Unless the Tarnished sat down to commune with grace, it took her time to determine which site they had traveled to. Melina was still tracking them when the elevator in the next room reached the ground floor and someone said, "I worried I might miss thee."

She glanced up to Renna the witch passing through the doorway. She hesitated, then willed herself into form – no one else was here who Renna could be speaking to.

"Renna," she greeted. "We have not met."

"I believe we have," said Renna. She remained standing a moment longer, looking down with her head tilted faintly, expression unreadable. Then she gathered her robes and folded her legs on the other side of the wavering grace. The Death-mark bordering her eye shone silvery blue. "I am Princess Ranni of Caria."

Melina jolted. "Ranni?"

"Godwyn."

Her words choked in her throat, all of them variations of the same question. She rose to one knee and found her knife, though she didn't draw it. Why did you – ? "You cannot kill me again."

"I would not dream of trying. I have come to talk, and only that." Ranni frowned, resting her hands in her lap. A nice little show of peace if Melina hadn't already witnessed her casting advanced sorcery with neither a catalyst nor so much as a gesture. "I must ask, why art thou speaking as if we stand in court? It's odd to hear thee refer to me as you."

"It should not be, as I am not Godwyn. You have seen to that. And you look – different." Unrecognizable. "Did Maliketh leave that scar?"

"Art thou hoping that someone avenged thee?" Ranni traced a thumb along the branching lines down to her cheek. "I inflicted this on myself. The Black Blade is a sword without a wielder and a shadow without a caster; he doth not act of his own accord."

"You possess a body." As Melina did not, despite their modes of death having left the same scar.

Ranni had done that to herself.

"A doll, but yes. I took more care with mine own death than thine." She clasped one pair of hands beneath her chin. "Thou'rt not wroth with me. How strange. Thy shortsighted propensity for forgiveness was renowned, but I wager I have overstepped even thy limit. Did the blade burn against thy throat?"

Melina didn't move and hardly breathed, frozen with her palm still on the knife's grip. Ranni watched from beneath her hat's brim, anticipating. The Death-mark glimmered in the shadows.

"What more would you have from me?" Melina said softly. Damningly softly, a lion declawed. Emotion was no longer a means available to her, and resolve alone could not substitute for it any more than a hammer can replace a toolbox. Although she did try.

Ranni hesitated before she replied, "Thine ear for a moment."

No, she considered saying. Ranni had done quite enough already. She let go of her insubstantial form, and Ranni, despite grimacing, didn't move to stop her as she dispersed.

"I have offended thee after all," Ranni murmured into an empty room. "Thou hast wondered, I presume, what my motivations were. Thou wert a means to an end and little more, but 'twas not by chance that I chose thee out of us all." She let out a breath. "Some of those reasons seem shallow to me now, though the truth of them hath not changed."

Some guilts could only be confessed to the dead. Melina listened without ears and watched without eyes, and she did not judge with a heart she no longer had. She could leave if she liked, following the path of grace to anywhere else, but Ranni had waited both of their lifetimes to relay this message. In light of that, Melina could afford her a few more minutes.

This was not forgiveness. Melina would not offer it on Godwyn's behalf, and Ranni had given no indication that she desired it.

Ranni closed her eye. "Since thy return, how often hast thou asked after thine old acquaintances? The twin prodigies? You were close, I heard. The archdragon Fortissax?"

Fortissax... could take care of itself, if anyone could at all. Miquella and Malenia were Empyreans both, and they had each other. As for the others, worrying after them in her state would not help them.

"Thou dost not need to ask. They can all of them manage their own affairs without guidance, or else thou wouldst not have loved them as thou hadst. And... of course, thou hast not asked because thou dost not care enough to.

"This doll's body is a first, flawed iteration. I intend to improve upon the next, but this one lacketh aspects I did not think to include. Certain subtleties and sentimentalities. Residing within it, I have at my disposal only so much as I brought along.

"When the black flames took me, I did not think of love, nor of... family." She laughed quietly, a frozen, petulant thing. "No, I thought of – offense. Rights and wrongs and the reasons I had striven to such lengths. I held in my mind the dark and lonesome path of the Empyrean. Not an instant hath passed since that I have lost sight of that moon-struck road; the world without seemeth dim in comparison, much as I suspect it doth to thee. This is what we are with all pretense stripped away: the leading edge of a blade in flight. Desire honed to an unbreaking point.

"I am in little position to ask after thine ambitions, but if thou wilt take one piece of advice, even after my crimes against thee," she said, opening her eye. The edge of it wrinkled as she offered a furtive smile. "Let it be this: nothing anymore guardeth thee from what thou canst become. Not anyone else, and certainly not me. Death keepeth no dominion over ghosts and gods, and a purpose is as much as one can hold in one's hands. Do not see it escape thee."