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“What other options?” Adrian asked. “Because I’m drawing a blank.”

“Well first we need to know exactly what the blocks that are missing said,” Alaryia said. “Not just a summary.” She looked at Julie. “Do you remember?”

“Not really, my husband took Sean down there and I only got the cliff notes version from him myself.” She frowned. “As I said, most of the missing material was a lament that they shouldn’t have trusted Xantaria.” She drummed her fingers on the arm of her chair. “But there was something else. He quoted it exactly because it was so weird. ‘Hunger to fight the hungry. Beware the Eater of Worlds.’ Which means absolutely noth–” She caught the look on Alaryia’s face. “It means something to you?”

“It’s a old children’s tale from Taloa,” Alaryia said. “A way of keeping children from exploring the Void without training. I don’t even think the Kithreiri use it any more. I know we don’t. The so called Eater of Worlds is supposed to lurk in the Void and either devour incautious travellers or worse, follow them home and eat their whole tribe. I’ve traversed the Void a lot and never sensed even a hint of such a thing. In spite of the name, I never heard of it actually eating a world.”

“I haven’t either,” Takilyan said. “But I know my family thought it was real.”

“It’s real,” Alsia said. “Or at least Kay swore it attacked her once. She was absolutely terrified that it would follow the energy leak from the original tear like a shark following a blood trail. It didn’t, of course…”

“Okay, even assuming it’s real, I still don’t get how the purge helped,” Takilyan said. “Are you sure there was nothing else?”

“Not that he told me,” Julie said. “He did seem troubled but I don’t think he’d have held anything back. Sean would know, of course, but we can’t wait fourteen years to find out, so that’s a non-starter.”

“It might be possible to dig it out,” Takilyan said. “But it would do irreperable harm to the child so it’s not an option.” He glared at Indaturan who had opened his mouth. “Not. An. Option.”

“I suppose not, but we’re definitely still missing information.” Indaturan turned to Kezia. “Are you sure Xantaria never let anything else slip??”

“If she did, I didn’t notice,” Kezia said. “Except she got exasperated with Cel at one point when she pissed off Mitakrian somehow and said that our family always had been really bad at taking advice, which struck me as a strange thing to say.”

“Very strange,” Indaturan agreed, then his eyes widened. “I think I know the password for my aunt’s diary! Let me fetch the blocks and we’ll try it.”

“Could you bring Marian as well?” Julie asked. “She should be told what we’ve found.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” he said. “We might need her sensitivity to cut through this mess. I won’t be long. And somebody wake Dar up, he should hear this as well.” He smiled at Alsia who had scowled at that. “You know I’m right.”

“Unfortunately, yes,” she muttered as he disappeared.

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