Cyrus stared down at the notes, spread across his desk in sheets, overlapping one another in roughly circular shapes, a result of him grouping them by association with each other. Parts of them had been copied verbatim from Leon's Seeker book, while other parts were olderāreference pages from books on magic he'd allowed to go dusty over the last months, and then other pieces from his own personal research, some of it dating back to his time with Cassius, other pieces newer, from when he'd been working on the Breach.
Put together, they spelled out an obvious conclusion. Wellāobvious as far as he was concerned, but he'd spent his entire life steeped in this kind of thing. Only surfacing when he was forced to it. And here lay the answer. The breath he needed to take before plunging once more below.
It was really, he thought, a wonder he hadn't already done it. He'd had the inklings of the answer ever since he'd discovered the solution to tranquility that lay within the Chantry text; it wasn't so hard to imagine the connection, and past the intuitive leap, physically putting the pieces together was not so difficult. Frowning, he swapped two of the sheaves of parchment, rustling the papers, then sighed when Pia chose that moment to plant herself on one of the what to her were no more than oddly-configured napping surfaces. He let her.
He knew he was wasting time. It could have been done already, if he'd forced everything along the swiftest timetable, but he hadn't. Hadn't been able to do so much as tell anyone anything about it. Brows furrowing, Cyrus turned away from his desk, glancing back further into the room. Stellulam and Harellan were late. Well, not that they had reason to be here by any specific timeāit was just that they often appeared in his tower after their practices, in the cold months to warm themselves by his hearth in particular, apparently just because they felt like it. Maybe he couldāhe shook his head, crossing the room to throw another log into the fireplace to give himself something to do. It knocked against a few of the others before settling near the back, just over a cluster of glowing embers. He tried not to think about anything, glaring intently at the flames and hoping they might lull him enough to banish the stretching shadows of his doubt. Just for a while.
They arrived some amount of time later, their approach heralded by Stellulam's laughter. It would seem something had put her in a good mood; then again, she'd seemed quite buoyant since they'd left Minrathous, as if something that had once weighed her down was... lessened. Perhaps just gone; it was hard to say.
In either case, she stumbled into his room first, not bothering to knock and, it appeared, clinging to the door handle for support. Her hair had snowflakes in itāmore than just flakes in some places, as though she'd been part of a reenactment of the previous winter's Firstday. She offered him a wide grin, shedding her cloak at the threshold and draping it over one of the hooks near the door. "Hey, Cy."
Harellan entered just behind, not looking much better. His cloak was already in his hands, and he hooked it next to Estella's, bending to remove his boots, already wet where the snow had begun to melt.
Cyrus managed to return the smile halfway, though no doubt it didn't quite get all the way to his eyes. āDo I even want to know what you've been up to?" Taking a step back from the hearth, he crossed his arms comfortably over his chest, re-centering himself. It was easier to do with Stellulam around, andāhe had to admit to himself at leastāHarellan as well. Something about them was just inherently comfortable and grounding.
"Oh, not a lot," Estella replied easily, tucking her boots up against the wall and bypassing the chairs to sit on the rug directly in front of the fireplace. "I was just showing Harellan how to make snowmen. Snowelves. Snowpeople? Snow-beings of some sort, anyway." She stretched her legs in front of her, sighing with simple satisfaction as the nearby flames warmed her toes.
"What about you, though? That's a lot of paper on the desk, even for one of your projects?" The last part sounded like a question, but the words themselves were definitely more of an observation. She'd seen the progression and aftermath of enough of them to know.
He couldn't help the way his expression pinched a little at the mention. No doubt she'd caught onto his unusual mood. She could still read him better than anyone else, after all. Even if he'd been trying to make a habit of letting others in, at least sometimes. The mixed results hadn't been quite enough to fully deter him from the attempt. Not yet, anyway. āIt's... quite a large project."
Even Harellan had caught on by that point, settling himself in one of the armchairs and turning his head to meet Cyrus's eyes. "Surely you haven't yet made a breakthrough that momentous on the Commander's case?"
Cyrus grimaced and shook his head, rocking uneasily back on his heels for a moment. āNo. Iā" He sucked a breath in between his teeth. If only he didn't understand why this was so difficult to talk about. āIt's... me. The project is me. I've figured out how to get my magic back."
Estella, formerly relaxed and languid next to the fire, snapped to attention at that, whipping around to face him almost comically-fast. "You what?" After the second longer the news took to sink in, a broad smile broke over her face. "Cy, that'sāthat's amazing!" She pushed herself back to her feet, taking a few steps toward him before she paused, tilting her head and studying his face.
"You've... you've known this for a while." Her tone betrayed it as a guess, but one she seemed fairly confident about. "And you don't look like it's wonderful news. Is there some complication?"
Complication didn't quite do it justice. Uncrossing his arms, Cyrus ran a hand down his face, then waved the arm towards the chairs again. āThat's... one way of putting it, yes. Justālet's all sit down. It's not the shortest explanation." Rarely did anything he worked on these days involved short or simple explanations, a fact he was simultaneously thrilled by and occasionally a bit sick of.
When everyone was a little more comfortably situated, Cyrus sighed, leaning back into his chair and letting his hands rest over the arms. āWhen the Seekers rid their initiates of tranquility, they do so by inviting a spirit to touch that person's mind. It restores the connection to the Fade that was severed during the Vigil." Suddenly uncomfortable with his positioning, he leaned forward, planting his elbows on his knees and staring into the middle distance, hands clasped in front of his chin.
āThere's at least one confirmed case of the same thing working on a tranquil who was once a mage, and his magic was restored to him along with the rest of it. I'm not missing my emotions, but it should put everything else back in order, assuming the spirit is sufficiently powerful."
Harellan, naturally, seemed to see the problem right away. "But of course a spirit is a malleable entity, and highly corruptible." He drummed his fingers against his knee, lips pursed. "You fear that because you are not tranquil in the sense of lacking your emotions, you could very well turn it into a demon with access to your mind. And your power."
A short, jerky nod was all the confirmation Cyrus gave, but he trusted that no more was necessary. The risk not only of corrupting the spirit but being possessed in the process was quite high, and as a somniari he absolutely could not allow that to happen. The results would be devastating. He didn't even want to think about how much damage a powerful demon would be able to do with his magic at its fingertips, and his face to mask its intent.
Estella seemed to follow the train of thought, though the troubled expression on her face didn't quite convey the same doubts Cyrus had. "Do you really think you're at risk for corrupting it, Cy? I mean, there are mages that come in contact with spirits regularly, and they aren't free of negative emotion because no one is. Asalaā" She seemed to reconsider the example immediately. He flinched anyway, just a tic, but refused to comment.
"Spirit Healers aren't immune to feeling anger or bitterness, or anything else that's negative. And it doesn't automatically turn those spirits into demons, does it?"
Cyrus laced and unlaced his fingers repeatedly, a slow rhythm ticking time off in increments as he thought about how to put it. Not that there was much of a choice: he would give Stellulam the unvarnished truth. Uncomfortable as it was, he had no illusions about being able to lie to her, and there wouldn't be any point. āTotal absence of negative feeling isn't necessary, though I'm sure it would make things easier. The contact is closer than the one between spirit healers and their aid-spiritsābut there's a reason I never made a closer study of the field myself."
It had always loomed over him, the darker underbelly to the gift he'd been born with. Every mage had to be wary of possession, always, from those like Stellulam who seldom used their abilities for anything to the ones whose entire lives revolved around magic, as his once had. But that was a rather ordinary worry about possession and death. Abominations could be fearsome, but they were not typically capable of the destruction that would be visited upon whoever and whatever was nearby if he came to be such a thing. He'd been warned away from anything that involved close contact with spirits because of the combination of this and one other simple fact.
He smiled, bitter and sharp. āI'm afraid my negative emotions are rather beyond the norm, really. Never had the right temperament for healing. Which certainly means I don't have the right temperament for this."
"I disagree." Estella shook her head, pulling her legs up underneath her where she sat and gripping her ankles in her hands. "You've changed, Cyrus. Maybe not as much as you think you need to, maybe not quickly, and maybe not as easily as other things have come to you, but you have." She met his eyes, her face set, brow angled almost as if daring him to argue. "I'm not talking about what you did for Zee's brother, either. I'm talking about how you are with Leon and Zee herself, with Ves and Astraia, with my friends and all the new people we've met here."
She expelled a breath, the end of it almost sounding like the echo of a laugh. "Half of those people, you'd never have given the time of day to, before. Whether because you thought they were beneath you or because you just didn't care enough to bother about anyone." She, too, clearly favored the 'unvarnished truth' approach. "I loved you, but even I had to admit I'd never met anyone with half as much pride as you. And I know that's not all there is to it, that there are other negative emotions you still need to deal with and work through, but... if I can dream every night and never corrupt any spirits with all the things I've been carrying around... then I believe you can do this without that, too."
Cyrus grimaced; he could admit that she had a point, though it was far from the whole story. Still, it was getting at the larger issue, the one he'd sort of been hoping to avoid. Not that he'd really ever stood a chance of that. āPerhaps you're right." He sat up straight again, unable to remain still for long. āBut... what if the magic isn't the only thing that comes back?" His voice was soft, not carrying far in the quiet setting, and he kept his eyes fixed on the floor.
āI've... maybe I've gained some distance, from the way you rightfully say I used to be. But I've been forced to. If the force goes away, if I become the same way that I was in the one senseāwhat if I can'tā" He didn't know how to make it sound rational. Of course magic and personality traits were completely different things. But magic had been the very core of his entire identity before he'd lost it. He'd built the rest of who he was around that core, and was just now feeling like he'd built something relatively solid without it. If it reappeared, who was to say the person he'd become without it wouldn't collapse just as he had when it was taken?
In the silence that followed his half-formed objection, Estella stood slowly, crossing the rug with soft footfalls to where he sat. "Scoot over," she demanded, though it was rather mild as far as demands went. When he'd complied, she squeezed into the chair next to him, throwing her left leg over his right when they didn't quite both fit otherwise. Reaching up with both hands, she gently turned his face towards hers, so that he had little option but to meet her eyes.
"Now you listen to me, Cyrus Avenarius." The words were soft; laden with some emotion that wasn't quite identifiable, other than the fact that it was heavy somehow. "The only thing that decides who you are is you." She swallowed thickly, tilting her chin up just a little more. "It's not your history, it's not your teachers, it's not your magicāit isn't even who you were yesterday. All of that can be overcome. You can overcome any of it. It's not easy, but I think you already know that."
She smiled, though it was thread-thin and tenuous, sliding her fingers back into his hair, and bringing his forehead down to hers. "Maybe you're right to be worried. But not for this reason. Because this person you are now? This has always been in you. Always been part of you. And I know, because I've known you longer than anyone has, and I've seen it. Okay?"
He nodded, just slightly against her brow. āI... understand, yes." The uncomfortable lump at the back of his throat strained his voice, but he managed to speak past it. As always, her faith in peopleāin himāwas equal parts incomprehensible and humbling. He'd no idea what he'd done to justify it, but she was right about one thing: she knew him better than anyone did. Surely better than he did.
Gingerly, he lifted one hand and settled it at the side of her neck, his index finger aligning with the scar just beneath her jawline. It punished her, that faith, and he'd be lying if he said he hadn't been the cause of a lot of that himself. Harm to her, because of the fact that she cared about him. Because he'd been too self-absorbed to understand what Tiberius was putting her through, and she hadn't wanted to trouble him. She'd forgiven him for that long ago. Whether he'd ever forgive himself was a much-different question. āThank you."
At every juncture, her love had been more than he deserved.
Perhaps love wasn't ever deserved, exactly, but it could be undeserved. Perhaps one day, he'd at least be something other than unworthy of it.
Cyrus straightened back up, clearing his throat and letting his hand fall back to his lap. āI'm afraid that still doesn't decide the issue, however." His reluctance to even make the attempt had lessened, but not abated.
"It may be prudent to consider the weight of practicality as well." Harellan wore a slight smile, no doubt in response to something Estella had said, or perhaps just the manner in which she'd done so. It slowly vanished as he spoke. "While you are far from an incapable swordsman, there will be more utility and power at your disposalāand hence oursāif you manage to achieve this."
It was a mercilessly practical argument, but it had merit. In the back of his mind, Cyrus knew that it might well be worth the risk. The situation with Corypheus was dire enough that one of the Irregulars in the right place at the right timeāand with the right skillsāmay make a significant difference. Next to that, the state of his soul, so to speak, shouldn't be much of an object.
Resting his hand much more casually atop Estella's head, Cyrus nodded. āYou're right. I need to... I need to figure out how to make this work, I justā" He couldn't quite banish the overpowering doubt that it would do more harm than good. He'd come to understand this particular type of paralysis quite intimately in the last year, but never quite in such a direct way. If nothing else, it gave him a distinctly-new appreciation for his sister, who'd been afflicted with some version of it for a very long time. His own admonitions against her self-deprecation seemed woefully insensitive and reductive, in retrospect. He tried not to hate himself for that.
Whether she knew the direction of his thoughts or not, she slid her arm around his waist, tugging herself into his side. "You don't have to have the answers today. This isn't tomorrow-or-never, Cy. Take some time. Ask us if you want help, or someone to talk to about it. We're here for you." Harellan nodded his agreement.
And maybe, just maybe, these things would make difference enough.
Put together, they spelled out an obvious conclusion. Wellāobvious as far as he was concerned, but he'd spent his entire life steeped in this kind of thing. Only surfacing when he was forced to it. And here lay the answer. The breath he needed to take before plunging once more below.
It was really, he thought, a wonder he hadn't already done it. He'd had the inklings of the answer ever since he'd discovered the solution to tranquility that lay within the Chantry text; it wasn't so hard to imagine the connection, and past the intuitive leap, physically putting the pieces together was not so difficult. Frowning, he swapped two of the sheaves of parchment, rustling the papers, then sighed when Pia chose that moment to plant herself on one of the what to her were no more than oddly-configured napping surfaces. He let her.
He knew he was wasting time. It could have been done already, if he'd forced everything along the swiftest timetable, but he hadn't. Hadn't been able to do so much as tell anyone anything about it. Brows furrowing, Cyrus turned away from his desk, glancing back further into the room. Stellulam and Harellan were late. Well, not that they had reason to be here by any specific timeāit was just that they often appeared in his tower after their practices, in the cold months to warm themselves by his hearth in particular, apparently just because they felt like it. Maybe he couldāhe shook his head, crossing the room to throw another log into the fireplace to give himself something to do. It knocked against a few of the others before settling near the back, just over a cluster of glowing embers. He tried not to think about anything, glaring intently at the flames and hoping they might lull him enough to banish the stretching shadows of his doubt. Just for a while.
They arrived some amount of time later, their approach heralded by Stellulam's laughter. It would seem something had put her in a good mood; then again, she'd seemed quite buoyant since they'd left Minrathous, as if something that had once weighed her down was... lessened. Perhaps just gone; it was hard to say.
In either case, she stumbled into his room first, not bothering to knock and, it appeared, clinging to the door handle for support. Her hair had snowflakes in itāmore than just flakes in some places, as though she'd been part of a reenactment of the previous winter's Firstday. She offered him a wide grin, shedding her cloak at the threshold and draping it over one of the hooks near the door. "Hey, Cy."
Harellan entered just behind, not looking much better. His cloak was already in his hands, and he hooked it next to Estella's, bending to remove his boots, already wet where the snow had begun to melt.
Cyrus managed to return the smile halfway, though no doubt it didn't quite get all the way to his eyes. āDo I even want to know what you've been up to?" Taking a step back from the hearth, he crossed his arms comfortably over his chest, re-centering himself. It was easier to do with Stellulam around, andāhe had to admit to himself at leastāHarellan as well. Something about them was just inherently comfortable and grounding.
"Oh, not a lot," Estella replied easily, tucking her boots up against the wall and bypassing the chairs to sit on the rug directly in front of the fireplace. "I was just showing Harellan how to make snowmen. Snowelves. Snowpeople? Snow-beings of some sort, anyway." She stretched her legs in front of her, sighing with simple satisfaction as the nearby flames warmed her toes.
"What about you, though? That's a lot of paper on the desk, even for one of your projects?" The last part sounded like a question, but the words themselves were definitely more of an observation. She'd seen the progression and aftermath of enough of them to know.
He couldn't help the way his expression pinched a little at the mention. No doubt she'd caught onto his unusual mood. She could still read him better than anyone else, after all. Even if he'd been trying to make a habit of letting others in, at least sometimes. The mixed results hadn't been quite enough to fully deter him from the attempt. Not yet, anyway. āIt's... quite a large project."
Even Harellan had caught on by that point, settling himself in one of the armchairs and turning his head to meet Cyrus's eyes. "Surely you haven't yet made a breakthrough that momentous on the Commander's case?"
Cyrus grimaced and shook his head, rocking uneasily back on his heels for a moment. āNo. Iā" He sucked a breath in between his teeth. If only he didn't understand why this was so difficult to talk about. āIt's... me. The project is me. I've figured out how to get my magic back."
Estella, formerly relaxed and languid next to the fire, snapped to attention at that, whipping around to face him almost comically-fast. "You what?" After the second longer the news took to sink in, a broad smile broke over her face. "Cy, that'sāthat's amazing!" She pushed herself back to her feet, taking a few steps toward him before she paused, tilting her head and studying his face.
"You've... you've known this for a while." Her tone betrayed it as a guess, but one she seemed fairly confident about. "And you don't look like it's wonderful news. Is there some complication?"
Complication didn't quite do it justice. Uncrossing his arms, Cyrus ran a hand down his face, then waved the arm towards the chairs again. āThat's... one way of putting it, yes. Justālet's all sit down. It's not the shortest explanation." Rarely did anything he worked on these days involved short or simple explanations, a fact he was simultaneously thrilled by and occasionally a bit sick of.
When everyone was a little more comfortably situated, Cyrus sighed, leaning back into his chair and letting his hands rest over the arms. āWhen the Seekers rid their initiates of tranquility, they do so by inviting a spirit to touch that person's mind. It restores the connection to the Fade that was severed during the Vigil." Suddenly uncomfortable with his positioning, he leaned forward, planting his elbows on his knees and staring into the middle distance, hands clasped in front of his chin.
āThere's at least one confirmed case of the same thing working on a tranquil who was once a mage, and his magic was restored to him along with the rest of it. I'm not missing my emotions, but it should put everything else back in order, assuming the spirit is sufficiently powerful."
Harellan, naturally, seemed to see the problem right away. "But of course a spirit is a malleable entity, and highly corruptible." He drummed his fingers against his knee, lips pursed. "You fear that because you are not tranquil in the sense of lacking your emotions, you could very well turn it into a demon with access to your mind. And your power."
A short, jerky nod was all the confirmation Cyrus gave, but he trusted that no more was necessary. The risk not only of corrupting the spirit but being possessed in the process was quite high, and as a somniari he absolutely could not allow that to happen. The results would be devastating. He didn't even want to think about how much damage a powerful demon would be able to do with his magic at its fingertips, and his face to mask its intent.
Estella seemed to follow the train of thought, though the troubled expression on her face didn't quite convey the same doubts Cyrus had. "Do you really think you're at risk for corrupting it, Cy? I mean, there are mages that come in contact with spirits regularly, and they aren't free of negative emotion because no one is. Asalaā" She seemed to reconsider the example immediately. He flinched anyway, just a tic, but refused to comment.
"Spirit Healers aren't immune to feeling anger or bitterness, or anything else that's negative. And it doesn't automatically turn those spirits into demons, does it?"
Cyrus laced and unlaced his fingers repeatedly, a slow rhythm ticking time off in increments as he thought about how to put it. Not that there was much of a choice: he would give Stellulam the unvarnished truth. Uncomfortable as it was, he had no illusions about being able to lie to her, and there wouldn't be any point. āTotal absence of negative feeling isn't necessary, though I'm sure it would make things easier. The contact is closer than the one between spirit healers and their aid-spiritsābut there's a reason I never made a closer study of the field myself."
It had always loomed over him, the darker underbelly to the gift he'd been born with. Every mage had to be wary of possession, always, from those like Stellulam who seldom used their abilities for anything to the ones whose entire lives revolved around magic, as his once had. But that was a rather ordinary worry about possession and death. Abominations could be fearsome, but they were not typically capable of the destruction that would be visited upon whoever and whatever was nearby if he came to be such a thing. He'd been warned away from anything that involved close contact with spirits because of the combination of this and one other simple fact.
He smiled, bitter and sharp. āI'm afraid my negative emotions are rather beyond the norm, really. Never had the right temperament for healing. Which certainly means I don't have the right temperament for this."
"I disagree." Estella shook her head, pulling her legs up underneath her where she sat and gripping her ankles in her hands. "You've changed, Cyrus. Maybe not as much as you think you need to, maybe not quickly, and maybe not as easily as other things have come to you, but you have." She met his eyes, her face set, brow angled almost as if daring him to argue. "I'm not talking about what you did for Zee's brother, either. I'm talking about how you are with Leon and Zee herself, with Ves and Astraia, with my friends and all the new people we've met here."
She expelled a breath, the end of it almost sounding like the echo of a laugh. "Half of those people, you'd never have given the time of day to, before. Whether because you thought they were beneath you or because you just didn't care enough to bother about anyone." She, too, clearly favored the 'unvarnished truth' approach. "I loved you, but even I had to admit I'd never met anyone with half as much pride as you. And I know that's not all there is to it, that there are other negative emotions you still need to deal with and work through, but... if I can dream every night and never corrupt any spirits with all the things I've been carrying around... then I believe you can do this without that, too."
Cyrus grimaced; he could admit that she had a point, though it was far from the whole story. Still, it was getting at the larger issue, the one he'd sort of been hoping to avoid. Not that he'd really ever stood a chance of that. āPerhaps you're right." He sat up straight again, unable to remain still for long. āBut... what if the magic isn't the only thing that comes back?" His voice was soft, not carrying far in the quiet setting, and he kept his eyes fixed on the floor.
āI've... maybe I've gained some distance, from the way you rightfully say I used to be. But I've been forced to. If the force goes away, if I become the same way that I was in the one senseāwhat if I can'tā" He didn't know how to make it sound rational. Of course magic and personality traits were completely different things. But magic had been the very core of his entire identity before he'd lost it. He'd built the rest of who he was around that core, and was just now feeling like he'd built something relatively solid without it. If it reappeared, who was to say the person he'd become without it wouldn't collapse just as he had when it was taken?
In the silence that followed his half-formed objection, Estella stood slowly, crossing the rug with soft footfalls to where he sat. "Scoot over," she demanded, though it was rather mild as far as demands went. When he'd complied, she squeezed into the chair next to him, throwing her left leg over his right when they didn't quite both fit otherwise. Reaching up with both hands, she gently turned his face towards hers, so that he had little option but to meet her eyes.
"Now you listen to me, Cyrus Avenarius." The words were soft; laden with some emotion that wasn't quite identifiable, other than the fact that it was heavy somehow. "The only thing that decides who you are is you." She swallowed thickly, tilting her chin up just a little more. "It's not your history, it's not your teachers, it's not your magicāit isn't even who you were yesterday. All of that can be overcome. You can overcome any of it. It's not easy, but I think you already know that."
She smiled, though it was thread-thin and tenuous, sliding her fingers back into his hair, and bringing his forehead down to hers. "Maybe you're right to be worried. But not for this reason. Because this person you are now? This has always been in you. Always been part of you. And I know, because I've known you longer than anyone has, and I've seen it. Okay?"
He nodded, just slightly against her brow. āI... understand, yes." The uncomfortable lump at the back of his throat strained his voice, but he managed to speak past it. As always, her faith in peopleāin himāwas equal parts incomprehensible and humbling. He'd no idea what he'd done to justify it, but she was right about one thing: she knew him better than anyone did. Surely better than he did.
Gingerly, he lifted one hand and settled it at the side of her neck, his index finger aligning with the scar just beneath her jawline. It punished her, that faith, and he'd be lying if he said he hadn't been the cause of a lot of that himself. Harm to her, because of the fact that she cared about him. Because he'd been too self-absorbed to understand what Tiberius was putting her through, and she hadn't wanted to trouble him. She'd forgiven him for that long ago. Whether he'd ever forgive himself was a much-different question. āThank you."
At every juncture, her love had been more than he deserved.
Perhaps love wasn't ever deserved, exactly, but it could be undeserved. Perhaps one day, he'd at least be something other than unworthy of it.
Cyrus straightened back up, clearing his throat and letting his hand fall back to his lap. āI'm afraid that still doesn't decide the issue, however." His reluctance to even make the attempt had lessened, but not abated.
"It may be prudent to consider the weight of practicality as well." Harellan wore a slight smile, no doubt in response to something Estella had said, or perhaps just the manner in which she'd done so. It slowly vanished as he spoke. "While you are far from an incapable swordsman, there will be more utility and power at your disposalāand hence oursāif you manage to achieve this."
It was a mercilessly practical argument, but it had merit. In the back of his mind, Cyrus knew that it might well be worth the risk. The situation with Corypheus was dire enough that one of the Irregulars in the right place at the right timeāand with the right skillsāmay make a significant difference. Next to that, the state of his soul, so to speak, shouldn't be much of an object.
Resting his hand much more casually atop Estella's head, Cyrus nodded. āYou're right. I need to... I need to figure out how to make this work, I justā" He couldn't quite banish the overpowering doubt that it would do more harm than good. He'd come to understand this particular type of paralysis quite intimately in the last year, but never quite in such a direct way. If nothing else, it gave him a distinctly-new appreciation for his sister, who'd been afflicted with some version of it for a very long time. His own admonitions against her self-deprecation seemed woefully insensitive and reductive, in retrospect. He tried not to hate himself for that.
Whether she knew the direction of his thoughts or not, she slid her arm around his waist, tugging herself into his side. "You don't have to have the answers today. This isn't tomorrow-or-never, Cy. Take some time. Ask us if you want help, or someone to talk to about it. We're here for you." Harellan nodded his agreement.
And maybe, just maybe, these things would make difference enough.