Chapter Text
Mother and Father were mad.
Even at five years old, Adaine couldn’t remember for the life of her what she had done. They always seemed to be upset at her, and she couldn’t quite understand why. She couldn’t help that her ears didn’t work. She couldn’t help that no one would slow down and use the gestures the tutor would use. She couldn’t help that the magic that flowed so easily from her parents and sister’s hands didn’t flow from her’s yet. Regardless, she had been sent off to bed without supper. It wasn’t an uncommon punishment, but an upsetting one nonetheless.
On top of that, it was storming outside. Being deaf, the thunder didn’t bother Adaine, even when it was so intense it shook the house. But rather it was the lightning and the flashes against the wall, those bothered her very much. In the darkness of her bedroom, blue light brightened the room at irregular intervals. She couldn’t predict it and it hurt her eyes and her tummy was hurting so bad and she didn’t know why and if she didn’t stop crying then she would just be in more trouble and-
Yellow light from the candles in the hallway filtered into her bedroom, and the image of her sister came into view. It was too dark to try and read her lips, but Adaine didn’t need to know what her sister was saying. Her sister was here with her.
Aelwyn took her hand and led her to her bed, burrowing the two of them in blankets. Adaine laid her head against her sister’s chest and allowed the soft motion of her breathing to lull her. As her eyes drifted shut, the faintest glitter of a shield formed around them.
She blinked again, this time instead being met by the glittering of the early morning sunlight in her eyes.
Adaine rubbed at her eyes gently, waking slowly. It was odd to dream like that in a trance, most dreams from trance were memories, not imaginations of her sister caring for her as a young child. She must have slept rather than tranced, though gods knew she needed all the rest she could get.
When she woke, Adaine was aware of a few things: she was safe, no longer kept under lock and key at Calethreial tower; her magic had been restored, divination magic tingling at her fingertips; and her sister was right there, holding weakly against Adaine’s middle.
The events of the night before ran through her mind. After three tranceless nights, her friends had found her. They had found her and her sister and caused enough chaos and destruction to get them out of that tower and into the calming grove of Kei Lumennura. She had been showered in love and affection before being tucked into bed carefully with Aelwyn.
Aelwyn was shivering terribly as they lay quietly together. Adaine pushed a few stray hairs out of her sister’s face, fingers just brushing against her forehead. All the strain she had been under for the last year had manifested in a fever. Or had she had the fever before? Adaine would never know. She wouldn’t put it past her father and the guards to let that slide. What else was a fever but another tool they could use to keep Aelwyn under their control?
Aelwyn’s eyes flickered open for just a second as Adaine carded her fingers through her hair. She saw Aelwyn’s mouth move slightly, felt her breathing change. Slowly, she cast Message to open a channel between them. “Good morning. You’re okay.”
“Adaine...” The text was small again and trailed off as though she were breathless. With her other hand, she began to rub circles in the small of her sister’s back to help her calm down and breathe a little easier. “We’re alive? Or are we...?”
“We’re alive. We escaped.” Aelwyn coughed harshly, grimacing from pain. Adaine kept her motions slow and even, doing whatever she could to ease her sister’s discomfort. “We’re alright.”
Aelwyn’s eyes opened more, looking up at her little sister. They were glassy and tired, but that didn’t keep her from reaching a hand up to touch Adaine’s face gently. “ I didn’t, I didn’t really take care of you...” The lettering was so small, Adaine practically had to squint to read it in her mind's eye.
“That’s okay. I’m going to take care of you now.” Adaine leaned into her sister’s touch to let her know she was here with her. She wasn’t going anywhere. “ You have a fever. I want Kristen to look at you, okay?”
Aelwyn looked up again at her with tired, scared eyes. “ No. No. I just found you again. Please. Don’t.” The letters shook as Adaine saw tears prickle at the corners of her sister’s eyes.
Gently, Adaine wiped the tears away. In their entire lives, Aelwyn had never graced her with true vulnerability. She wasn’t about to punish it by pushing her away. “I'm not going anywhere.” But her sister still needed care, more so than she could provide on her own. “I want to help you feel better first.”
That seemed to assuage her fears a little bit at least. Quickly she sent Message to Kristen for a helping hand. Before long, Kristen and Tracker were casting a variety of spells to soothe and diagnose in the vaguest of sense. Whatever illness she had could have been treated in Elmville, but out in Fallinel no such options were available. There were decisions to be made, but Adaine couldn’t bring herself to make them yet.
Instead, she brought her sister down carefully to the hot spring helping one of the healers wash her. She hoped a little bit of cleanliness would go a long way in starting Aelwyn’s recovery.
They sat quietly for a while, letting the heat soak into their bones and soothe them. Adaine took some of the offered soaps and oils and began to gingerly wash her sister’s hair. Aelwyn's eyes were tired and unfocused as Adaine worked through the knots. “Aelwyn, you still awake there?” she probed gently with Message . She knew her sister needed rest, but she also at least needed to stay awake long enough to finish washing and eat something.
“Adaine.” To her surprise, Aelwyn didn't respond to her through their spell but rather a very weak iteration of her name Sign. “ I sorry. I sorry. I sorry.”
Adaine felt her heart crack as Aelwyn signed. There was no undercurrent of malice the way her Sign used to have. Instead there was a deep sorrow, and one Adaine didn't feel like she could ignore. “No sorry. Past past happen. Here now.”
Aelwyn kept her focus off into space as if she didn't understand what Adaine was signing. She repeated the message in Common through the cantrip, but even still, Aelwyn’s mind was somewhere else. They sat in an uncomfortable silence for a while until her sister leaned back into Adaine, too exhausted to keep herself sitting up. “Where's your mind at?”
Aelwyn shook her head, not responding to the cantrip. It was almost as if she couldn't respond, too wrapped up in her own mind. Whatever it was, it was deeply upsetting her. Adaine needed to do something.
Adaine pressed her forehead to the crown of Aelwyn’s head, a small pulse of energy connecting their minds. Aelwyn allowed her to enter as Adaine took cautious steps with Detect Thoughts.
In her time at Augefort, Adaine had needed to probe many minds for both academic and adventuring pursuits. Most minds were like strolling through a neighborhood: many things were out for display but the most intimate and sacred thoughts and memories were hidden away behind locks. In Aelwyn's mind however, everything was locked away. Or at least it had meant to be.
Outer walls and buildings that made up her sister’s personality had literally been bombed through. Memories of coldness and evilness and perfection were broken bricks scattered throughout the landscape. Locks and chains of makeup and magic and persona were shattered, showing a glimpse of her sister that Adaine had never seen before.
The memories went far further back than her torture. She saw Aelwyn forming an alliance with Goldenrod, a small black cat staring at her menacingly as her sister stood by with a shaky smile. She saw her sister at a party taking vast amounts of dragon spice and liquor, ignoring a text message from their father reminding her about an exam.
Further in, there were memories of a younger version of herself and Aelwyn. Their parents were there too, almost like a ghost in the memory. The memory version of Adaine was crying, clearly upset and bothered by something their parents had done or said. Her subtitles weren’t coming through, but even without them Adaine could still see the aura of sadness and self-loathing radiating from her sister. Memory after memory, she could see the vision of a shield in Aelwyn’s eyes, a shield she had focused on the memory version of Adaine. The want and desire was there, but the ghostly images of their parents prevented the execution, binding and shackling Aelwyn with cruel words and heavy expectations.
It seemed Adaine was not the only one afraid of their parents.
She reached a soft hand towards this version of her sister in memory. Adaine could feel her sister buckle and tremble under the quiet comfort in the memory. Logically, she knew that Aelwyn, her real Aelwyn, couldn’t feel this- she knew that the memory couldn’t react, not really- but something felt as though it were healing, even if it was only in Adaine’s own heart.
Eyes glancing away for just a second, Adaine could see the faintest glimmer of orange: Aelwyn’s arcane signature. She reached out to touch it, following as it led down a path to the deepest, most personal crevices of Aewlyn’s mind. At the end of the path, there was a chest covered in arcane chains and locks. A small placard was placed in the front beside a swatch of metal just small enough that Adaine could place her hand on.
Despite all the torment and tribulations, let this be proof: I always knew there was only one person clever enough to find this.
Aelwyn had left a magic effect here for her to find. When had she done this? How could she have predicted Adaine would need to enter her mind? What was it? Adaine felt her breath pick up, something close to a panic attack but not quite the same. She needed to be brave, whatever Aelwyn had left for her was clearly important. Divination magic glowed from her fingertips, a soft blue swirling with the orange of the arcane ward.
The colors swirled slowly at first and then all at once a wave of energy pushed Adaine out of Aelwyn’s mind. She was back at the hot spring, watching as her sister writhed in pain. And then all of a sudden Aelwyn’s eyes were clear again. Adaine didn’t even need her spell up to know what her sister was saying.
“Little sister...”
Hot, angry tears burned down her cheeks as Gorgug continued driving. She was mad at herself for believing even for a second that her sister could be someone she trusted and confided in. Even if her sister’s memories told a different tale, what was that tale worth if her old mind was restored and Aelwyn was back to her old self? Rage and sadness burrowed within her while she looked out the window.
Her sister had run away to be with their mother and father. Again. After everything. And for what? The sake of their family’s status? A family who didn’t care about her or her sister? Aelwyn had been freed from a cage and yet like a frightened child, she had run back to its bars looking for protection. Some more empathetic part of Adaine might have agreed that Aelwyn was scared and just a child, just like her. But that piece had been crushed by her anger, her abandonment.
A gentle touch at her shoulder brought her back to reality. She wiped at her eyes hastily before turning around to see her friend. “ Fig.”
Fig looked at her sadly, but with a warm smile on her face. “ How you feeling?” she signed before moving to rub a soft hand on Adaine’s back. Her hands were warm and comforting, and Adaine let herself relish in the nice feeling.
“ Tired .” It wasn’t a lie. One good night of trance didn’t make up for the three she had lost in the tower, nor did it help with the utter betrayal of hours ago. But ‘tired’ was easier to feel and show than everything else.
“ Sick ?” The sign was a little harder to make out with one of Fig’s hands still resting against Adaine, but she understood well enough. She shook her head. Thankfully she hadn’t gotten sick in the orb, unlike Aelwyn. Unlike Aelwyn who was still running around the forest with a high fever on top of everything else, she was perfectly healthy sans the lasting fatigue and bruises. She shook her head again, trying to clear her head of the thoughts. If Aelwyn was going to abandon her with cruelty, she didn’t deserve Adaine’s sympathy.
Fig pulled a piece of hair behind Adaine’s ear, running her knuckles against her forehead as if she didn’t believe her. She settled down again once when she felt Adaine’s cool forehead. “ You today no eat.”
Adaine shook her head again. She hoped it hadn’t been noticeable. She had been at the hot springs when everyone else was eating. And then when Aelwyn turned, they had gone in hot pursuit to bring her back. Even if she had had the time to eat, she didn’t think that she could. Her stomach was too twisted in knots. “No hunger.”
“Not even for Elf Pop?”
Elf pop? What the hell was that? Adaine looked around to see what Fig had in her hand. A Lembas pop. Adaine smiled- Fig probably had acquired the sweet in Kei Lumennura but had no one to tell her its name in Sign. To be fair, Adaine had often only called Lembas ‘elven bread’ as well. “ Lembas pop,” she signed in reply, going slowly so that Fig could learn the sign.
“ Lembas pop.” Fig repeated, getting the motion down easily. “ You want? Dessert of home?”
“ Cathilda cookie also dessert of home.” Adaine smiled, taking the small treat and taking a bite. “ Tasty.”
Fig smiled at her, grabbing another one from her pouch and popping it in her mouth. “ Weird people. But good desserts.”
Adaine nodded, taking a deep breath and leaning her head against Fig’s shoulder. “ Glad not there now.”
Fig let her rest easily, snuggling her a little closer. “ Me also.” She felt Fig sigh against her resting her own head atop Adaine’s. “ Want to go home.”
“ Me also. ” They had only lived there for a day, but Adaine found herself missing the cool air of Mordred Manor, the feeling under her feet of Jawbone running around the house, the calming lighting on her wizarding tower. She just wanted this quest to be over, so she could be with her family. Her real family, not the ones roaming the forest, plotting the demise of Spyre.
But even if Aelwyn had run away and fled, it didn’t leave her without a sister. Fig gave her a small squeeze on the shoulders.
“ Home soon. Home soon...”
Kalina was terrifying in a way that Adaine couldn’t even comprehend. She was sneaky and evasive and yet simultaneously everywhere and anywhere. She had taken Tracker and Ragh and Ayda and Sandra Lynn into the forest and infected them. They couldn’t let anyone else get taken, especially with Kristen and Riz already infected. But with enough research and nothing less than an act of a god (or Kristen, Adaine still wasn’t sure), they had found a way to heal their group of that threat at least.
Kristen was the cure, and yet Kristen couldn’t be there to make it for fear of Kalina finding it and finding a way around it. So instead, their faith was in a group of tinkerers and Riz’s forensic abilities to recreate it while Adaine, Fabian, and Kristen hid out in the van. Fabian stood watch outside, ready for any attack, while Adaine kept Kristen relaxed and comfortable in the van until the rest of their friends returned.
Kristen had cast Deafness on herself, to keep herself from hearing anything about the cure to keep Kalina off their tails. While they had all been relatively good about using Sign and Message , time was of the essence and Adaine certainly didn’t blame them for using their voices to work quickly.
But Kristen was asking her to cast Blindness on her as well. And that made Adaine more than a little nervous. Adaine had no qualms in her life about going without her hearing, even after the incident at Caltherial Tower. She had always been this way- or for at least as long as she could remember. She had learned and adapted. She had learned what sounds were supposed to look like, what they felt like to the rest of her friends. It was comfortable.
But she knew well enough without her sight, things would be much more complicated, scary, and worrisome. The thought of exposing Kristen to such only made her anxiety spike more.
“ You certain you want Blindness?” Adaine couldn’t even pretend to hide her nervousness. Her hands shook as she signed.
Kristen looked at her with that same determined energy Adaine had seen time and time again. Even still, Kristen’s own lip quivered as she nodded. “ We need. Cat no hear. Cat no see. Need both.” Kristen placed her palm against Adaine’s chest and breathed deeply: a sign they were going to be okay.
Adaine grabbed at Kristen’s hand and mirrored the breath before nodding. “ I here. I no future leave. Dispel when time.” She made eye contact with her friend one last time before casting the unfamiliar variation of the spell. Slowly, Kristen’s eyes blurred with blue magic. She wondered briefly if that was how she appeared when her own divination magic took hold, when the world blurred at its edges for even the briefest of moments and she twiddled with the strings of fate.
But the only fate she was twiddling with here was her own and her friends to a certain extent. In the meantime, all there was to do was wait. She’d keep Kristen safe, her and Fabian both. And then this nightmare would be a little bit closer to ending.
The Forest of the Nightmare King was everything that the name said it was: a literal forest of Nightmares. There were the corrupted figures of their friends. There were the deaths of their friends. There were their own personal nightmares. And while all of them had been terrifying in their own rights, nothing could have prepared Adaine for this.
The forest had stripped her of her vision.
That wasn’t exactly right, but it was a natural consequence of all that had come before. With Kristen gone, they had improvised a ritual with the dusk moss brick, breathing it in and giving into the fear at its most primal level. They had all gone their separate ways, dragged off in a hazy drug induced journey.
The panic attack was first, even with her vision. Her friends were walking away with perceived ease while Adaine’s feet stayed glued to the ground unable to move in any direction. Her breath caught and she couldn’t control it. She tried so hard, harder than anything to keep herself grounded and not give into the fear of the panic.
And she had succeeded.
She was outside of the briar walls, separated again. She couldn’t give into her fear even though she knew it was the right thing to do. She was so afraid of being afraid it had only made things worse for her.
Adaine begged and screamed and punched at the Briar Wall, even using Ayda’s spell to try and let her back in with vibrant arcane fists. Her chest ached as she screamed at the wall. She needed to be in there. She couldn’t save anyone out here. Her friends were there and she was here and she couldn’t do anything if she was here .
She wasn’t sure if rational thought would be helpful, but when in doubt Adaine always deferred to logic and reasoning over doubt and mystery. What would be the easiest way to give into her fear? Let the panic take over her system.
She let her heart pump and muscles ache and stomach coil as dread overtook her body. The anxiety and panic felt like a familiar friend of pain and discomfort. However their familiarity alone would make it so that this would not be enough to bring her back into the forest.
Adaine thought briefly about all the scary things that had come about on their journey: Kalina, Fabian’s grievous injuries, the person in the mysterious trance, her time in the tower. While scary, there was still the comfort that she was here . She had overcome those. She had surpassed those. They would not make for the sacrifice the forest begged for.
Her breath caught as memories flickered again to the one thing she had refused to confront: her sight.
Just days ago she had been so scared and nervous of taking Kristen’s vision and hearing simultaneously that she’d practically gone into a panic attack herself. For Adaine, losing that vision was losing the only thing tethering her to the world around her, the only thing keeping her safe. Sure she could feel the vibrations in the ground and touch the world around her, but she was so reliant on her sight that those alone would not be enough to quell her fears.
Adaine closed her eyes and walked towards the briar wall once again. She was not stopped by the sensation of prickly bushes and instead continued onward into the darkness.
This was indeed what the forest had asked of her.
The urge to peek gnawed at her insides as she walked on. But the second she had tried such a maneuver, the forest had its own ideas: branches and trees scratched at the outsides of her eyelids, preventing her from opening them. Adaine had no choice but to continue on.
She walked on with literal blind faith, presented with image after image in her mind: Biz Glitterdew offering her up in an orb as nothing more than a display to the world; the woman from her trance- her older self- debating the pain of their self worth and self dignity; and finally her parents and sister. Her truest fears were given form, and all Adaine could do was take them in stride. However, her most difficult journey of the forest had just begun.
Her parents and sister were not hallucinations of the forest. They were here. And they wanted her.
This orb was different from that which jailed her in Fallinel. While the orbs in the tower were smooth and clear and spun slowly in continuous motion, her father’s creation was rough and bumpy and rocked enough to make her motion sick. Sand and grit tore at her skin as she watched her mother walk away and her sister kept guard over her.
Adaine grit her teeth, trying to brace herself. Her father had already forced her eyes open without the healing needed to recover from the forest's wounds. She figured it was only a matter of time before he did the same to her ears and forced the painful sensation on her ears, the same as he had done before in the tower. Trapped in the orb without a plan or a proper arcane focus, Adaine couldn’t do anything to prevent whatever it was her father was planning to do. She could only hold onto herself and try to formulate something. The best whisper of a plan she had was Aelwyn.
Aelwyn, who had run willingly back to this. Aelwyn, who was slumped over with fever red cheeks, standing defensively near her orb. Aelwyn, whom she couldn’t tell was protecting her father from her little sister or her little sister from their father. Aelwyn who was now receiving orders from their father and approaching her with an exploratory orange twinge of magic.
Detect Thoughts.
Adaine took a deep breath as Aelwyn’s spell targeted her mind. She let her sister in willingly, working for one last hope of a plan. “What are you doing?”
Adaine watched as Aelwyn’s words shook in her mind. “ Father wants to know what your friends are up to.” She clearly wasn’t well, wasn’t breathing easily even in the amorphous in between of her spell.
She scoffed, watching as Aewlyn began walking down the alleys of her mind. “ Awfully kind of him to send you rather than to come visit himself.” Slowly, Adaine led her to a building that looked like their old home in Solace. Her friends stood in the window, the most visible and kind attachments she had.
Aelwyn obliged, entering the door, peeking through for any semblance of their plans, only to be greeted by memories of kindness to one another and fear of the forest. “He figured you might be more open to sharing with me than with him. He appears to have been right.”
Her older sister reached further though, finding memories of her friends' kindness silhouetted by the vaguest memories Adaine had of Aelwyn’s almost kindness. Adaine’s memories of Aelwyn holding her tongue back, of giving her a light touch on the shoulder when their parents had been exceptionally cruel, of an extra snack left near her bedroom after Adaine had been sent to bed without supper.
“ I share only that which you wish to see.” It was far more Oracular and formal than Adaine preferred to be. Her father wanted the Oracle, not his daughter. But that didn’t mean Aelwyn didn’t get to have her choice as well.
“ You think I want to see my failings?”
“ These are what I have of you, Aelwyn. We will live near immortal lives and these are the best memories I have of you,” Adaine pleaded softly, approaching the spectral memory of Aelwyn. Her real sister had real tears flowing down her cheeks in the ethereal in between. “ It doesn’t have to be like this.”
Aelwyn reached towards her slowly as her body could no longer bear her weight. Adaine pressed her forehead to the crown of Aelwyn’s head, the same as she had done many days before. “I don’t know how else it can be. They will never let us be, not how we really are.”
Adaine sighed, letting herself feel the contact, letting it ground herself. “ Run away with me. Come home with me.” Even as more people moved to Mordred, there would be more than enough room for Aewlyn. Adaine would make sure of that personally.
“He’s going to kill you, Adaine. Or worse.”
“We’ve already seen worse. He tortured you for a year, Aelwyn. Even if he wasn’t the one spinning you, he let that happen. Encouraged that to happen.” Adaine shook her head. Even if she didn’t know what she was up against properly, she knew it wasn’t worth sticking around for either of them. “ I’ve already lost you once. Will you please stay?”
“Would you be my big sister?”
Aelwyn’s knees buckled beneath her, collapsing into a hug with Adaine. Adaine held her sister tightly, letting her own tears fall. Given their tumultuous past, it wasn’t something that she had realized she wanted so badly. But her older sister was here with her. And with a little bit of luck she would stay this time.
“ I want nothing more than-”
Their conversation was cut short, Aelwyn being dragged out of the dream space. Adaine watched as their father grabbed at her arm, physically pulling her away. He was talking to her sister and then yelling at her, a hand raised to her cheek. Aelwyn held herself tightly, bracing for whatever was to come.
“ I’m here with you.”
Her father’s hand did not strike Aelwyn, but instead a shiver ran down her back as Adaine saw the lightning crackle at his fingertips. Her father was going to strike her.
She squeezed her eyes tightly, sensing the blue light racing toward her. But the light never reached her and the inevitable pain was not felt by her. Instead the orb shook with energy as her sister bodied the lightning spell and crumpled towards the ground. Fury and rage built within her as she dispelled the orb. Her sister’s sacrifice would not be made in vain.
With a crackle of lightning in her own fists, she charged at her father.
He was dead before he even hit the ground.
Adaine screamed with her whole chest running towards her sister in the clearing, She closed one of the more damning wounds with gauze from her jacket, and after a touch and go moment Aelwyn was back with her. She was still hurt and on the brink of unconsciousness, but she was stable. “Aelwyn,” she whispered.
“ Adaine,” she signed. Adaine reached for her sister’s hand, squeezing it gently.
For all the trials and tribulations, maybe they could be the sister each other so desperately wanted.
Adaine’s family had always been something of a state of flux. She knew the basics of course. It was composed of a father, a mother, and a sister. She had a father who cared more about the outward opinions of their family from the Court of Stars than anything Adaine could ever want or desire. She had a mother who only cared about research and becoming as powerful as possible. She had a sister whose only job was to show her up at every opportunity.
But now everything was completely different. Her father was gone and struck dead in the forests of Sylvaire they left behind. Her mother was in those same forests crawling on hands and knees. The husk that had been her sister’s anger and fear was left there, freed from her old cocoon. And in those shadows, her new family formed and took its place.
She had come home from the forest to find her wizarding tower decorated in 16 small gifts: gifts she would have been given if she had had the privilege of having those birthdays at Mordred Manor. Jawbone had hugged her and asked if he could be her dad, something she had agreed with her whole heart.
Sandra Lynn and Lydia were downstairs in the kitchen, asking what she wanted for take-out. Sandra Lynn reached around and gave her a hug, a comfortable contact she’d never received from her own mother. Lydia made sure that she had ordered enough to regain her strength after their adventure.
In the living room, her sisters were tumbling around wrestling for the remote. Adaine couldn’t help but laugh as Fig and Kristen wrestled, Kristen’s horrific dexterity getting her caught within Fig’s horns making them all laugh as Tracker watched on. Tracker smiled, looking back at her. “ You joining us?” she signed.
“ Later,” Adaine replied. There was one more matter of business to attend to.
Slowly, Adaine climbed the stairs to her tower with a new familiarity. Inside the doorway, she could see Aelwyn resting in the bottom bunk covered in her knit blanket. “ Tired there?” she Messaged, not wanting to wake her up.
Aelwyn’s eyes crept open to look back at Adaine. “ Cold,” she signed back, burrowing herself in the blanket.
Adaine rolled her eyes playfully before sitting on the side of the bunk with her. Carefully, she moved in and wrapped her arms around Aelwyn, moving her head to rest against Adaine’s chest. She was still so warm from fever, even after starting the antibiotics Jawbone had gotten her. It was no wonder she was cold. “That better?”
Aelwyn weakly signed back an affirmation, eyes shut again. Aelwyn rested comfortably in her arms as Adaine drew soft circles on her hand. She felt as her sister’s breathing evened out again and watched as the rain pelted the window near the bed. Yellow light drifted in from the cemetery. It felt like an old memory in the best way, even if it wasn’t one Adaine knew existed. Or perhaps it was simply the construction of a new memory. But in the end, nothing else mattered.
Adaine was home.