

For the Goddess Vo’s loving light.

“Who would like a big bowl of nu’dul soup?” Mora asks Olilly and Ghor’li with great enthusiasm. Because if there’s one thing Mora’lee believes in with all her heart, along with the idea that one should keep one’s door open with a welcome mat before it, it’s the power of food to bring people together and heal a piece of the world’s scars. She grins at Olilly. “I’m betting you’ve never had Smaragdalfar soup before!”

“Were you able to get papers for Ghor’li?” Mora asks Bleddyn in low tones as they hover inside the rune ship’s cramped kitchen. The room is festooned with strings of purple Xishlon runic orbs decorated with violet flowers, a big pot of broth simmering on the stove. Its side door is propped open so they can watch the girls slurping down the nu’dul soup at one of the sunlit outdoor tables.