By the time the art show had ended, and the afterparties had been attended, it was nearly two in the morning. There'd been some kind of special dispensation for Ryouta to allow him to temporarily forgo sleep for the evening.

"Thanks for coming with me," Ryouta said quietly as the door closed behind them in his suite. A light rain had begun to sprinkle down, tapping against the windows and streaking through the lights of the city.

"Of course," said Emma. "I wanted to spend time with you, after all."

"I feel like I might not have spent enough time with you, to be honest," said Ryouta, running a hand through his hair and sighing tiredly. "There was a lot of talking to do."

Emma shrugged. "It's part of what you have to do, right? It wasn't a big deal."

"Are you sure?"

There was a pause.

"If I'm honest, I don't know that it's something I can keep up," said Emma, leaning against the wall and looking thoughtfully at her toes. "I want— I need time with you alone, obviously."

Ryouta stepped forward and took Emma's hands.

"We'll make sure to do something together," said Ryouta firmly. "Just the two of us. Tomorrow, maybe, or the day after?"

"If you mean later today…"

"You're busy I know. I meant tomorrow."

Emma smiled. "That'd be nice. Did you have someplace in mind?"

"Not yet, but—" Ryouta was interrupted by a jaw-cracking yawn, "but I'll think of something."

"Alright, but you better get to bed," said Emma. "It's late."

"Stay with me?" asked Ryouta, rubbing an eye sleepily. "I want… it'd be nice if you could."

Emma smiled and patted Ryouta's head. "Of course."

Morning dawned unusually bright and cold. Emma was glad that it had at least stopped raining, which made it better than Samsara by a good margin. She had left Ryouta nestled in a nest of blankets, waking him just to say goodbye before hopping off the balcony and leaving to meet Kyouko.

Morning training with Kyouko went smoothly, if painfully. Kyouko had apparently decided that another spar was necessary, with the restriction that neither use magic outside of basic strength and durability enhancements. Emma still got smacked around the sparring ring, but Kyouko seemed to find her performance satisfactory.

"I'm just getting a better gauge of your abilities," Kyouko said after their spar. "Most girls aren't very good at defending against another magical girl. You seem to have good basic footwork for someone your age, so that's a start."

"Thanks, I guess?" Emma asked.

Kyouko shrugged. "Did you talk to anyone about your vision yet?"

"Oh, er, yes, to a few people," said Emma. "I'm not sure that I learned anything, but it helped me to feel better about the vision."

"Good," Kyouko said with a nod. "I agree that it seems pretty straightforward. There's probably some additional shades of meaning we can glean, but, well, up to you at that point. Have you thought any more about your career?"

Emma grimaced. "Well… I'm still deciding. My dad said I should ask if doing a job shadow with a Soul Guard unit is possible."

"I mean, I wouldn't recommend it," said Kyouko with a face like she'd bitten into a bitter melon. "Let's be realistic, most jobs are mostly paperwork, but Soul Guard always seemed worse to me. Your average job shadow will mostly be watching people do paperwork and occasionally running errands. I'd say that you would be better off talking to a recruiter. You've heard of the Knights of the Goddess?"

Emma nodded. "One of my patrolmates mentioned them to me."

"Speaking of which, your patrol starts soon," said Kyouko, glancing at her chronometer. "But alright, good enough. You should go talk to Marianne, over in their offices in the Gatehouse."

Emma nodded again. She'd have to do it after the patrol.

"I better let you go," said Kyouko, sighing. "I should do work too. So troublesome."

Mikoto had been pleased to see Vira and Motya join the patrol, and had greeted them happily. Shoshana and Vivianne were somewhat bemused and indifferent but friendly all the same. It was decided after some debate that, despite her desires otherwise, Motya was probably best suited to running civilians out of the area while dropping vodka bottles as needed. Vira and Vivianne would work together on ranged support, leaving Shoshana and Emma with their traditional roles.

"Lots of people this time," Shoshana mused aloud as they ran ahead of the main patrol. "It'll be interesting coordinating you all."

"It should be fine," Emma replied. "Vira and Motya are good girls."

"Yes," said Shoshana. A sharpened sense of focus rippled across her telepathy as her magic expanded. "I have a contact, location forwarded. A few dozen civilians, nothing too large yet."

"Roger that," said Emma. She accelerated, pushing herself through the air as she homed in on the miasma. "Growth rate?"

"Fast. You should nip it in the bud before it expands too much."

That complicated things a little. "Roger."

Fast growing miasmas weren't that rare, but they weren't common either, and dealing with them was always a pain. It was simple enough to fight one, all the standard tactics applied, but it was always a slog and you risked having a cascading scenario where multiple miasmas began linking up.

Emma's lips twitched briefly in a smile. She was good at disrupting miasmas before they ever got to that stage.

Emma crested a tower then dove, a burst of magic accelerating her halberd-point-first into, then through a demon, crashing into the ground in a shower of sand. The miasma had spawned over an elementary school, and Emma had landed in a sandbox.

"Shoshana, you forgot to mention this," Emma growled, firing off a jet of air as she rocketed skyward again.

"What— oh, that's new," said Shoshana, a tinge of alarm coloring her telepathy. "I'm sending a crow now, but that's not the miasma I was looking at."

Emma blinked and checked her implants. Shoshana was right, Emma was about a kilometer off target.

"Wait, hold on, what's going on?" Emma asked as she leaped out of the miasma and skidded to a halt just on its edge. "This isn't right."

"I don't—" began Shoshana before she was interrupted:

"Alert, miasma surge detected in grid location 18A," Juliana called out. "First responders, suppress the demons as best you can, we're heading in now."

Emma grimaced. She was in 18A.

"Roger that," Shoshana called back. "Team Three, be advised, I'm switching to control and won't be mobile."

"I'll cover you," Motya volunteered.

"Good. Emma, targets?"

"Painting them now."

Emma dived back in, skimming across the rooftops and jungle gyms with Shoshana's telepathic presence tingling in her skull. They'd practiced doing this before in simulation, but it wasn't something they'd needed to do in reality before.

"This feels really weird," Vira groused.

"Shut up and shoot," Vivianne groused back. "Emma, HE good?"

"For now yeah."

"Roger that, firing now."

Emma cleared out of the area, demons flickering red on her vision as Shoshana's magic relayed targeting data back to Vivianne and Vira. A second later, explosive rounds crashed into the area, blowing some demons apart and pushing the others back.

"I have a visual," Vira intoned, before: "Firing."

There was a pause, then a staccato crash of gunfire that blitzed its way through five demons, pausing melodramatically before explosions tore their heads off and sent them dissolving into grief cubes.

It was a process that repeated itself with terrible and awesome efficiency as Emma sprinted through the miasma, moving as quickly as she dared without leaving gaps in her team's coverage. Behind them, the main patrol crashed into the miasma like a tidal wave, tearing its way through and rescuing the civilians trapped within.

Zero casualties so far. Emma hoped they could keep it that way.

"New contact, bearing 011, range five kilometers," Shoshana called out. "Small miasma, multiple civilians in and around a coffeeshop."

"Roger that," Emma said, turning north and accelerating again across the rooftops. Mitakihara's morning commute rippled beneath her as she ran, streams of traffic splitting off and remerging according to the AI-planned pathing algorithms that controlled everything.

Somehow it struck Emma as distinctly absurd. Maybe it was the level of control, compared to being in battle. It was an odd thought.

"Emma, we're tied up at the last miasma," said Vivianne. "Hold up and we'll rejoin you."

"Negative, finish up there," said Emma. She crested another small tower with a burst of air. "Shoshana, miasma status?"

"Holding steady. Looks like it's only a few civilians, but it has them good and tight. You'll have to bust them out fast."

Emma pursed her lips and paused on a roof.

"Actually Vivianne, can you spare Vira?"

"Yeah, of course."

"Vira, converge on me," Emma ordered. "I want to make sure we save those civilians."

"Roger that," said Vira. "Ey, teleporter, can I—"

There was a flash of pink as a stressed-looking teleporter, apparently tied into Shoshana's telepathic web, dropped Vira unceremoniously next to Emma.

"Sorry, lots of work to do," the teleporter said with only the smallest hint of contriteness. She vanished in another flash of pink.

"Ass," Vira groused as she picked herself up.

Emma sniffed in amusement. "Come on, let's go."

The rest of the approach to the miasma was almost nostalgic. Emma and Vira came to a stop just on the edge.

"We've got the drop on 'em," Vira muttered. "Charge in, hard and fast?"

Emma paused to think. It was a small store, matching Shoshana's description, with a patio hanging out over the edge of the building. From Emma and Vira's vantage point, six civilians were visible on the patio, and their implants said that sensors in the area had recorded no more than an additional eighteen inside. By a coincidence of geometry, the coffeeshop was slightly isolated from its surroundings, just enough that an alert was able to clear out the region and keep any additional civilians from getting caught in the miasma. The chuen the coffeeshop was located in was otherwise unremarkable.

"Start at the patio and then move inwards," said Emma after a moment's consideration. "Otherwise, sounds good. I'll go in first and mark targets. You shoot and cover me as needed while I pull civilians out of the line of fire. Hopefully we'll be fast enough that we cross the threshold for this miasma."

"Works for me," said Vira, licking her lips and readying her rifle. "Let's get started."

"Alright," said Emma. She gathered her magic. "Ready?"

"O'course."

"Go!"

The two of them ran forward side-by-side, then split off. Emma jinked right, circling around to parallel the storefront as Vira found a good vantage point across the way. An abrupt turn to dodge a laser blast sent Emma ricocheting across the restaurant's patio in a blast of wind, her trajectory locked on a pair of diners slumped in their chairs at the far end. Bullets crashed through demons as fast as Vira could cycle her weapon, dropping grief cubes in the wake of Emma's passing.

The first two civilians were rescued smoothly, and the demons on the patio had been decimated. It was an impressive amount of destruction, all things considered, but it wasn't enough. The miasma pulsed in Emma's consciousness, more demons spilling out of the interior, where the majority of the civilians were, and zeroing in on her. Vira reacted with gunfire, maintaining as high a volume as she could manage while Emma finished her next two passes, clearing the patio and buying the two of them a moment's reprieve.

"Grief cubes," Emma intoned, pulling out a handful and pressing them against her soul gem. "Let's recharge and get ready."

"Roger that," said Vira, blowing out a slow breath. "We're doin' good, yeah?"

"Yeah," said Emma, allowing herself to smile a little. "This must be what it felt like back before the MSY."

"What do you mean?"

"Two girls taking on a whole miasma with no backup and questionable grief cube yield," said Emma, chuckling. "I mean, it sounds pretty dystopian, doesn't it?"

"Huh. I guess."

"Anyway, ready to go?"

"Yeah."

"Let's move."

Emma burst forward again, landing just in front of the door leading to the patio and slicing it off its hinges with a swipe of her halberd. A blast of laser fire skimmed past her nose. Emma flinched to the side, then fired back with a jolt of wind, sending the demon behind the door crashing into its fellows with an unearthly wail.

"You okay?" Vira asked.

"Fine," Emma called back. She darted inside and waved her hand at the windows, a jet of air blowing them out into the patio and leaving Vira with a clear line of fire.

"Thanks," said Vira, before rattling out a spread of bullets. The space was too confined for the demons to maneuver, and they were too weak to spawn on top of Vira and force her back. The fight was, consequently, short.

"Command, this is Team Three, Element Two," Emma called out over telepathy as the miasma evaporated around her, leaving the store undamaged and the civilians slowly blinking to awareness.

"Go ahead, Element Two," said Juliana.

"Command, we've cleared the miasma on grid-location two-zero bravo," Emma reported. "Requesting update on next objective."

"Hold your position, Element Two," said Juliana. "Patrol will finish up here and then join you for final mop up. Conduct standard recovery actions for now."

"Roger that, Command," said Emma as Vira landed on the patio with two of the civilians Emma had recovered earlier. The shaken pair thanked her profusely, much to Vira's embarrassment. "We'll see you soon."

The patrol ended with much less excitement than it had begun. Juliana spent more time than Emma thought was strictly necessary going over the patrol's response during the debriefing, but frankly speaking they'd made an exemplary show of it. There had been no civilian casualties, and only a few magical girls wounded. All the wounded had been young girls without a lot of experience, and none of the wounds were bad enough to need hospital time. Mikoto had been one of them, catching a laser across her chest, but her summon had blocked it quickly and she'd fallen back to heal in good order.

"Good work," Emma said to Mikoto as the debriefing broke up. "You took a hit, but you made sure there weren't any gaps in your area of responsibility before you pulled out. Most new girls freak out."

"Thanks," said Mikoto, blushing a little. "Ah, I mean, it wasn't that good. I shouldn't have gotten hit in the first place. I wasn't paying attention."

"That just takes practice," said Emma, patting Mikoto on the shoulder. "It'll take some time, but you'll be better by the time you deploy. How are classes going?"

"They're going well!" said Mikoto. "The careers advisor was right about how I'd get up to speed quick. I talked to my instructor and she gave me a recommendation to audit a few of the advanced classes. They're pretty cool!"

"Learn anything new?"

"Yeah! Sort of," said Mikoto. She laughed sheepishly. "Well, honestly, I don't really understand anything, but you can sorta guess and it sorta works? It's super fun!"

"And no tests?"

"No tests!"

Emma chuckled and restrained the urge to ruffle Mikoto's hair. "Sounds nice."

"Oh, but what about you?" asked Mikoto. "You've been doing stuff right? My classmates say that they saw you talking to Kyouko!"

"Oh, Kyouko offered to give me polearm training and I accepted," said Emma with a shrug. "It's just basic stuff, nothing too crazy."

"That's so cool though!"

"It's not that cool," said Emma. She rubbed her arm at a phantom pain. "She hits really hard."

Mikoto made an unidentifiable noise. "Yeah but, it's still Kyouko."

Emma huffed a laugh. "I guess. You should get to class though, it's starting soon isn't it?"

"Oh, yeah, I should go," said Mikoto. "Uh, maybe we can talk later?"

"Sure."

"Great! See you, Emma!"

Mikoto could only be said to scamper off, joining up with a group of girls and heading to class. Emma watched her go with a slowly dropping expression. It was really very depressing that the war was happening. There was a time, Emma knew, when she and Mikoto and everyone else would have been able to go about their lives normally, but as it stood, there wasn't anything she could do but deal with things as they came. For now…

Emma sighed and made her way out of the Refectory. It felt like a lifetime had passed since she'd been able to just wander around with nothing to do. At the time, she remembered, she'd been horribly bored. Horribly angry, to be here, in Mitakihara, to not be at football practice and doing the thing she'd loved.

The truth was that she could have gone to football practice with the local club, but she'd been too focused on what she'd lost instead of what she had. It made Emma wonder, now, with a little perspective, what her life would have been like if she'd exchanged her London scarlet for Mitakihara blue.

Ah well. Too late now. And besides, becoming a magical girl had its own perks.

With another sigh, Emma headed for the Gatehouse. The Church had no real need for a Gatehouse, being as it was on Earth, but it still was there for the sake of the idea. A church, an abbey or cathedral, really, needed a gatehouse. It was Proper, with a capital P, even if it was possibly a little controversial.

The Church seemed lighter today. Maybe it was just compensating for the weather, but the halls seemed brighter, with light bouncing across the walls and distant hymns echoing throughout the hallowed spaces. Idly, Emma thought of the sermon she planned to attend at the end of the week, and wondered whether or not the contents were ever discussed afterwards. It sounded like one of those things that could either go brilliantly or utterly horrifically.

She hoped it was the former.

The hallways of the Church opened up into the main courtyard. Walkways guided Emma's feet as they wandered towards the Gatehouse. A brief moment of trepidation held her still on the threshold, before a familiar, shy magical girl opened the door.

"Oh! Emma!" said Lin Ogino, surprised but decidedly happy. "I didn't expect to see you again. How are you?"

"I'm doing well," said Emma, brushing back her hair with a returning smile. "How about yourself? Did the, uh, missionary work go well?"

"Oh, it was fine," said Lin with a blush and a shrug. "I uh, ran into a few skeptics and had some trouble, but I'm told that's to be expected and I'll grow from the experience."

"That's good. I'm glad for you."

"Thanks!" said Lin with another smile. "But um, I'm supposed to be a receptionist today. How can I help you?"

"Oh, uh, I was told to speak to someone named Marianne about the Soul Guard?" Emma said. She shuffled her feet awkwardly. "Kyouko said that her office was here in the Gatehouse?"

"Oh! Yes, I can take you to her," said Lin. She stepped back to let Emma in. "Please, come in!"

"Thank you for having me," said Emma, bowing briefly at the door before stepping inside. She shucked her shoes off in exchange for the offered sandals, then followed Lin through the Gatehouse's genkan and into its interior.

For some reason, Emma had expected the Gatehouse's interior design to reflect the sort of classical fantasy archetypes of bare, stone walls and exposed wooden pillars. Quite to the contrary, the Gatehouse was largely plastered, then whitewashed, with calligraphy or paintings spaced evenly throughout. Between the understated works of art were sliding doors, constructed in the traditional Japanese fashion, with paper stretched between bamboo frames which allowed flickering candlelight to cast dancing shadows across each surface.

"So, erm, these are the offices of the Knights of the Goddess," said Lin. She sounded like she was reciting from a script, without as much practice as she might have necessarily wanted. "We, er—"

"You don't need to give me the tour," said Emma with a small smile. "Really. It's fine."

"Oh jeez, thanks," sighed Lin, sagging in relief. "I really don't like doing the speech."

"Are you sure you ought to keep doing this if you dislike it so much?"

"I should," said Lin. Her expression flickered into hard, determined lines. "I need to push myself out of my comfort zone."

There was a pause as Emma looked askance at Lin, the other girl slowing in midstep to stare at the ground in silence.

The moment passed, and Lin was glancing up shyly at Emma through her bangs again with an embarrassed blush that made Emma blink at the whiplash.

"Anyway, I was saying that the Knights are sort of a… I guess you'd call it a monastic order," said Lin, brushing her bangs back. "It's not really a monastic order. There's no vows. The rumors are still crazy, heh, but we're also religious, you know? It's sort of a weird in-between."

"Er, well, I mean, it doesn't seem like a nunnery, at least."

"It's not intended to be," said Lin, nodding. "The Knights of the Goddess are really a service organization that's attached to the Cult, but we borrowed a lot of the rituals from history to be more organized and have a clear structure to how we do things."

"What do you mean by 'service'?" asked Emma. "I would have thought…"

She trailed off. It sounded nice, but, well, charity wasn't very useful when half of the human species lived in a post-scarcity society, was it?

"Well, that's sort of up to you, but I can't explain more," said Lin. She smiled mysteriously. "This is Marianne's office. Do you need anything else?"

Emma blinked at her. "Er, no, thanks."

"Alright, then I hope you find what you're looking for!"

Emma watched Lin leave, disappearing down a side hall with a flick of her shirt around the corner and a flash of a smile. That had been… odd. Informative, but odd.

She shook her head and changed tracks, focusing back on Marianne's office. The door was plain and unadorned, with the same bamboo-and-paper construction of every other. The only distinctive element was a small slip of paper in a plain, dark wooden frame to the right of the door. Three kanji had been written on it: "o-shou-gun".

"That… doesn't translate well," Emma muttered to herself as she stared at it quizzically. "Head— no, er, General Priest? What does that mean? Is that supposed to be a pun?"

"Yes it is," Marianne said from inside the room. Emma flinched, turning red in embarrassment. "I apologize for eavesdropping, but the doors are very thin. Please come in."

Emma slid back the door and stepped across the threshold onto a patch of tiles set into the floor. A small message appeared in Emma's vision inviting her to remove her sandals and place them into the cabinet on the right.

"Would you like some tea?" asked Marianne from the raised tatami mats that covered the floor of her office. Like many magical girls on deployment, she had taken the same physical age as when she'd contracted, and seemed at first glance to be an unremarkable twelve-year-old wearing unusually austere blacks and grays. She was so short that, even standing on the mats, she had to look up slightly to meet Emma's eyes.

"I would, thanks," said Emma, blinking as she took off her sandals.

Marianne bowed, a smooth steady motion that carried the quiet confidence of someone much older, expecting that the world would bend to her unflinching will. "I apologize that I only have green tea, but I trust that you will enjoy it either way."

"It's fine," said Emma, bowing back a little hesitantly. "I, um, I'm used to the flavor by now."

"I understand you come from England?" Marianne said as she turned, beckoning for Emma to follow. "I'm from France, myself."

Emma checked her nomenclator. Marianne's last name was "Valois", which was about as French as was possible. The room, on the other hand, was traditional Japanese. It was small, kept very neat, with clean white paper contrasting against black lacquer overlooking tatami mats on the floor. In the corner, a small fountain burbled gently in front of a wall scroll.

"I originally come from Paris, back before the war," Marianne continued as she gestured for Emma to sit and levitated a tea tray to the immaculately clean desk in the same motion. Four small cups, an unglazed, dark red teapot, and a cast iron kettle of water clinked against each other as the tray came to rest. "I was deployed with the rest of the Soul Guard after New Athens. Afterwards, Mitakihara was… easier, than trying to return to Paris. Do you have any specific preference for green tea?"

Emma shook her head. "Why was Mitakihara easier?"

"There were many reasons," said Marianne as she opened a small cabinet next to her desk and rifled through it. "Ultimately, it was the path of least resistance."

"Ah. I see."

The room fell silent as Marianne shifted small canisters of tea around, finally selecting one after a few minutes of searching.

"The tea I will be serving you today is a typical sencha from Ishiyama Plantation," she said, settling onto her chair across from Emma and popping open the tea canister, then pouring a portion into a small ceramic bowl. The deep emerald of the tea leaves stood vibrant against the white glaze, each individual leaf curled tightly into a thin sliver as bright as any gemstone. Marianne eyed the pile critically, then capped the canister and floated it back to the cabinet, which shut with a quiet click. "I assume you've never had this before."

"No."

"Good, it will be a new experience for you," said Marianne. She turned to the kettle, focusing her eyes on it before raising one hand and pulling a stream of steaming water out of the kettle and into the empty teapot, where it swirled round and round.

"You're very good at that," Emma said, squinting a little. Normally, it would have been possible to feel the magic radiating off of the water as it swirled around, but Emma could sense nothing. "How—?"

"Practice, and boredom," said Marianne, laughing a little as she pulled the water through the spout of the teapot with her free hand. The ribbon of water gracefully slipped through first one, then another teacup, swishing through like a child down a playground slide before tumbling into a decanter with the pitter patter of small boots in rain puddles.

"You must have been very bored," said Emma solemnly.

Marianne laughed again and pulled a bucket out from under the desk. She poured the decanter of water in and set it back down. "Yes, very. What did you do before you became a magical girl?"

"I played football," said Emma, shifting a little while she watched the emerald needles tumble into the teapot. One leaf caught a wisp of air as it fell, swirling up and away to flutter onto the surface of the desk.

"Which club?"

"London FC."

"Why did you leave?"

"…Reasons."

"Mm. I see."

Hot water swirled out of the water kettle and into the teapot. Marianne put the lid on with a small click.

"So you wished to learn more about the Knights," said Marianne, sitting back and folding her hands on the desk. "Do you have a specific question?"

"I uh, not really," said Emma, looking embarrassed. "I don't know much about you guys."

"That's typical," said Marianne, nodding. "Most of our Pages are not well informed when they begin. I suppose, then, I should begin by saying that our Order was founded very recently, and tries not to take itself too seriously. The first members of the Knights of the Goddess took their oaths together just after Kyouko founded the Church of Hope. As members of the Church, we found strength in our shared faith and in what we believed to be our solemn duty. At the same time, as I'm sure you know, it would be folly to worship the Goddess as some rarefied being, and so we have intentionally kept our tenets simple and straightforward."

Marianne paused to pour the tea, tilting the decanter to allow the stream of water to follow along the walls of the vessel, minimizing any sloshing. She stopped once the pot was half-empty, then guided more hot water in.

"Our tenets are as follows," Marianne continued, picking up the tea decanter and pouring smoothly into the first cup. "First, live your life in the service of others, for you have been blessed."

A single drop plinked against the surface of the tea as Marianne paused, the teacup filled just short of its rim, scant enough that none of the hot liquid would slosh onto the hands when the cup was moved, but generous enough to ensure the drinker would be able to fully enjoy the tea.

"Second," said Marianne as she began pouring the second cup, "build your life in the service of yourself, for the foundation of your strength comes from within."

Marianne put the decanter down and picked up the second cup. She extended it towards Emma, bowing slightly. Emma took the cup and held it, the warmth of the tea spreading into her hands.

Marianne picked up the remaining cup of tea and raised it. "And finally," she said quietly, "fulfill your life to the utmost of your potential, for your soul is a beacon of hope, a guiding light in the valley of despair."

With a gesture, she took a sip, inviting Emma to do the same. The tea was rich and nutty, slightly herbal, but with a kind of deep clarity that rang like a temple bell through Emma's mind and body. Time came to a stop, as if the world had decided that nothing could be more important than this single, crystalline moment, frozen into the fabric of the universe.

Emma swallowed and the world started again. She set the cup down, slightly dazed.

"This is very good tea."