Eiden disappeared into the crowd.
Raizen stood in the festival crowd, Saffi beside him, the lantern light warm on their faces and Eiden's words sitting in his chest like a rock.
Nice try. Last night.
He'd deal with that later. He'd have to. But right now, standing in the amber glow of a celebration that had been built on a catastrophe nobody knew about, there was something more immediate that needed addressing.
He turned to Saffi.
She was looking at the ground. Not at the stalls, not at the crowd, not at the hole in the sky that had been commanding everyone else's attention all evening. At the ground. Her hands were at her sides, the new bracelet catching the lantern light on her wrist, and her posture held the rigid stillness of someone who was processing something and hadn't finished.
"Saffi," he said. "I'm sorry."
She didn't look up immediately.
