We follow Mama to the banks of the Seine, to a dusty library in London, and to her other favorite spots around the world, before coming back to Viloxin. There are laws prohibiting you from spreading ashes on private property, but as Tai would say, Screw them; we did it anyway.

The days taste mulberry sweet in late summer on Viloxin. I’d forgotten. Tai has a hand on my shoulder while we stand beside Mama’s memorial. It’s a bench that overlooks a soaring view, made from a rough-hewn, uneven, pink-and-white-veined piece of marble. Definition of wabi-sabi.

With more than a bit of her ultra-luxe Viloki flavor, obvs, Tai notes.

Tai hands the foxglove bouquet to me and draws her fingers over the top of the marble. Three long, thin black scratches have appeared across the top, almost overnight.

We’ve been in Limatra for over a week now, reviewing our inheritance from Teddy, in the form of Hero Pharm and Clouded Cage shares. I’ve been working with an agent on the manuscript of my book, She Is Mireille, and Tai and I have been developing our first Hero Pharm initiative: a plan for restitution and lifetime support to family members of victims of Hero Pharm tests, with funds left to us by Teddy and help from Hérrakí.

When Nítuchí found out Hérrakí and I were doing more than just work together, he offered to host us at his home for tea once a week, and even though the idea sounded—to steal from Tai—mind-blowingly stab-your-eyes-out horrendous, I accepted. Later that afternoon, Hérrakí took me to get a tattoo in the shape of a small white fox, as delicate as an old scar.

It winks at me from the soft crook in my elbow.

“I’m so scared,” I whisper to Tai, as the breeze ruffles her hair. And it’s a strange pleasure to admit it to her: that I’m scared about our project, scared of Nítuchí, scared of how difficult it will be to do what we must do.

“But pretty goddamn grateful too, right?” She rubs my shoulder, her touch like warm, spilling light.

It’s so like my sister to counter with something like this—as much as it was her to bolt away from the dark for years and years on end. But it’s the same message, ultimately—the same ethos, just reframed: Focus on the light. Except now Tai acknowledges and respects the dark.

She grew, as I did, while our backs were turned these last few years, and we’re only now seeing it. Only now seeing each other.

There’s the Tai who sparks electric, and the Tai whose warmth soothes. The courageous, optimistic Tai, and the mindful, nurturing Tai. The Tai who works to be someone good, and who can stand on her own two feet without leaning on the attention of others.