“How did you know you were a hex?” Pilar asked the girl as they walked through a wooded path of Spring Day, sunlight and leafy shadows dappling the dirt, the scent of wildflowers hanging on the soft breeze.

“I was too young to remember,” Twyla said, skimming the back of her fingers along the bird she had conjured that flitted around just within her reach. “But my mother says I turned my serving of broccoli into ice cream.”

Pilar laughed, holding her finger out for the bird to perch upon, which it gladly did. “So your power, it was always intuitive?”

Twyla nodded, digging her hands in the pockets of her maroon robes, though she’d left the hood down, and the sun highlighted her wild auburn strands. “Yeah, pretty much.”

The duo strolled silently for a few moments, then the girl whistled a tune and the bird took off to circle her again, repeating the melody. She looked at Pilar out of the corner of her eye, hesitating.

“What is it?”

“You seem happy today,” the apprentice hex said cautiously.

Pilar laughed again. “You say that as if it’s a bad thing.”

“Not bad…just…” The girl twisted her mouth in thought. “I just wasn’t expecting it so soon after…I mean when Rory died it was a long time…” The grimace on her face revealed her regret in bringing the subject up at all.

That wouldn’t do.

Pilar wrapped her arm around Twyla’s shoulders, pulling her close. “You’ll learn one day, unfortunately, that pain comes and goes. But those moments you’re gifted after a loss–moments when the pain isn’t crushing and clouding and all-consuming–it’s okay to embrace them. It’s okay to enjoy them. Don’t worry, that pain will be back.” She squeezed her grip on the girl’s shoulder consolingly. “Plus, happiness does not negate grief. You can always find beauty, even when in despair.”

Twyla didn’t say anything, but kept her head down and feet moving. Then she stopped walking all together, and turned to face Pilar wholly, who returned the razor-sharp focus.

“Questions?”

“Pilar,” the girl began, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth, “no offense, but you sound like one of those Your Changing Body and You programs.” As she dissolved into a fit of giggles, Pilar joined her, playfully pushing her away.

“Okay, then, little missy. Tell me more about your lessons,” she said, restarting their lazy stroll. “What’s the point of them if your power is innate?”

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“Well,” the hex said, snapping her fingers to create a new trio of birds, “this stuff is easy. Hexes don’t need any kind of training for simple stuff like that.” She snapped her fingers again and all four birds disappeared. “But this,” she spread her arms wide, gesturing to the entire imitation Spring Day world that surrounded them, “this is more complex. Running the ship, providing sustenance, creating spaces like this…it takes multiple hexes working together. My lessons teach me how to do that.”

Pilar made a noise of contemplation. “How?”

The girl gathered her hair. “Remember when you taught me how to braid?” she said as she began separating and twining the strands. “It’s kind of like that. I have to learn how to thread my power with everyone else’s. But there’s like a million parts, not just three.” With that, she finished her braid and flung it behind her back, not bothering to tie it, and it immediately began to separate.

“So, without a horde of hexes, the ship would–”

Twyla cut off the question with a flamboyant display of her hands expanding and a low rumble from her throat, both denoting an explosion.

“Ah,” Pilar said, running her fingers through the girl's hair to untangle the last bits of the falling braid. “Good thing we have so many, then. And a new mega superstar on her way to becoming a fully fledged one!” She tousled the girl’s hair one last time before withdrawing, offering a large smile of encouragement.

#

Pilar sat across from Christof in the mess, her fingers soaking in the warmth of the mug of tea they were wrapped around, her eyes scanning her companion. His shoulders were hunched, his hands hidden beneath the table, his focus on the untouched plate of food before him. From the hollowness of his cheeks, Pilar estimated he’d lost at least fifteen pounds in the weeks since Florence’s death–a death that had been blamed on an undiagnosed heart condition.

He suddenly swivelled his head around, taking in the busy mess full of people talking, then met her gaze. “We look like a support group.”

“No,” she said quietly, reaching across the table to push his plate closer to him. “We look like friends who just happen to both be widows. But we’ve always been friends, Christof. Hell, we were friends before I ever even met Florence.”

His body heaved. “We were friends before Florence,” his body heaved again, “and…after.” The word came out as if wrung from his very soul.

Pilar clenched her jaw, stretching so far her body disconnected from her seat so she could touch him, gliding her palm over his arm. “I know it’s hard, but I promise you it will get easier.”

He pushed himself up, thrusting the back of his hand across his running nose. “I don’t want it to. The pain is the only way I can feel her now.”

He stormed out, necks twisting to watch his heated exit. As the onlookers slowly turned their attention to Pilar, she pursed her lips and collected his uneaten meal for refuse, not meeting anyone’s eyes.

Back in her room, she rolled the canister of nanobots she’d programmed but had yet to use between her palms. There was a risk, there was always a risk. But at this moment, after speaking with Christof, she’d decided she didn’t really care if she lived or died.

The click of the canister in the syringe echoed in her room, and she’d plunged the needle into her thigh before it stopped reverberating in her ears. Gritting her teeth, she pushed down. She didn’t feel the nanobots flooding her system. It would likely take weeks for them to alter the DNA of her every cell.

Or kill her. Either way.

“Excellent. You are going to do great things, Pilar.”