Olilly nods, her gaze riveted on me. “Yes,” she says as her face rearranges itself into a more neutral expression. “Do...do you remember me, Ny’laea?”

Thump, thump, thump goes my heart. “Yes, um...we were in Verpacia. I was working in the city. You were in the University kitchens, isn’t that right?”

“That’s right,” Olilly says, nodding emphatically. “I’m... I’ll be very happy to be working with you.” She turns to Mora’lee and gives her a strained smile.

Mora’lee looks from me to Olilly and back to me again, one eyebrow cocked, clearly sensing the tension, but then she heaves a great sigh, her expression softening. “Well, then,” she says, a trace of her smile returning as she turns to Olilly. “I trust you’ll help Ny’laea get settled in while Nym and I bring some tea to her family?”

Olilly nods with forced enthusiasm. “Oh, I’d be happy to.”

“Well, good,” Mora’lee says, giving us all another encouraging, albeit curious, smile before departing with Nym’ellia, who throws me a brief look of immense gratitude before they slip into the kitchen. I look at Olilly, my pulse still hammering.

“Olilly,” Bleddyn says in a low, beseeching tone.

Olilly reaches up and pulls the orchid from her hair. She sets the flower emphatically down in front of me, fierce gratitude blazing in her eyes. “I will never forget what you and Tierney did for us,” she tells me in a coarse, emotional whisper. “My sister too. I will never forget that you helped us get out of there. Never.”

I reach over and grasp her hand, humbled by the intensity of her gratitude. “Thank you,” I breathe out.

“Kir Lyyo!” the hateful man across the street barks, and Olilly flinches, pulling her hand from mine as she straightens. We all turn to find the teenage youth across the way staring in our direction. Staring besottedly at Olilly.

“Kirin, I’m speaking to you!” the man snaps.

Like a spell broken, the teen’s head pivots to the angry man, Zosh Lyyo. Zosh Lyyo scowls at him as he waves exaggeratedly toward a table. “There are customers?” he growls.

Kir Lyyo nods, “Yes, Father.” He sets back to work cleaning a table, but the moment his father is occupied pouring tea for a Noi couple, he looks back at Olilly, his mouth lifting into a shy smile, and I catch Olilly’s returning bashful look that, unfortunately, does not escape the notice of Zosh Lyyo. He casts a scathing glare at us all just as Mora’lee and Nym’ellia emerge from the kitchen, a tea service in Mora’s capable hands.

The sight of happy Mora’lee seems to set off an even fiercer conflagration of ire in Zosh Lyyo. “Gardnerians now?” his voice thunders from across the road.

Mora freezes in her tracks.

“Father,” comes young Kir Lyyo’s nervous protest.