"The air inside is not all toxic, you know?"

Unmoving atop the pillar, the flier caught sight of Kismet's silhouette in the faint light emanating from the steaming creek running below.

"What I mean is that you will not perish the moment you enter."

He raised his head from the cool stone, and his mouth opened, but his mind was void of words. All he knew was that he could not enter. Not for as long as—

"He has been conscious earlier."

The flier winced, shifting his gaze toward Kismet, who sat beneath the pillar and glanced up at him. An onslaught of questions flooded his mind—was his condition stable? Had he asked for him? Had he even remembered that he was here? Yet no words escaped his mouth.

"He will live." Kismet guessed the most pressing of his questions. "Most likely. Spinners are excellent medics if the price is fair. I cannot believe all the junk he has won in the arena has at last amounted to something."

The flier breathed a sigh of relief, only to feel a wave of shame wash over him. He had no right to feel relieved. Not he, who—

"And so I have come here," continued Kismet undauntedly, "so that you at last tell me what by all hells transpired after you left together. Or before you came here. Whenever this all has started. You will speak," she cried. "Because Henry will not—cannot—and I cannot live with this uncertainty a moment longer."

The flier stared down at her helplessly. His mouth opened, then closed again. His mind reeled, but there were no words. No thoughts. What . . . had happened? When had it all started? It had been good at one point. It had been good. They had been . . . happy? He had been . . . For the first time, after an eternity of gloom and desolation, he had been happy. And then something had happened. Something had changed. Something . . . "We bonded."

"My, how that concept must have changed since the last time I set foot in society."

"No." The flier agitatedly beat the air with his wings. "No, I mean . . . I do not mean the essence of bonding; I mean that is what changed. I . . . think."

"You think?"

The flier strained his mind. "I am not—" He shook his head, his voice breaking. "I mean, that is . . . when it changed. I think. It cannot be coincidental that I—"

"—That you decided it was a good idea to battle your bond to the death?"

"No," said the flier emphatically, pulling his wings around himself. He longed to curl together and hide from the relentless questioning, but . . . he was done hiding. Done lying. To others and especially to himself. "No," he repeated instead, unable to look her in the eye. "It cannot be coincidental that the way in which we affected each other underwent a shift."

Kismet was silent for a moment. "Fine," she said after a while, in a mellower voice. "Redemption lies plainly in truth, they say. Meaning, the path to healing lies in embracing one's mistakes and being truthful about them."

"I will lie no longer," the flier whispered. "No more lies. They were all lies. My own and hers, that—"

"Hers?"

For one heartbeat, the flier considered how wise it was to expose it all so freely to this gnawer, who was essentially a stranger. But . . . He shifted, staring into the sizzling creek. He was done with lies. Done, for good. And . . . Was it not their lack of openness, of vulnerability, that had led them this far? He pictured the boy's face, moments after he had dropped his blade, and felt a shiver down his spine.

"A gnawer," he admitted. "She . . . After we left you, we ventured to the Ice System and were caught in a flood. We were washed down a . . . waterfall." The flier shuddered, recalling the boy's arms around him and his hand clutching his claw. Don't let go.

"I do not remember how I survived," he continued, inhaling deeply. "But when I awoke, there was a gnawer. She did not attack. She even claimed that she had fished me out of the water. She asked . . ." He inhaled again, barely mustering the strength to repeat the words. "She asked how I was feeling."

He shoved aside all the emotions of that day that flared within his memory. Emotions that he should not have felt at the sight of a gnawer but that he had anyway. Because . . . she had asked how he had been feeling. When had anyone last asked him this?

"Oh no." His head whipped around to Kismet; she sat on her haunches, shaking her head. "Do not tell me I smelled correctly when I thought to have made out the scent of Tonguetwist in the arena earlier?"

His mouth fell open. "She introduced herself as such."

"Oh no," repeated Kismet.

"How do you—?"

"Everyone knows Tonguetwist."

"I had not."

"Naturally." She groaned. "If you had, you wouldn't have believed a single word out of her mouth. She bears that name for a reason. Charming and considerate, isn't she?" Kismet scoffed. "Oh, and such an attentive listener. Before you know it, she makes herself into your most intimate friend. Except being her friend seldom ends well for anyone. She listens and she attends to your needs, and so she wraps you around her slippery tail until she may twist your thoughts and fears and compel you to do anything she desires . . . Something such as to fight your own bond to the death?"

"She . . ."

"She said something about "freeing yourself from what is holding you back," did she not? Or maybe something about "taking back your agency and strength"?"

The flier's mouth snapped shut.

"Take my advice and forget everything she ever uttered," scoffed Kismet. "Tonguetwist is what I call a rat among rats, and that is putting it nicely. Not a hair on that shiny silver coat of hers is genuine."

The flier lay still as stone, feeling his head pound with a dull ache. It had all been . . . a ruse, of course. Tonguetwist had shown her true colors in the arena. So Kismet was telling the truth . . . wasn't she? He peeked down at her. She had to be. She had saved the boy's life. She had harbored and taught him. She had . . .

And Tonguetwist . . . He shook his head agitatedly as words upon words clustered in his mind. I really don't mind, you know? To visit so frequently. I hardly have anything else to do. Her carefree laugh sent a shiver into his core. Besides, I believe that you could use the company. When have you last spoken freely to a kindred soul?

It had all been . . . lies.

Oh, my heart aches every time I hear such a tragic story as yours. Nobody deserves to be alone in this world; nobody deserves to be used and exploited in such an atrocious manner.

He released a shaky breath. She had been so . . . so . . . She had listened . . . She had cared. His talons dug into the stone until the edge crumbled.

No, she had not cared. She had not cared . . . and the boy had not cared either. She had used him . . . they had all used him. For them all, he had been no more than a means to achieve selfish goals. What had even been her goal? What had he fallen for this time?

He squinted his eyes as a sharp pang of agony coursed through his heart . . . What little remained of his heart. He heaved. Why . . . could he not find even a single compassionate soul in this entire world, no matter how hard he tried? It was not too much to ask . . . or was it? Was he no longer entitled to care? Even so . . . The flier squinted harder. The world had not only robbed him of everything he had ever held dear. It had to flaunt it before him—what he desperately yearned for—only to watch it crumble into ashes as soon as he dared to grasp it.

He had no real reason to reveal the inner turmoil that gnawed at his heart like ravenous insects to Kismet, yet he couldn't stop the impending torrent of words either. He felt compelled to speak, to purge himself of it all before it consumed him. And so he opened his mouth, and the words flowed out nearly on their own.

He spoke of Arya, of Longclaw, and of his seven-year-long, self-induced punishment. Then he spoke of Henry, of their time spent together, recalling the light that he had felt gracing him for the first time, together with the boy. Then he went over to the moments he longed to forget, yet strangely, those were what seemed to linger most vividly. He described that, after the boy's eye had been lost, the light he had so desperately sought had drained. It had drained within the boy and within the flier too. Because he needed it. He had no light—no anything—other than what the boy shared with him. And he had not known how to rekindle this light . . . rekindle either of them before the boy would have dragged him down with himself. Before the black void, the absence of light, would have consumed them both.

Next, he recounted Tonguetwist and everything she had evoked within him, her neverending promises of self-sufficiency and freedom, of how he may sever the tether that bound his own light to the boy's and thereby be free. He had sucked it all up so eagerly because he had wanted to hear it. He had . . . needed to hear it—that he was not lost yet. From someone. Anyone.

He spoke until his throat was sore and his talons hurt from how hard he clutched the edge of the pillar. Until he had it all out of his system, all he had not been able to say before. All he had been too ashamed, too ignorant to put into words . . . He had never put any of this into words for the boy. Suddenly, this notion filled him with boundless shame.

Kismet interrupted not once. She merely sat motionless at the pillar's bottom, gazing into the crackling creek. When the flier's torrent of words at last abated, piercing silence fell over the cave. He could not cease trembling, deafened by the pungent silence. Pulling his wings tighter around himself, he was overcome by a wave of shame. Was it not careless to reveal all this so freely? His mind reeled with all the possible reactions, consequences . . . things Kismet may do with this information.

Right when he was on the verge of breaking the silence, she beat him to it: "Seriously, when the hell have I ever consented to be your relationship counselor?"

Shame flooded him at once. "Forgive me," mumbled the flier, but before he could continue, she did something entirely unexpected: she laughed.

"I am joking," snarled Kismet. "Not an ideal coping mechanism when faced with an emotionally loaded situation; I am aware of that much." Before he could find a reply, she continued: "First, your boy tells me that I am a teacher, and now his flier tells me that I am a counselor too," she muttered under her breath. "Just to get this out of the way immediately . . . Out of nothing but honest curiosity, have you ever tried telling him any of this?"

"I did not . . ."

"No?!"

". . . not want to burden him with my problems when he was despairing all on his own," hissed the flier.

"But was your despair not tethered to his despair anyway, or have I misunderstood that earlier?"

"But I—"

"To reiterate." She planted herself in front of him; her gaze at him through the vision aid sparked. "When you first met him, Henry did with you what Henry does—breathe life into your meaningless existence, drag you off your hide, and shine his light upon you until you are compelled to stop fighting it. And then he . . . lost his eye."

"His eye and his light," mumbled the flier. "It was . . . I could not . . ."

". . . Not do anything besides stand by and watch as this boy, whom you had once considered impervious to dread, a source of infinite hope . . ." Kismet paused, lowering her vision aid. "He was infinite," she mumbled to herself, disbelievingly. "When he arrived here, oh, I too was but a shadow, barely keeping myself alive."

"But he will not let you remain in your shadow."

"He will not!" exclaimed Kismet. "Without as much as a warning, he barged into my existence, and he brought . . . brought . . ."

"Light."

"And there is no escape from his light."

"Until he had none anymore."

"Think you I don't know what that is like?" hissed Kismet. "You . . . have you any clue as to what became of him since you fell down that waterfall?"

The flier clenched his claws around the stone. He pictured the boy's eye in the arena . . . Not when he had dropped his sword or when he had gazed up at him with his hand raised. But before.

"Have you any idea what it was like . . ." Kismet cut herself off, and the flier nearly caved under the sheer power of the grief that oozed from her voice. "You may have seen him fracture. But have you any idea what it is like when this . . . this, what you believed to be a bottomless source of light . . . shatters?"

"But he—"

"He has," cried Kismet, scraping a talon across the stone floor. "He has . . . shattered, somewhere on the inside. And all this life, this light, which we once believed to be so infinite, so inspiring that it raised us up too . . . was spilling out before my very eyes. And for as much as I tried—and believe me, I tried—I could not . . . not . . . make it stop. And so it ran out."

The flier sat still as stone, barely believing his ears.

"So do not tell me about what it is like when he ceases to have light," she cried.

"How did you . . . ?"

"I don't know," she cut him off. "Do not ask me how I handled it. I do not know. With denial. I suppose Henry may have called it . . . hope. Waking up every day and telling him . . . and myself that it was not yet too late. That it may get better. Because it had to. Because he would not truly be like me," she whispered. "He would not . . . could not be one of us."

Hot shame flooded the flier; it was so powerful that he nearly crumpled under its weight. "I tried," he whispered. "I could not. I could not . . . exist without his light. To see him in such a state and know that I hadn't the power to alleviate it, that I was utterly helpless . . ." He shuddered. "His presence, which had once been invigorating, became draining."

Kismet looked up at him again for the first time. "Were you helpless?" she asked, her voice suddenly devoid of the former sorrow. "Or did you convince yourself that you were because it was easier that way?"

"That is not true!" hissed the flier, his wings snapping open. "I was not . . . I was not ready. I had nothing to give him. I had no light to give him!"

"You had your support and comfort. You had yourself."

He stared down at Kismet, stumped. Then he scoffed. "As if that would have helped. He does not want comfort. He wants—"

"When has he told you that?" Kismet exclaimed.

"He—" The flier stilled. "He has never expressed wanting it," he said after a while, but he could not meet her gaze. "He has often made it clear that he wishes not to be comforted and looked after like a child. And I did not want to assume—"

"But he is a child!" exclaimed Kismet, then she groaned. "He is a stubborn and prideful seventeen-year-old, and he has so little forgiveness for his own flaws and vulnerabilities that it is hard to bear most of the time. How about—" she gestured toward her cave, "you go in there and ask him if he does not want your comfort, and if he declines, then we can talk."

The flier scoffed. "I have . . . nearly killed him." In his mind flashed the boy's face, and his plea upon coming to in the flier's presence: Please don't hurt me! It caused the blade lodged in his heart to twist.

"You did," said Kismet resolutely. "And if you still love him anyway, you will join me in doing everything in your power to save him from his own darkness. From truly becoming like us."

"I do still love him," whispered the flier without looking at her.

"And he must hear that!" she exclaimed. "More than anything, he must. He is . . . is . . . Have you not once considered that, beneath his prideful and impenetrable shell, he may also be dreadfully starved of affection?"

The flier gritted his teeth. His mind flashed to the quest that the boy had been so desperate to join. "Perhaps," he said. "But the affection he longs for is that of those he actually cares for." The thought seared into his heart like a glowing arrow, rekindling pains from before their fallout.

Kismet was silent for a long time. So long that he opened his eyes to glance at her, only to find her gaze filled with solemn sympathy. "It is so destructive," she finally said. "The power of preemptively jumping to conclusions. I cannot say that I have not lost anything to it yet myself."

"Preemptive?"

"Yes, preemptive," snarled Kismet. "Or, when and where has your boy ever told it to your face that he does not care for you?"

"He chose to pursue the quest when—"

"He did, and how did he react when you came after him?"

The flier had no reply.

"He makes impulsive decisions occasionally . . . Or perhaps more than occasionally." Kismet waved her paw. "But that is not why you doubt him, is it? You go on and on about whether he is worth the trouble he makes, yet I believe you have long made up your mind about that." She stared at him so intensely that he had to avert his gaze. "He is flawed and inconsiderate sometimes, but he is still your boy, no? You doubt him not because you cannot decide whether he is worth it, but rather because of your own deep-rooted belief that you are not worth it . . . which is far more complicated."

The flier's mouth opened, then closed again. Deep down, it dawned on him that Kismet was right, but this truth was too painful, too shameful, yet to acknowledge. "He . . . chose to stay here with you," he said instead. "He cared more about this than—"

"He pleaded for you to stay with him, for goodness sake!" Kismet cut him off. "Has he not pleaded for you to stay? To—" She paused, then raised her paw to unclasp a large pocket on her belt. "Never mind my blabbering. Come down from there and see for yourself whether you may bring yourself to believe his words."