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KES’S FUNERAL TOOK place three days later on the wide open plains of North America, attended by everyone who could be spared from the Sirocco. Wilder had cried so much she was hoarse and her eyes had puffed up. She didn’t know how she would carry on without her friend.
As she stood at the graveside, Niall put an arm around her shoulders. He’d been trying to comfort her, but nothing he could do would ever fill that hole left by Kes’s death. She could see in her mind’s eye, clear as day, her friend’s face looking up at her through leaf fronds the morning he’d come to her tree settlement. He’d brought her a bottle of sluglimpet repellent to spray on the tree trunks. Since then he’d been her greatest ally, supporter, and advocate. When she needed someone he’d always been there. Wha
