That night, in the quarters Dessa had given us, I told Jasper what she had said.
He had been there. He had heard every word. But I needed to say it again, out loud, in the specific private space of just the two of us, because that was how I processed the things that mattered by speaking them into existence in a space where I did not have to manage what saying them looked like.
He listened. When I finished, he was quiet for a long time. The Southern night around us was warm, dense, the oldest forest in the territory breathing just outside the window.
He said: No. Jasper.
‘No. There is another way. There is always another way, and we have not looked for it yet.’
‘Asha looked for two centuries,’ I said.
‘Asha looked alone,’ he said. ‘We are not alone. We have the grandmother’s notes and
