Noctisardor Bypass Blasé and lucky tonight,

She’d expected him to catch the lapsus linguae. Perhaps she’d even made it deliberately. She blinked slowly as he questioned her. Whatever else he was, Anselm was sharp.

Swallowing past a sudden wave of nausea, Druid kept her composure as she replied, Mahler was a dearly beloved father figure to me when I was growing up here in Rivenwood… that is, until he walked out of the bypass and my life without so much as a goodbye.