Even now, I still hadn’t looked to see if any hints of those long-ago humans had been left behind. I did not think five centuries would be enough to cleanse the stain of the horrors that my people had endured. I should have let it go—should have, but couldn’t. “Do you remember if they were happy to leave?” Tamlin shrugged. “Yes. Yet they had never known freedom, or known the seasons as you do. They didn’t know what to do in the mortal world. But yes—most of them were very, very happy to leave.” Each word was more ground out than the next. “I was happy to see them go, even if my father wasn’t.”
