Somewhere behind his eyes, William withdraws, shrinks away from the person she's describing. His mouth pulls tight at the corners. “It's a bad habit,” he says, ducking his head and thinking of how breathlessly she'd repeated real world to him that night in Pariah. He hadn't realized she could see—without even knowing what she was looking at—that worldliness in him.

He brushes his thumb over her knuckles, squeezes her hand in wordless apology. “Comparison.”

He tugs her—gently, glancing over his shoulder every so often—toward the tree, until the light's settled around them. He looks up through the glowing branches, the sky a distant, dark scrap. “No matter where—or when—we go next, no matter what happens, this'll be here.”

Like that, he's smiling again.