Eldan stumbled after Cale, finally grabbing her arm in a stairwell. “Why did you give your name as Ward?” He bit the inside of his cheek hard enough to draw coppery blood into his mouth, already knowing how she would answer.

“We are wards of the city, Eldan. You know that.” She looked at him searchingly.

“You don’t remember your father, then? Or my mother?” Eldan was choking on his words, a huge lump rising in his throat.

Cale shook her head. “We never knew our parents. I don’t understand what is happening with you right now.”

Eldan clenched his teeth, swiping angrily at tears that sprang uncontrollably to his eyes. A fragment of his mind swam in yellow light, gurgling desperately. He had felt it happening, but the truth was utterly incomprehensible. Except for Cale, everyone he had ever known had been ripped from existence. He couldn’t begin to fathom the mechanics, but his entire annex was gone, plucked from memory and history like a loose thread, the weave of the fabric shifting to fill the gap without a trace. He remembered the sensation of having been devoured, the strange peace that had settled over him as he gave himself over, and he wanted to scream with rage at the unfairness of having been returned and given back his memories.

He gestured at the stairs, making a wild “let’s go” motion. Cale gave him a lingering, troubled look, finally turning to continue her ascent.

Eldan staggered behind Cale, following her into their new quarters in a thick haze of unreleased grief. He fixated on a door on the opposite side of the room and dragged himself forward, his only coherent thought that he had to get that door behind him, to be anywhere that he would be alone. He didn’t notice the wide, stone fireplace or the comfortable leather chairs in the common room, didn’t register the plank floors under his feet or that the door he was stumbling toward was one of four leading off the main room.

When Eldan finally got past the door to the room he had, barely consciously, claimed, he didn’t see the low bed with folded blankets and pillow waiting to be made, or the desk below recessed shelves with a stack of fat candles ready to be lit. As he dropped his damp packs to the floor and slid down the door to collapse in a ball on the floor he didn’t feel the breath of a fresh breeze from the open window on his wet cheeks.

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Eldan’s stomach was an empty cavern, it howled its void at him even as he released a raw, keening wail from the very depths of that hollowness into his folded arms and knees. His mouth wouldn’t close, gaping open as it demanded he release his grief, so he shoved his arm into it to muffle his guttering cries. Eldan would never know how long he lay curled there, heaving and gasping from the spasming sobs that wrenched from his body.

He barely heard the sounds of first one, then a second, person entering the outer room, doors opening and closing and the soft sounds of introductions being made. At one point Cale tapped gently on his door and asked if he wanted to come to dinner, but Eldan couldn’t gather the clarity to reply, and eventually her footsteps padded away. Time passed, doors opened and closed several more times, the smell of woodsmoke permeated his room, and eventually all fell silent.

Finally Eldan’s sobs slowed and he unclenched to sit up with his back against the door, completely wrung out and exhausted, in the dark room. Just enough moonlight filtered through the window for him to make out the shape of his bed. He stumbled to it, not bothering with the blankets other than to shove the stack to the foot, and curled up, shattered with exhaustion, on the bare mattress. As he lay there, sometimes drifting into sleep only to start awake as the grief hit him anew and he sobbed softly into the pillow, a shadow appeared in the window. Eldan heard the whomp of something heavy and soft hitting the floor, followed by the distinct sound of a rubber ball dropping to the ground and bouncing as it rolled to a corner. He froze, slowly turning his head to look over his shoulder. He heard a rumbling sound, and then the mattress sagged as a weight landed on the bed. Eldan squinted at the pointed, tufted ears, furry body and thick, bristly tail silhouetted in the moonlight.

“Glade? How..” he breathed. Glade didn’t respond, simply dropping her substantial weight down and pressing against Eldan’s back as she curled beside him. Eldan pushed back into the warm, vibrating form, fresh, hot tears streaming down his face. Glade’s presence could not begin to fill the aching void inside him, but somehow he knew the cat understood, and knowing he wasn’t alone in his loss gave him comfort enough to fall into a troubled sleep that lasted into morning.