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Peace had been an elusive concept for Hvergelmir since Ida's disappearance. It was avoidance that had sustained her, for a time -- searching high and low for Ida, not willing to accept the possibility that the worst had happened -- and then, in the midst of all her stress and worry, she'd been laid up with an illness for weeks at a time, nurtured under Jenna's watchful eye -- and then, finally, a hollow, horrible acceptance that while she'd been sick, Ida had probably suffered and died . . . if she hadn't been dead already, dead all along.

Hvergelmir had not been able to keep Ida's flame alive. When Ida had needed her, she'd failed.

Then there had been hope, horrifying hope -- the wonderful, terrifying knowledge during the Rift invasion that elsewhere, Ida still persisted, still clung to life, still fought for any small chance at freedom.

Ida had long seen herself as fragile, ineffectual, as delicate as the orchids she drew power from.

It wasn't true. In the end, Ida was none of that: she was as tenacious as the strongest, hardiest weed.

She had dug in her roots, and she was holding on. And she needed help.

Hvergelmir had been frantic, since then, ricocheting from place to place, following leads that might help her find Ida at least. It was hard to focus, hard to think -- the universe had given her a second chance to help Ida, a second unaccountable, undeserved chance: she could not fail twice.

Now she knew who had Ida. The only thing left was to figure out how to get her back.

There might only be this one chance. Whatever Hvergelmir said here, did here, it had to be the right thing. There was no room for error. If all the work she'd ever done had prepared her for anything -- if it had bought her any goodwill with the Negaverse or with Alkaid at all -- if there was any faintest bowstring she could play on to help her -- she needed all of that now. If she had ever once been a diplomat, in this lifetime or any other lifetime, she had to be one now.

All Ida's hopes were riding on her shoulders alone.

She was so close. She had to succeed.

Her steps were anxious, walking through the park. She could feel the Ascendant General's presence, wafting through the air like factory smoke, jarring her senses.

Alkaid had come. She was waiting.

Hvergelmir held her cloak close around her as she approached, scanning the scenery nearby for signs of anyone else present -- but they seemed to be alone.

"Thank you for meeting with me," she said demurely, making an effort to keep her voice even and unshaken.

Quick was not a good sign. A quick meeting meant that Alkaid wasn't interested in negotiation -- that spelled risk for Hvergelmir. If she wasn't willing to bargain, then what?

Something dangled from Alkaid's fingers. Something, a rope, something . . .

No.

To her credit -- such as it was -- it could not be said that Hvergelmir actually flinched. She managed not to move a muscle, not to cringe: but instead, and visibly, she froze. She was a deer, rapt and staring at oncoming headlights. The world, for just one moment, fell apart.

It was only hair, she told herself. No injury. Not an ear, a finger, a toe . . . and yet . . . the message was clear. It could have been, had Alkaid wanted it to be.

"She's in your possession," Hvergelmir agreed -- because no human belonged to another, not ever, least of all her Ida, but it was true that she was in Alkaid's power, at her mercy. Alkaid held all the power.

"What will you accept," she asked, "in exchange for her freedom?"

Choose who you will doom.

This was troubling. Hvergelmir was being given a task to enormous to contemplate: she had to sacrifice someone else in Ida's place. How -- how could she possibly do that? Who in the world could she send, except --

Except the only answer she could hope for, the only one that rested well with her conscience.

She knelt slowly to pick up Ida's braid, weaving her fingers through the tail end of it for comfort. Hvergelmir held it like a precious treasure.

"What's her kind -- a sailor soldier? What do you require?"

A transcended. Like she was asking Hvergelmir to go down to the corner store and pick her up a bag of marshmallows.

No. Alkaid may as well have been asking Hvergelmir to make her a cambric shirt without seams or needlework. She may as well have been asking her to get with child a mandrake root. An impossible, cruel thing to ask.

Alkaid didn't care. It was what she was asking.

"Ida, alive and whole, uncorrupted and untainted." Hvergelmir hung her head in sorrow and in shame. "If I can bring you what you ask in return. ...I will try."