Jesstin shared a quick glance with Elloven and then leaned down to whisper, “They’re the same toys.”
“That’s not true.”
“It is.”
“Mama, is that true?”
Elloven bounced Alysia in her arms with a cheerful laugh that made Jesstin fluttery inside. It happened all the time, and he was certainly not complaining. “I’m afraid so, chipmunk. But you love your toys, and you love your sister, so why should it matter?”
Oliver deliberated that for about two seconds before brightening with another thought. “Mama, they brought babies for Alysia.”
Elloven shared her confusion with Jesstin, who shrugged.
“Dolls?”
“Not dolls, babies. One is called Marsh, one is called Jonah, and one is still cooking.” Oliver rubbed his belly.
Elloven burst out laughing. “Oh! Clarissa’s little ones.”
“Anytime someone asks Clarissant how her love match is working out,” Jesstin said, “she just spits out another child as her answer.”
Elloven gave him a chiding look. “We haven’t seen Marsh since he was in swaddling, and this will be our first time meeting little Jonah. Why don’t you introduce us, chipmunk?” She gulped when he tugged her hand and started to march them off. Her dazed glance over her shoulder as they headed toward the main house was one of many about her that left Jesstin thunderstruck in his love and sick with how close he’d come to losing her forever.
“Cousin Clari says she’s cooking a little girl like Aly, but Cousin Griffath says...” Oliver’s chatter faded as they walked off.
“He’s grown up so much.” Rhiain appeared at Jesstin’s side, wrapped in a scarf Elloven had knit for her as a gift at the last Wintertide Jubilee. For a woman approaching seventy, she looked little older than middle-aged. Asterin, too, was as healthy as ever. Jesstin had lost so much of both of them, and especially of Emrys, but he tried to think of what he had instead of what he didn’t. “Aly looks more and more like Elloven every day, Jesstin. You’re going to have your hands full when she gets a little older.”
“Don’t I know it,” Jesstin said. A shiver tore through him with the breeze. “Some nights, I can’t sleep thinking about the world we brought her into and what will happen one day when I’m no longer here to protect her.”
“All parents feel that way,” Rhiain said. “She’ll have her brother, though, and her cousins. She’s all Oliver ever talks about when he’s here.”
Jesstin laughed at that. “Really?”
Rhiain nodded. “He’s a special boy. As says he’s learning languages so easily, he might be ready for translations in only a couple of years. That’s the youngest of any pupil they’ve had.”
“Sesto told me.” Jesstin had been pondering the matter of his succession, whether it was even necessary. Unlike Jesstin, Oliver had taken to scholastic endeavors naturally. Alysia was still so little, but her fire burned a different color than her brother’s, and he could sometimes imagine her behind the bar, sassing everyone around and whipping the place into shape. But he’d accepted the potential that neither of his children would want to inherit what he’d built. Whatever they wanted, he would see it done.
“Are you still moving onto the new homestead next week?”
“That’s the plan,” Jesstin said. They’d been living at Nightwood since their wedding, but there were too many ghosts for Elloven. He’d bought some land between Mythgarde and Riverchapel, a few miles from the Hermitage. It had been a year since construction began, but the house was finally ready, a place to make their own memories and leave their own ghosts.
“I can’t wait to see it.” She inhaled the wind with a nervous, guarded smile and a shuffle in place. It seemed like a cue for them to head inside with the others, but she didn’t move.
Over the past four years, their interactions had grown less perfunctory, slightly warmer and more familial, but in many ways, their relationship wasn’t any deeper than a casual acquaintance. Asterin had started dreaming of Jesstin almost immediately after they’d reunited, but not Rhiain. It was the final piece of unfinished business, the last frayed thread, but Jesstin feared it would never mend and he’d never get his sister back.
“All of you are welcome, Rhiain. Anytime.” He pulled short of adding you’re family because he’d seen how she always struggled with not having recovered any of her memories as others had. “Should we...”
“Jesstin, before we go in, there’s something I need to say.” She did an awkward little shuffle before gesturing toward the nearest bench. “If you’ll indulge me a moment?”
“I’ll indulge you as long as you want.”
She smoothed her skirts and eased onto the bench. “I’ve been meeting with a magus from the Sepulchre for the past few months. There’s been some developments in the study of magic’s role in memory, and I thought—I hoped—he might have insight into how to recover ours. Mine.” She tugged on her scarf. “Unfortunately, he did not have any experience or knowledge of soul fragmentation, but he had worked with people like me and Emrys and... you... who have had memories taken using magic from our world. He was very interested in our story and has studied us, well me, ever since. He was particularly curious about how recovering the past would affect my recollections of you.”
Jesstin frowned. “Even if he could recover them, I’d be a child.”
“But that’s what I wanted to tell you. He has recovered some. Between my dream memories over the years and his help, I estimate I’m close to halfway in regaining what was lost. Emrys isn’t well enough to participate in the exercises, but you may want to...” Rhiain shook her head. “Something unexpected happened during our work together. While the holes of those years began to slowly fill, I saw you.” She twisted her hands in her lap. “It had to be you, though you were so little. You would have been so young when Mathias stole our memories.”
Although Jesstin had waited a long time for her to have a breakthrough, all he felt was numb. “Ah.”
