Noctisardor Bypass believe in me and I'll believe in you

He didn’t acknowledge her statement. She didn’t fault him. Glaukos couldn’t possibly understand what a momentous change she was going through even now. She’d buried Rivenwood a long time ago. Unearthing it was a bittersweet process.

He posed another question. Druid balked: a knee-jerk reaction. She quickly overcame it, however, and smiled softly as she thought of Sequoia. When her mind inevitably flicked to the only father figure she’d ever really known—Mahler—her eyes grew flinty as her lips pulled into a thin line.

You could never find someone more loyal than my mother. When we first began looking around here, I was a little surprised she wasn’t still here. Even after all this time, I can’t imagine her leaving Rivenwood. Nor my sister, Witch.

Yet they had, obviously. She pondered that for the nth time, though only for a moment. Druid drew in a deep, steadying breath through her nose.

I didn’t have a father in my life. The closest I came to it was a man named Mahler. He turned his back on us. One day, he just walked out of our lives without a word, much less a goodbye.

Again, she didn’t want to dwell. He hadn’t asked her about her family, just her parents, yet Druid’s thoughts ventured westward. That was where Heda had gone, wasn’t it? Was she still there? Or had she moved on with her life too? She should go look for her, like she had looked for Mireille.

What about you? Tell me about your family, Druid said, returning her attention to Glaukos.