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If Kerberos's reaction to seeing Hvergelmir was light-hearted, Hvergelmir's reaction to seeing him -- in the flesh, looking like he hadn't just been flayed or beaten or anything -- was boundlessly ecstatic. She jumped up out of her bench to grab him by the face, smooshing his cheeks together between her hands like a Hollywood grandmother or like a person about to baby talk to their golden retriever. She, personally, had never experienced either of these things -- but her imagination had always been good at wishfully filling in the gaps.

"Kerberos! You're okay! Oh my God I was so worried, I'm so relieved you have to tell me what happened tell me everything is Titan okay? Are you okay?" (Her brain, by this point, had already forgotten that it had established his okay-ness not two seconds previous. "Its been terrible not knowing! Where have you been all this time? Oh, God, I'm so glad you're not hurt!"

Hvergelmir took a few minutes to absorb what he was saying, just smiling and staring at him for a while. Kerberos, not drunk. Not upset. Not shattered.

"I'm glad you cleaned up," she said approvingly. "I know that's not easy. It's a hard fight, and you're brave for doing it." She didn't say keep it up. She didn't say don't fall off the wagon. Those things didn't need saying, and didn't help, either. "You look -- you look better."

Stepping back, she gestured to her bench, trying to lead Kerberos by the hand. "Here, sit down," she urged, dropping into place. "Let me look at you."

Hvergelmir couldn't get over it. It was such a relief just to see him, after all the worrying she'd done. He was alive, he was safe. He hadn't gotten killed for helping her. Thank God.

"Do you feel better?" she put the question to him.

He was a self-conscious person, she realized. This boy who'd cracked into pieces and laughed at her and murdered her in another lifetime not-yet-come, who'd tried to push her away and to drown himself in a bucket of amber -- he was mostly just young. Young and unsure. Really, they were a lot alike.

I had help, he said, and she thought -- in a way -- she understood what he was saying, why he said it.

'I had help. The credit doesn't go to me. I'm not much that's worth crediting.'

She wondered when he'd gotten the impression she was any more capable or competent than he was. She wondered why he thought she was someone he needed to impress. Hvergelmir was only herself. Only a chatty girl on a bench.

"I have help with just about everything I do in life." She grinned, exaggerating a little: "You should see me try to tie shoelaces."

It was nice to see Kerberos though, silliness aside. She'd had almost no news of how things had gone after the liberation of all the New Years' prisoners. More soberly, ushering Kerberos toward her bench, she asked, "Do they -- consider it a success? The New Year's . . . um . . . thing."

"Amphitrite," she echoed, not finding the name stored anywhere familiar in the vaults of her memory. Very likely not someone she'd met. Then again, it sounded like the sort of names the Negaverse gave their agents -- mineral names. With a sick feeling in her stomach, she remembered Dionysia staring at her and not being Dionysia. Lieutenant Quartz, she thought, the false name distasteful even when it wasn't on her tongue. "Is that her Negaverse name -- or has she always been called that?"

Avalon, she knew, had remained Avalon. Kerberos was Kerberos. Persephone was Persephone. But Dionysia was Quartz, now -- and Bischofite, rejecting the Negaverse, with no knight's name to wear, had insisted he was simply Alois. What made one person keep their true name, and not another? What did it say about the way you wore your allegiance?

"Did you choose to keep your name?" she asked curiously.

Hvergelmir nodded. "Okay," she agreed. "I'll spread the word to those I can." She thought of Bischofite, maybe-probably-dead. "It's better to know than to wonder."

Hvergelmir wondered if Amphitrite had a family. She wondered if Alois had a family. She wondered if her own family were worrying about her right now, gone for weeks -- or if they were just . . . relieved. No police had come looking for her.

"I know you were worried about your family before," she said, putting her hand over Kerberos's small one. "How're they doing? Are they okay?"

Hvergelmir nodded, sympathetic to the notion of I can't even say it isn't for the best. "This city's hard on families," she said, which was understating so heavily that her statement might as well have been digging its way to Nepal. "Especially ones with family members directly involved in the war. I know so many people who -- well, you know, it varies. Some of them, they've lost family to youma attacks, or starseed pulls -- others cut ties with them, sometimes they move away -- sometimes they just disappear, and you don't ever know. Sometimes they . . . sometimes things happen and people just aren't ever right again. Maybe having your family move away's the best you can hope for." She looked down at her feet briefly, then back up. "I cut ties with my family too. The people around you -- they don't always understand. But I'm luckier than some people . . . it's hard for the younger kids, the ones who can't just move out and make their own way, the ones still in junior high and high school." She shrugged. "Well, you'd know, you've got them on your side too, I guess."

Hvergelmir thought of Astrophyllite, so young and innocent, still gangly in her height. She thought of Jet, with his cherubic baby face.

She shook her head sadly. "Child soldiers are easy to train. Easy to lead. Easy to recruit, sometimes -- if you find kids that're vulnerable, that don't have people looking out for them . . . that used to be the Negaverse's thing -- one of their veterans told me something like that once. That it was like a family. People looking out for you." She sighed. "And in return, all you had to do was kill on command."

Astrophyllite. She always thought of Astrophyllite, frightened -- and Schreibersite, confused.

"No education, no job prospects -- it's hard for a kid to leave even if they might want to. But mostly I've just seen . . . they stop believing they deserve it, after a while. That they're capable of anything decent."

Even older than children -- adults, too. Kerberos, too. She'd seen it in too many faces: ruined self-esteem.

Lost hope.

I won't give up on you, she thought. You need someone not to give up on you.