Noctisardor Bypass kids are sad, the sky is blue, there are monsters in the spare bedroom

Was it safe? What if Glaukos turned up again without warning? He’d gone willingly both times, though Druid felt a foreign feeling pulse through her: paranoia. She suddenly wanted to renege on her very own suggestion, though instead she took a deep breath and considered Heda’s question.

It freaked me out, Druid said candidly after a moment. I still don’t understand why he came back. He said he wanted to meet them, she recounted, but why didn’t he want to meet them the day they were born? You were always so much more of a partner to me than he was. I know he took care of us and I don’t mean to discount that. But he was never there for us in the ways we—or at least I—really needed more than anything.

Her feelings were still complicated and convoluted to this day. Druid hadn’t made sense of many of them until after the fact, in part because the weeks before and after the pups’ arrival had been so fraught for her. She’d suffered greatly, barely survived. She knew Glaukos had helped her with that, as far as bringing her meat and guarding the bypass. But he’d only done the bare minimum, without seeming to notice her incredible struggle.

And then he went after Etienne, she concluded on a breathy note, and Anselm. I guess that was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

She shook her head, sighed. Her eyes then found Heda’s, silently inviting her to share her thoughts on the matter.