Sawtooth Spire sailing through the mist, into the abyss, if you knew, would you sail out to me?

You're lucky I didn't kill it! Wylla retorted hotly, though she privately wished that Tulip's charter ended with a fatality. Phaedra scrambled after her slithery friend and Wylla didn't follow. She sucked a slow breath in through her nose, willing away her desire to argue. If this was Tiercel, she'd have railed against her daughter until the sun went down to prove she was right, but Phaedra was a more delicate child. And Wylla liked to think she was a better mother to her than she'd been to the first.

But maybe she wasn't. The expression Phaedra shot at her reminded her so starkly of Mahler that she was too taken aback to say anything at all. Her daughter stomped away and left Wylla standing there, feeling strangely gutted — no doubt thanks to the reminder of how many times she'd stoked Mahler's ire and received that same expression from him, and it being tenfold worse from her own child — until she eventually shook her head, turned and headed off for a patrol.