“Not now, my darling girl,” I said in a voice smooth as silk. “I have work yet to do.” Her smile faded. “All right.” She let go of Ayris’s hand, picked up her skirt—heaved a sigh. “I’ll wait in the meadow. In case you change your mind.” When she looked at me, Ayris, my sunshine sister, was full of frost. “Your work,” she said, “has made a stranger of you.”
