( ...another, stolen by the beacon, returned without memories. A part of Lan Wangji, shriveled and dark, thinks, Wrathion will ache for this. Thinks too, all life is lessening and hurt, and men rise above their grief. And it is better, still, to taste the unexpected thrills of a reunion, then to watch a cascade of wasteful decades of yearning.

It is not his place to burden. To speak the words first. And so, voice shedding an octave: )

Perhaps. ( Let is be the matter at hand, then: the girl, superfluous in these chambers, rising to sit half on the bathtub's rim, feet dangling. She appears — serene, gaze slanting and soft, absorbed by her own ethereality as if by silent consumption.

They have intruded, he suspects, in her territory like unwanted guests, like sharp-toothed vermin. She cannot answer their transgression with exile — but her blind eyes catch each of their faces at its time, and Lan Wangji sketches a starting nod, only in greeting. )

Spirits here are aged and settled. ( He feels them, malice dormant, their aches a lingering possibility, more than an inevitable eruption. )

She too intends no harm.