"No."
"I wasn't here. For any of it. The real version, the first version. I died, and you've been doing this alone all this time."
"You didn't fail me. You and Mom defended the Heartwood. You gave me time to get the civilians into the tunnels. You died so that I could live, and I have used every day since then to make sure it counted."
His jaw works. The blank expression cracks, just for a moment, and what's underneath is grief so deep it has no bottom.
"I taught you to hold a dagger when you were four," he says.
"You did."
"You had good grip strength."
"I still do."
He is quiet for a moment. His hands are in his lap now, and he's staring at them like they belong to someone else.
"You were trying to protect me. That was always the reason, even when I was too angry to see it." I watch his face carefully. "You were a good father, Kaelren. Overprotective and terrible at explaining your feelings, but good. The best I could have asked for."
His jaw flexes. He looks away, toward the darkening sky visible through the open ceiling. When he looks back, his eyes are wet, and seeing Kaelren's eyes wet is something I have experienced exactly four times in fifty-three cycles. Each time it has taken the ground out from under me.
"And me?" Elle asks. Her voice is steadier now, but her hand is still gripping mine. "What kind of mother was I?"
"The best. The kind who braided my hair every morning until I was ten and refused to let me quit. The kind who stayed up with me when I had nightmares about the Cathedral and told me stories about a place called Arkansas where the summers were hot and there was a drink called Dr Pepper that she missed more than anything in the world."
Elle laughs. The sound cracks in the middle, but she lets it.
"You taught me how to cook. Badly. You were a terrible cook."
"I am a terrible cook."
"It's genetic. I'm also a terrible cook. The Verdance grows most of our food pre-prepared, which is the only reason this city hasn't starved under my leadership."
Elle is fully crying again, but she's laughing too, and the combination is so familiar to me I have to look away for a moment to keep my composure.
"You made the garden grow for me," I say, quieter now. "After the nightmares. You'd take me out to the residential garden, and you'd put your hands in the soil and grow flowers around me until the bad feelings went away. You said you learned it from your grandmother. That growing things was how your family processed the hard stuff."
Elle's hand goes to her mouth again. "Grandma Jo," she whispers.
"You talked about her constantly. I know about the house, the garden, the elm tree, the ceramic frog on the porch. I know about the wind chimes and the way the light came through the kitchen window in the morning." I hold her gaze. "You carried that place with you into this world, and you gave it to me. Every story. Every memory. I grew up knowing where I came from, even the parts that existed in a different realm."
The garden alcove is quiet for a long time.
"Can I ask you something?" Elle says.
"Anything."
"What did you call us?"
The question is so simple and so specific that it catches me off guard. Of all the questions I've been asked in fifty-three cycles, this is new.
"Mom," I say. "And Dad. Sometimes, Father, when I was being formal. He hated that."
"I would," Kaelren says, and his voice has come back from wherever it went. Rough, but present.
Elle reaches over and takes his hand. She holds his hand and mine; the three of us connected, and for a moment, nobody speaks. We just sit in the garden with the weight of it.
"Can you call Peeble back?" Elle says. "They should know."
