Wrong things sat on Alexa’s skin like a coating of thick, greasy dust. This simply lacked order.

It was small, a kernel of emotion that sprouted from her stomach and spread insidiously through her body.

Prophecy: If it was specific, it would be too obvious.

She would go. There was a distinct difference between not wanting to do something and not doing something, and she had dreamed of helping put right what Grandmère had not since… she couldn’t remember anymore.

Genofeva was wrong after all. Very wrong. Entirely wrong. She simply hadn’t been frightening enough to run from. 

To expect the worst (to Alexa’s mind) was to lack trust in whatever the situation was. To imagine the worst possible outcome might be more possible.

Getting drunk had been an attempt to forget, to be the adolescent she was, and all she’d accomplished was more thinking, but painfully.

Alexandrie only had one question for Alaina Donadieu, and she was not ready to ask it. She didn’t know if she ever would be.

She could - maybe - create towns, cities… utopias… but whenever she thought of that, the opposite also surfaced - as Spider said, if she could create, she could destroy.

Was this how the Song was supposed to end? Was this the part she was missing?In ash and death and the destruction of… Everything? Or was that the beginning? 

Alexa didn’t even trust herself, how could she trust someone she’d just met?

If she’d wanted to escape the sound, she should have run to a shrine. But here she was, in a temple - hiding - because to be without La Chanson was…frightening. It was frightening. After a year and a half of this constant companion, did she like it? Or was she used to it?

It was nice that the Dash’em’ali family had thought to ask someone to help them, and Alexandrie thought back to the look on the matriarch’s face when she was told Lucas Snr was still alive.

Such was the power she wielded.

Even if she couldn't (for some reason) tell Alexa what had been asked of her, Alexandrie couldn't shake the deep, heart splitting sense of betrayal that came from feeling Grandmère hadn’t told her about the realities of all this to save face.