They stay silent for a moment, and Mora stares over the river, feeling unsettled, before meeting Fyon’s gaze once more. “Fyon... I’m not sure I fit in in the sublands. I feel like something’s been lost to me, growing up as an adopted child of two women who are Noi, so removed from my birth culture. And it hurts when other Smaragdalfar call me an impostor, or laugh over my clumsy use of our language. When I’m told I’m more Noi than Smaragdalfar.”

She thrusts out her arm. “But if I’m Noi, then why is my skin patterned in emeralds?” Her brow knots with consternation. “More and more, in the streets when I pass, I hear murmurs of ‘Snake Elf’ that make me want to don Smaragdalfar green, forsake all Noi ways, and shun everyone but the Smaragdalfar, even if I don’t fit in.” Mora glances over her shoulder toward the children, then sets her impassioned gaze back on Fyon. “But then...children land on my doorstep who are neither Smaragdalfar nor Noi. Who are unwanted here and told they don’t belong. And all I want to do is forge a new path and show them that they do, in fact, belong. That we all do.”

She pauses, knowing that what she’s about to say might crush anything that’s budding between them. If there is anything budding between them. But it has to be said.

He has to know who she truly is.

“Fyon,” she says, “I’m a Subland Elf who loves the sky. I don’t want to live underground, beautiful as it will be. I’ve lived most of my life at the top of a mountain city and on rune ships soaring through the heavens. I’m a creature of the clouds and always will be.”

A slight tension tightens Fyon’s brow, but only slight, his expression unreadable.

Is it disappointment she’s seeing? Sympathy?

As frustratingly unreadable as he is frustratingly gorgeous and wonderful.

Yearning takes hold of Mora. Trying not to fall head over heels for courageous and quietly kind Fyon Hawkkyn is like trying to stop the advance of the Xishlon moon.

Impossible. Even for the Mages.

Nothing can stop Vo’s purple light.

Mora fingers the pendants of her Noi and Smaragdalfar religious necklaces and smiles ruefully to herself, pulled in both directions. She’s such a mishmash of beliefs, but it works. It works for her.

“Come to the sublands with me later, Mora,” Fyon offers. “We’ll have Smaragdalfar tea and I’ll show you what we’re building there.”

“I will,” Mora agrees, fingering her Vo pendant’s curling tail. “Then come back here. We’ll take my skiff into the sky, and I’ll show you the stars like you’ve never seen them.”