She doesn’t close the distance between their fingers. There is still something about him, his interest in her, that she finds incomprehensible; and besides, she is still in shock, absorbed in her loss. It isn’t only her personal sorrow, or the impact this will have on her work-- all her research wasted-- but the wasteful brutality of it, that strikes her hardest. That Oriencor could destroy innocent creatures for a personal slight, even if it were Aeriel’s fault that she had lost Irrylath’s undivided attention.

“And how can you handle such a thing?”

More weary than bitter, she looks up at him.

“No one can give back what she has taken.”