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Agatha watched him with her shrewd gaze for several long moments before her expression became resigned.
“Well,” she muttered. “I suppose this was inevitable.”
A line creased Caelyn’s brow. Opening his eyes, he turned and peered down at her.
“What was?”
“You,” she said, pointing a finger at him.
Agatha stepped gingerly around the ruined conduit, careful not to step on any of the shattered crystal pieces. She paused right beside him, looking up into his face.
“You cannot stay hidden in Lumenshire forever.”
His jaw ticked. “I’m not hiding. This is where I live.”
“You live in a sea fortress fixing resonance pipes and astrylite lanterns while writing tragic letters to a woman across the continent!” Agatha exclaimed before thwapping him in the chest with the back of her hand.
“That’s not—”
“That is exactly what you’re doing!” she said, cutting him off.
Caelyn looked as though he wanted to break something else, but Agatha ignored the simmering glare he directed her way.
“Meanwhile,” she continued, “Elowynn Selvicta is becoming one of the most influential scholars in Veylspire, perhaps even the entire continent, while attracting the attention of dangerous men and powerful institutions.”
The elder Sister leveled him with a hard look before taking her finger and jamming him in the chest with it. “And you’re sitting here sulking behind stone walls staring forlornly out to sea!”
His fight evaporated, and he was left with a bone-deep exhaustion.
Because part of him knew she was right.
Caelyn stared down at Elowynn’s letter again. The carefulness in her words disturbed him most. It was not what she said, but what she was omitting. Like someone trying not to frighten a child or someone having more to say but needing to be cautious with what they wrote.
His chest ached, and not from Agatha’s smack. It ached because he didn't know what to do.
He felt… helpless.
“I cannot go to Veylspire.” The words tasted like failure.
Agatha just scoffed. “Of course you can.”
Caelyn stared down at her. “You know what I am, Sister Agatha.”
“Yes,” Agatha said dryly. “I was there for the childhood revelations.”
“You said yourself the city would kill me if they discovered—”
“Yes, yes, horrifying danger, ancient prophecies, terrible consequences.” She waved one hand impatiently. “Unfortunately, none of that changes the fact you are still in love with her.”
The silence afterward felt enormous, and Caelyn looked away first.
Agatha sighed. “See? There it is.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he growled at her.
“Don’t you growl at me, boy! You are twenty-seven turnings old and just destroyed a wall because another man invited the woman you love to a ball.”
“…the wall was already unstable,” he reasoned.
