“I expected nothing,” I said dismissively.

“Nothing is more correct than you know. There was never anything,” Mellach said. His fingers traced a path across the corpse's head.

“Of course there is nothing,” I hissed. “He was dead and frozen for how long? The brain is decayed.”

“You aren’t hearing me,” Mellach rose his voice. “Decay has signs. I might not be able to make the puppet talk. But I would at least have evidence of a mind. This mind is blank—wiped clean. There was never anything here.

“If his mind isn’t here, then where is it?” As these words left my lips a sudden remembrance crossed my brain. Back to Ilporta, back to the conversation I had with Kaeza when we first reconnected. “There was a child present when he died.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then it looks like you have work to do,” he said to me.

And then I knew I must find you. But how to find someone that is only “a someone”? You know what happened next of course– the new world and the old felt it in their bones– but it's just now dawning that it was because of you. Isn't it?

Poor Joshua. Through the right lens, everything really is your fault.