[ Words that make Bastien glow, without his face changing much at all, like the sun's just come out. ]

I love you, too.

[ A pivot, and he hitches Byerly in closer. ]

I told Alexandrie once—when she was going to Antiva, you know, and she thought you'd said no, and she was half-destroyed. I told her nothing is the end of the world except the end of the world. Everything short of that, we mend it or we get through it or we turn it into something new.