. . .

Eldri cannot help but laugh amidst his tears.

He knows it. He knows it is too late. He knows it is all pointless, all ruined, he would have been better off staying below and living out his life down among the svart-elves than ever coming up to the surface to live with humans and interact with humans and make wicked fetters for wicked wolves and make robots that play at games. His heart knows it. His mind knows it.

He knows it in his body and in his bones; but somehow he still cannot make himself believe that Emily is dead.

He stands there in the foyer through the day and into the early hours of the night. He wrings his hands. He sobs, brutal, racking, lung-clogging grief and —

Each time he does not go out into that awful rain —

And shame.

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