Chapter 80: Duskmere's Event Part 2
The line outside exhaled as if the town had been holding its lungs for a season.
Kelen looked at his palms as if the story they told had finally become legible. He closed his fingers slowly. “I don’t know how,” he whispered.
“That’s all right,” Helios said. “We do.”
Ruby blinked, startled, then snorted. “Well. That’s new.”
We escorted Kelen out into morning.
⁂
It wasn’t simple.
It never is.
The crowd surged with relief and then anger and then relief again. Some wanted to strike him; some wanted to thank him; most wanted to never have to decide. Thaddeus made space with quiet, immovable gentleness. Santina stood between Kelen and the worst of the rage wearing a body that wasn’t quite her own, because people sometimes listen better to strangers. R
