Nessa implored Aedan to stay on good terms with Harriet. Her frequent appeals for him to be accommodating revealed that she saw the discord well enough, but tried to mend it on Aedan’s side rather than where it originated. Without realising it, she was repeating the fault she had so recently lamented. Too fearful to intervene and hold back the tormenter, she was pleading instead with the victim to be more submissive. It was a solution that would resolve the conflict while entrenching the problem. Aedan didn’t have the words to understand, but he could feel the wrongness of it.
