“It’s not my decision.”
“And if I said I’d leave it in your hands because I owe you so much?”
“I’d say it was a terrible way of showing gratitude.”
Moran’s smile was looser, more natural. Her wings, however, were still larger than life. “Then I won’t. I don’t feel that it’s a decision I can make. But I don’t feel that I have any choice.”
“If they choose to leave the Aerie, will they be outcaste?”
“Yes. But...not in the normal way. I don’t think so many people have been made outcaste at once in our history. In theory, murderers are still Aerians. In theory, so are thieves and petty criminals. We have our own way of dealing with crime.”
“Lillias—”
“Yes. People are people, no matter how lowborn or highborn they are. Some will be exemplary. Some...won’t. The same is true of humans, of Leontines, of Barrani. Maybe it’s less true of Dragons. Lillias did not deserve what happened to her. In all possible ways, it was a gross miscarriage of justice; it was a gross abuse of power.
“But I can’t give back what was taken.”
Kaylin’s shoulders sagged, because she realized that was what she’d been hoping for. In the midst of Dragons and Arcanists and outcastes and Shadow, she had wanted Lillias to get her wingsback.
“I can reinstate her name. I can return that to her family. I can tell people the truth, over and over again, until they understand what Lillias sacrificed for my sake. And I will. But I can’t give her back her wings.”
“Why? If they could be taken—”
“They were destroyed, Kaylin. And thepraevoloisn’t a maker. If you cut off a man’s leg, you can’t just grow him another one while he waits.”
“But...you could give her back flight?”
Moran glanced at Clint. He met her gaze, his own clear. “No.”
“But you gaveme—”
“While she is physically with me in the Southern Reach, she could fly. I could keep you in the air while I touched you; I could stop you from being dashed against the rocks. But her wings are gone, and I have no way of returning them. Being outcaste was not meant to be reversible.”
“Could she—could she go home?”
Clint and Moran exchanged another glance, and this time, Clint exhaled. But the look he gave Moran was less tinged with awe; it was normal. For Clint. “Kitling, when someone is made outcaste, they lose their family. They lose their flight. They are a shame, a stain. If Lillias is exonerated, she will no longer be that shame. But her family turned their wings to her. Her family cast her out, just as the flights did.”
“But they werewrong—”
“Yes. And now they know it. Guilt is not a comfortable home. Lillias has made a life for herself. It is not her old life.”
“Can’t you at least let Lillias decide that?”
Moran bowed her head. “Yes. But sometimes the burden of decision isn’t a kindness.”
“Are we going home?” Kaylin asked.
“For tonight, yes. We are going back to Helen.”
“You aren’t going to stay.”
“For tonight I will.” Moran’s smile was weary. Whatever power or authority she had assumed in the Aeries had deserted her; she looked as tired as Kaylin felt. “But yes, as you suspect, I can no longer make my home with you and Helen.” She sounded as if she regretted it.
“Your wing is better,” Kaylin said, as they headed toward the door.
Moran flexed it, but said nothing. Neither did Clint.
* * *
