“They did, yeah.” The unspoken Gwenaëlle sits there between them, his usual hotline for any Riftwatch gossip or social context he’s missing. “And Herian herself was very open about it besides. She didn’t want to cause you any extra distress.”

But how Herian feels isn’t precisely the most pertinent topic at hand, considering she doesn’t feel much of anything anymore. So Stephen looks at Cosima instead, and weighs what he can see of the expression on— his friend. Yes. They are, in fact, friends, and so he tells himself he’s allowed to ask this, and she came here specifically to talk about this.

“How are you feeling about it?”