[Closed] For the Lark

[Aurelie Steerpike]

"I know what an engineer is," she wanted to say. "I just don't know the details of how one gets to become one." She held her tongue though; this wasn't the time or place for her strange sense of wounded ego. It wasn't unfair to think that she didn't know--she thought it was possible a great many of her fellow scraps in Brunnhold didn't know such things. Because they didn't want to. There was a sense in that, closing your eyes and ears to the things all around you that aren't meant for you. Aurelie just couldn't help but listen. She always listened; it was easy to do when nobody thought you had ears to hear anything.

But he hadn't meant it that way, and she knew he hadn't, so she held her tongue and ignored the stab at her ego. Even though it was hard, sometimes.

He kept talking and Aurelie forgot even that much, listening. So there were things denied to them after all. Even in Mugroba, which seemed so much different than here. She had thought so, when she'd... When she'd gotten angry, last year. A part of her had hoped it would be a kind of terrible comfort, to know she was right. She was mostly just a little sad, instead. So different but--but still, they were lacking something, and it closed all kinds of doors. Different ones, that was all.

The way Aremu spoke about machines sounded just a bit like the way she thought of baking. Patterns, things that either worked or didn't. She could see the appeal in that, she thought. Aurelie also liked things that were--not easy to understand, but straightforward in their own way. Practical problems with practical solutions. She had no head for machines, and didn't think that this would have been any different for any version of herself, but she thought she could understand that much. Aremu smiled and she smiled back, suddenly glad she'd asked.

"That's so useful!" The exclamation tumbled out of her before she could stop it. Aurelie's fingers twitched; her hand wanted to clap over her mouth. That wasn't something she should have said. Or maybe she should have considered it longer, at least. When Aremu set his right hand--the wooden one, she remembered from yesterday, in her line of sight it wasn't that she hadn't noticed. She wasn't blind. And she was curious, because he said he was an engineer and worked with machines. Aurelie imagined you generally wanted both hands for that. At least she wasn't so far gone as to feel the need to ask anything more untoward about it. Still--that did sound useful. Not the same but--but that was clever. Hopefully her stupid little outburst hadn't been too terribly much. She would hate to have offended him already. She had wanted at least a little more time before her foot went entirely in her mouth, ideally.

There was something else he was saying, she could hear it. She just didn't know what it was. No wonder he thought she wouldn't have known what an engineer was. She frowned, although she wasn't upset really. Just thinking.

"Why do you say that, about... about lying? You don't. Er, forgive me for saying something quite possibly very silly, but you seem--not the lying type." Not like me, she didn't add, who doesn't lie because I'm simply terrible at it. There was just a careful way in which he said things; Uzoji had been similar. She didn't see the connection, between stars and machines and lying and fields. Was she dodging trying to understand what he had said? Maybe. If she asked directly, the answer might be equally hard for her to follow.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Morning, 10 Dentis, 2719
A Garden Bench, Brunnhold Campus

Aremu couldn’t help a grin at Aurelie’s bright-eyed exclamation. Yes, he wanted to say; yes, I think so too. I despaired for a long time; I thought much of my knowledge lost to me. I was less, then.

Perhaps I still am; I know it, now. It is not the same; it could never be the same. But it is useful; I am useful. Where I could not go forward I have gone around and sometimes, slowly, eventually, I can make my way where I wish to be. It is useful.

But it was truth she asked about, in the end. Aremu nodded, gently; he looked down at the cookies in his lap, thinking it through. And then, instead, he set aside that longing for perfection; he folded up the cloth, carefully, and set the cookies aside too, on a dry patch of the bench. He turned a little, to look at Aurelie, at the serious set of her small face, not so far as to force eye contact, but far enough not to allow himself to hide.

“I think Uzoji would have told you something of Mugroba and truth,” Aremu said, quietly. “He did not lie; if he spoke, it was true, and it was meant. He was not perfect, but he knew honesty and honor well, and he was a good man besides.”

“In Mugroba,” Aremu continued, “honesty is a pillar of honor. An imbala is one born without the capacity for honor, and so without the capacity for the mona. We call this being born without a soul, although we do not mean soul the same way as you Anaxi; it is separate from that part of us which returns to the cycle,” usually, he did not say.

The words hurt; they could not but hurt, no matter how many years had passed, no matter how deep the knowing. It was strange, still, to speak it aloud and straightforward, in the Anaxi way. He did not flinch from the words, or back away, or try to wind around it; he looked at Aurelie and told her, gently and firmly, what they were.

Scrap, Aremu thought, quiet. Scrap; the edges of something which could have been whole. He thought of the emptiness inside him; he thought of sitting with Tom in the center of an enormous circle, breathing deeply, unsure what to think. He had let himself relax, then, into the meditation; he had let himself relax, then, into the other man, their hair still damp from the bath, warmth still lingering on their skin. Had he felt empty, even then? It did not matter; he was empty, whatever he felt.

“In Mugroba, to be a passive is to be known a liar,” Aremu said. “Few galdori would believe my word worth more than the noise of wind scattering sand.” He turned away again; he looked at the distant trees. He missed Uzoji, then; he exhaled a little sigh, and released the ache that dwelled somewhere in his chest, the shameful grief which would not dull, much less abate.

“I make do with what I have,” Aremu repeated, with a crooked little smile this time. “I am grateful.” He wondered, aching, if it was true.

[Aurelie Steerpike]

Aurelie was glad Aremu smiled after she nearly shouted that moony thing about his hand. She'd meant it, but she was overly conscious of her own desire not to step where she wasn't wanted. She just couldn't help it. Her thoughts just fell out of her, it seemed, if given half the chance. But he seemed unharmed by her foolishness. So, good.

Had Uzoji told her much of Mugroba and truth? Aurelie tried to remember. In her recollection it was a subject that had not come up, though she'd heard something of it from Anaxi mouths. The picture she'd had seemed incomplete, suddenly. Truth that was more than just not lying, the way she was so incapable of lying. Honesty as a pillar of honor--Aurelie tried to sort it out in her mind, though she felt woefully ill-equipped. This, she thought, was not something that schooling would have aided her with.

There, that was it. That was the lack, that was the thing that made them less. Free, and Aurelie very carefully skirted around thinking about the things that freedom could have brought her, but less. Still a scrap of a person, because they lacked... Souls. Not in the way she had always understood the word to mean--this was hard for her to really grasp as well, so she just absorbed the words themselves and resolved to chew on them later. Liars.

Aurelie couldn't help it--she laughed. It was a brief sound, and a little bitter. Ghoulish besides; she murmured an apology immediately after. It was just--if he was a liar, then she was as well. Aurelie thought, grimly, of meeting Alethea. Of all of the things that came out of her mouth on a regular basis. Another giggle escaped her.

"I'm--I'm sorry, I'm not laughing at you. I'm just-- If you knew me, you would know I'm... I'm a very poor liar, even when I want to be. If we had a natural capacity for untruth that would... that would save me a lot of trouble, really." A smile twitched at the edge of her mouth. She pressed her lips together into a thin line to keep it contained. That wasn't the point. Maybe it wasn't that kind of lying. It was her habit in the normal way of things to accept what she heard first and chew it over later. But there was no later, so she did her best to think on it over now.

"I don't think I understand," she admitted at last. She did try, but it seemed to her a very abstract thing. As far as she could tell, Aremu hadn't lied to her. And it would have been easy enough to do it; how would she have known? But if he had, he'd picked strange places to do it. Not the ones she would have, at least. And Uzoji had called him his best friend. If... Aurelie just didn't understand what it could matter, if it didn't keep you from having people who loved you, if it didn't...

Maybe she was just stupid. All she saw was someone who seemed to her to be smart, and the kind of person who would come so far as to talk to her just to honor the memory of a friend. A good person, though she supposed there was room for error in her judgement there. Aurelie hadn't turned away, though Aremu had, to look at the trees. She studied his face, trying to figure out what to say. She was frustrated. About what? Less in fall than in spring. Less, always less. Empty. Missing something. She was tired of it.

"We're not--we're not empty, you know. I--well. At least, that's what my, ah, someone I know, uhm," Aurelie hesitated, choking on the word "friend". That seemed inadequate and incomplete, woefully so, terrifyingly so, but she didn't know what else to call Fionn here. His name, she supposed. That seemed like saying too much though, still. If someone heard... well.

"My. Uhm. F-friend. Ahem. That's--there's something. There. W-where a field should be. It's not the same. But it's not nothing. There is something there. I don't know what it is, really," she confessed, abashed. Would that matter to him, she wondered? It mattered to her, she realized. That there wasn't nothing there--they weren't just empty shapes meant to be galdori children. Something, they were something. They were! "There's a professor here who... studies it. Us. I don't--I don't know much about it, er. Really. Just what Fi--my, uh, friend. Says. Mostly. So it's not just--it's not just something he made up, or... I just..."

"Er. I'm sorry, I don't know--it seemed. I don't know if that matters. B-but I-- well. Hmm." She fell silent again and then she looked at the trees too. That was easier.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Morning, 10 Dentis, 2719
A Garden Bench, Brunnhold Campus

Aurelie giggled. Aremu glanced sideways at her, his eyebrows lifting slightly. She giggled again, and apologized. Aremu smiled, a little, too, crookedly; he could not blame her, he thought, for it not aching as it had for him. He supposed – he understood, by now, that Anaxi did not grow up prizing honesty. He had known it, of course, as a boy and in school; it was known, and hotly discussed, whenever one spoke of the other Kingdoms.

He wasn’t quite sure what to say. She said it, eventually, that she did not understand; he had lost his smile, and could not find it again.

“It’s not that we’re gifted liars,” Aremu said, slowly, a wrinkle between his brows. “But rather… there is nothing inside us, no honor, which can be stained by the act of lying.” He was quiet, looking down at the hand on his lap. They sat in silence for a moment again, and he thought Aurelie must have been thinking it over. He wondered if it seemed to her vain – even idle – to feel guilt over such things, when he had so much freedom, and so much to be grateful for. He supposed it must, if honor was not a thing to be valued; if it did not mean anything to you to possess it, then its loss was scarcely something to fuss over.

Aurelie spoke up again, quietly. Aremu stiffened, faintly; he glanced sideways at her, a little sharply. He looked away; Aurelie did not stop, but fumbled over the nature of the person who had told her, bringing entirely too much attention to him – Aremu understood, abruptly, that she had been entirely honest; she was a terrible liar – and pushed on through the point.

There’s something, Aurelie said, where a field should be, according to a professor.

I have heard, Aremu wanted to say; he thought of Lars, sitting amidst the grass, the breeze waving through his pale hair. I have heard it can be felt; I have – I have – can you – we are sitting close enough, aren’t we? I don’t know; I thought, perhaps, that I felt -

“I don’t know either,” Aremu said, his voice very tight. He looked over at Aurelie; he took a deep breath. He eased back, slowly, against the bench, and looked out at the trees. He thought again of sitting in the thick of Tom’s field, wrapped in his spell circle. I reached out to you, Tom said; it was not profane.

Aremu shuddered, and exhaled, slowly, carefully. “I don't think it would matter, but I don’t know.” He said, quietly, more evenly. He tried to find another smile for Aurelie, but it trembled at the edges; it did nothing to relieve the shadowy planes of his cheeks, the overhang of his brow against his eyes.

He watched her a little more; he shifted against the bench. “What do you think?” Aremu asked, quietly, encouragingly.

[Aurelie Steerpike]

She shouldn't have laughed, she really shouldn't have. It wasn't even funny, really. He'd stopped smiling and she was sorry, because it was her fault. She didn't understand, at all, but she had asked and she wanted to. Thinking of it, it just seemed to her that it was the sort of thing that only those who didn't worry about it were the ones who should. Like... like rudeness, or kindness, or... or other things she couldn't think of. It was either stupidity, or exhaustion, she didn't know which, that had made her find it funny and had made her talk about things she didn't really know that much about.

He leaned back against the bench. Smiled, but it seemed a little off. She didn't know him well, of course. So maybe this was just... No, he'd smiled properly before, so she could see the difference. That was sufficiently chastening. She shouldn't have opened her mouth, asked about it. When would she learn to leave well enough alone? Maybe it didn't matter, maybe everyone in the whole world knew this but her and she was the only one surprised to hear it. Although that seemed unlikely, she just... she didn't know. You seem like a good person to me, she almost said. Even though it would be empty coming from her, because she didn't know what she was talking about.

"What do I think?" Aurelie's eyebrows shot up, disappearing under her hair. It didn't matter what she thought. I don't know enough to have an opinion, she thought desperately. Surely you can see that--I don't know anything. That's why everything that comes out of my mouth is so absurd. Aurelie made some small noise in the back of her throat and thought about it. She owed Aremu an answer, since she'd so foolishly brought it up. Even if it would just reveal her for an idiot.

A silence settled over her while she thought. She brought her hand up to her mouth to worry at a nail, and this time she didn't stop herself because she had barely noticed. The sky overhead was clear, autumnal blue. The air was cold. Leaves were starting to turn, and soon would fall. And Aurelie was sitting in this garden trying to decide how she felt about whether or not having something instead of nothing mattered, in the end.

"I think..." She spoke slowly into the quiet. "I think--I think it matters. Of course it matters, it's... Ha," Aurelie stopped and scrubbed her hand at the back of her neck. She needed a haircut, she thought idly; it had gotten a little longer than she liked. "I don't know much about--about souls, or... Anything. But it means that... that all this time, everyone has been wrong, which seems like it matters. And it doesn't matter, too, because I think I could shout about it from the rooftops and nothing would change, in a-- a practical way. Everyone in the whole world could know, and I don't think... I don't know." Aurelie finished the fragmented thought with a shrug of her shoulders.

"I'm sorry, really, before I--w-well. I, er. Well. Like I said--if you can't eat it, I p-probably don't understand it." She smiled, and if it was a little sharp around the edges, she meant it too.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Morning, 10 Dentis, 2719
A Garden Bench, Brunnhold Campus

Aremu waited as Aurelie thought; he watched her, at first, and then he looked away. She was frowning, worrying at the corner of a nail, her finger just at the edge of her mouth. A single yellow leaf drifted down from a distant tree, slowly, swaying back and forth through the air, and settled on the edge of the damp grass. Early, Aremu thought; it wasn’t the time, yet, for leaves to fall.

Aurelie spoke into the crisp, damp stillness. Of course it matters, she said. Of course, and Aremu felt the ache in her voice somewhere in his hearts.

“I think you understand it very well,” Aremu said, quietly, honestly. He looked down at his lap; his hand had tightened into a fist. He relaxed it, slowly, carefully; he took a deep breath, in through his nose, and exhaled it slowly from his mouth. The frown on his face didn’t ease, not much, but he sat back a little.

“If it is true,” Aremu said, slowly, “if there is… something, inside us, where a field should be,” his voice was careful and even and smooth, though he felt the strain of it in his chest, “it doesn’t mean, I think, that we have…” He took a deep breath, “souls,” he finished, carefully, calmly. “But it does mean that – they’re wrong, that they don’t… that there is… something, that they’ve missed.”

Aremu traced the circles in his mind, slowly, interlapping and interlocking, strange shapes; he thought of Tom, cleaning them from the floor, all care and tenderness.

“But the knowing matters too,” Aremu said, quietly, looking at Aurelie once more. “Not for them,” he looked away; he took a deep breath. “For us,” he said, firmly. His hand had tightened in the fabric of his pants; he let go, and set it down on the bench, away from the temptation. “I want to know, I think, what’s inside me. I don’t…” he swallowed, hard. “Whether it’s a soul, or just a – “ Aremu exhaled; he could not say the word, not aloud, not to Aurelie, not in the quiet, fragile peace of the grove, “fragment of one, or something else entirely.” Something worse, he thought, and did not say. “Whether or not it changes how we are treated.”

I want to know, Aremu thought. He had not known; he had not realized, until the words emerged, that they were truth. They had been true, all along, but they had been buried, too, in some quiet dark corner of him; they had settled there, and covered themselves in the damp dirt of him, and he had not known. Perhaps whatever weight he had settled on them had loosened, had begun to crumble; perhaps it had been fragile enough that the brush of Aurelie’s words could blow them away.

Only wind, Aremu thought, and he could not but smile.

“Thank you," he said, quietly, looking at Aurelie once more. The smile trembled, like a wavering flame; it grew, just, a little; it caught, and held, and the line between his brows softened, and the ache in his shoulders too.

[Aurelie Steerpike]

"It's very kind of you to think so," Aurelie murmured. Aremu's confidence in her understanding was touching in a weird way. Even after she opened her mouth and proved herself an idiot. But whatever her understanding was or wasn't, Aremu relaxed slightly, so she must have said something right.

I don't think it means we do either, she thought, but I don't know what that is. I don't know how they know it isn't there either. This was too abstract a concept for her to think on so quickly. Later maybe she would think about it more and try to fit the pieces together. It was possible that she just wanted to think it wasn't true about souls because she wanted to think it wasn't true about curses either. A selfish desire to try and pretend there was a hope for them after all, herself included.

It should change things, she thought fiercely. Aremu seemed like something had untied in the tension in his shoulders, but Aurelie drew her chin up and her mouth tight. She wanted things to change, even though she didn't know how they ever could. Even though she wasn't sure she deserved to see it.

All of that, her sudden flash of anger, her insistence in some corner of her heart that it should change things, in some material way whatever she thought about Brunnhold, seemed like too much. Aremu had thanked her and he'd smiled, and she didn't want to bring that tension back. Aurelie didn't think she'd really done anything worth being thanked for, but she wasn't going to argue that either.

"Er--you're welcome? Hmm." She fell silent again and worried at the bracelet on her wrist. "M-me too. I want... I want to know. Whatever it's worth." She shrugged again, and smiled back at last.

For a moment she sat there like that, unspeaking. It was, honestly, unbearable. Aurelie wasn't good with silence when she was unsure. She was nearly always unsure.

"I, er--I confess I don't know what else to... to talk about. N-not, er, I mean. I just ah, don't. Have a lot of..." Aurelie waved her hands again, vaguely, and her smile turned gently self-depreciating.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Morning, 10 Dentis, 2719
A Garden Bench, Brunnhold Campus

There was tension in Aurelie, even though Aremu had relaxed. He saw it, and he did not know what to make of it; he did not know what she was thinking, and he was grateful to leave her the privacy of it. She said nothing of it, in the end; she smiled at him, fiddling at the bracelet on her wrist, and let what he said stand, without adding to it. He was smiling too, still, not as tremulous as it had been before.

Aremu wondered if he should ask; he could not know, he thought, whether she did not wish to share, or whether she thought him uninterested. She seemed worried that he found her stupid, or boring, or dull. He supposed he could understand that. He did not know how to say that there were few people who struck him that way. It seemed to him strange and difficult to explain; he doubted, somehow, that she would find it flattering.

He did not ask. The smiles faded, but they left a warmth behind, a faint echo that dwelt somewhere between them.

Aurelie added that she didn’t know what to talk about, that she didn’t have much to say, shifting uncomfortably into the silence. Aremu did not quite know what to make of that admission; he did not quite know what to say either. Reassurance seemed strange, and external; Aremu could not do it himself, could not always conquer the thoughts that weighed him down, but he understood, in theory if not in practice, that one’s attitude counted for a great deal. He had seen examples enough.

“Who is the professor?” Aremu asked. He glanced at Aurelie. “The one who studies passives.” He looked back down at his hand, in his lap, and then back at Aurelie, and held to the question, lifting his chin. I think I would like to find him, Aremu did not say. He thoughts of risks, then, and obligations; he wondered how knowledge weighed on the scale. He wondered who would understand, if it went wrong; he wondered who would know. He took a deep breath, and pressed forward. "Where is his office?"

“If you have more to say,” Aremu added, quietly, still looking at Aurelie, “I should like to hear it.”

He had thought to let it go; he had not wished to push, or to press. But wasn’t what he had said to her true in the other direction as well? She had no obligation to answer his questions; he was a stranger, the only connection between them the friendship of a dead man, and the weight of obligation his death had lain across Aremu’s shoulders – and whatever it had meant to both of them, the day before. She could get up and walk away, if she did not wish to speak.

[Aurelie Steerpike]

Aurelie's eyebrows raised at Aremu's question. She had mentioned the research, it was true. Somehow that Aremu would be interested in speaking to Professor Moore hadn't entered her mind. Even though, she reminded herself, it was perfectly reasonable. Especially because he--he didn't live here, he didn't work here, he didn't have to... to worry about it. Not in the same way. Talking to the professor was not only logical but assuredly for the best. Professor Moore could explain much better than any stuttered nonsense from her, at least.

"Oh! Er. M-Moore. Professor Moore. He's--he works in Laboratory Beta, in the Sciences building. Er. Do you--I'm afraid I'm no good with directions, but I could show you...? Er. I think." Aurelie frowned, considering. It was fine to show visitors around, as that was university business, after a fashion. But usually visitors were galdori strangers. This seemed a little... Although, it wasn't like Aremu didn't count, really. The situation was just different. Well. She would do it anyway, and gladly, and if it was wrong she would find out then. Aurelie touched her wrist again and smiled a little, as if she couldn't help it. A little less afraid of breaking rules, if she was moved to, than she had been last fall.

Aremu asked her if she had more to say, and she considered it. She did, and she did not. Before, she'd held her tongue because she didn't want her anger to spoil what good mood Aremu had managed to find. Now she struggled to put it into words, that anger that sat in the pit of her stomach. It was formless and exhausted, with no target to strike at really. Aurelie made a noise and shook her head.

"No, it's--I don't know what... I don't know quite how to..." Aurelie huffed, frustrated with herself. Gracious Lady but why was it she could only find words she didn't need, and never the ones she wanted? She lifted her chin and fixed her eyes at a point in the middle distance, trying to marshal up some steel into her spine, some order in her mind.

"I want to know," she said at last, as if each word was dragged up out of a well, "and, ha! I could probably even help, w-with the research. I think. But I--I want that knowing to... It's not good enough, for me to know, for all of us to know, and for nothing to..." Aurelie chewed at her lip and turned to look at Aremu again. If only she could just dump her mind out on the grass, like a tin full of buttons, so that she could sort them into proper order. Arrange them into category by size or shape or color, and find some meaning in them that way. Or at least she could have pointed at the button that she thought might be the most important, and maybe Aremu would understand where she didn't.

"I--it isn't a matter of... of a-academic interest, to me, or... or self-discovery. It's--it has to-- I don't know. I just. I don't know." Aurelie huffed again. Did it seem like she didn't want to answer? She hoped not. There was nothing much she could do about her inability to articulate her own thoughts and feelings. A whole family of conversationalists, and she couldn't string three sentences together in proper Estuan without stuttering. Ridiculous.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Morning, 10 Dentis, 2719
A Garden Bench, Brunnhold Campus

Professor Moore. Aremu marked the name to himself, along with all the rest. Laboratory Beta, in the Sciences building. “Thank you. I’d appreciate it,” he said with a little smile for Aurelie, though it didn’t quite manage to last. He did not know where the Sciences building was, not in the least; from walking around, he thought he had some sense where the academic wings were located.

Courage was a strange thing; he had not intended, Aremu thought, to talk to anyone on campus other than the young woman sitting next to him on the bench. He had not wished to reveal himself; more than anything, he had wanted to go unnoticed. And yet, now, he planned to go straight into the heart of it, and present himself to a man who studied passives – studied passives, Aremu thought, with a strange pinching of anger – and ask him what it was he had inside. Like diving from a cliff, he thought, and not knowing what rocks lay below.

He hoped, at least, that if the man had a bad reputation – if he studied passives in a cruel way, a dangerous way – that Aurelie would have discouraged him. There were many ways to study passives, weren’t there? He tried not to think too hard on some of what Niccolette had said of her classes at Brunnhold, of some of the knowledge she had demonstrated. He tried not to think too hard of what studying could mean.

Aremu listened, patiently, and waited as Aurelie fumbled through her words. She drew herself up, and frowned at something he could not see; he supposed she could not see it either, or at least he did not think so.

Not just a matter of academic interest, Aurelie said, or self-discovery. If we shouted it from the rooftops, Aremu wanted to say, they would not listen, not if they did not wish to. He was quiet; he looked off into the distance too, and he did not know, either, what he saw.

If we had – the words could not come, not even to his mind. It was a foolish thought, Aremu knew; it was beyond foolish. There was no sense in hoping for things which could not come to pass; it was a dangerous path to tread, because one side lay along a cliff of madness. He knew better; he knew better. Even if there is something inside us, something measurable, it’s not what they have, Aremu wanted to say. It can’t be.

Instead, he looked back at Aurelie. “It’s not right,” Aremu said, quietly, into the silence left when her words had trailed off. He looked back away, off to the side. Even humans, he wanted to say; he did not know why he could not – or, perhaps, he did. “It doesn’t matter what we do inside or do not have inside. What they do here – it’s not right.”

“I wish I could say that any knowing might change it,” Aremu said. “I may be a liar, but I should not like to lie to you.”