It was a hard question. Not for its answer, but for the journey to it. 

For Besca, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d used the word for herself. A part of her had always considered the pilots [i]king[/i] of a sort, and when it came to people like Dahlia, and Safie, and for a time even Ghaust, there was a pull, like the tugging of a fishing line. 

Lana. Tayson. Bosco and Gilly. Natt Jr. Little Dora. Her own mother and father. 

Besca hadn’t had family in a long, long time. It was so close to the word [i]home[/i] for her, which only conjured up flashes of fire, the smell of blood and char. Faces in flame-cast shadows. Her heart grew leaden. No, when you lost your family, that was it. You weren’t borne another. Wasn’t supposed to work like that, not for anyone. Not for her. 

For Dahlia, the wound was at once older than her own memories, and fresher than anything she’d ever remember again. The people she’d lost in Westwel were ghosts to her, distant as ancestors but still so real that she bore their presence in the color of her eyes, the softness of her face, the wave of her hair. When she mourned her old home, she often mourned it for the sake of others. 

Hovvi she mourned for herself. She had known family there, as truly as anyone else ever had. And as she looked at Quinn she knew she’d lost it in those fires in a way the girl never had, and likely never could have. She’d never known the safety and comfort Dahlia had with her own father, and while her home had always been a fond place she longed to return to, Quinn’s had been a cage. 

Dahlia pulled her in and hugged her tightly. Besca ran a hand through her hair, rested her head against Quinn’s. They held her for a long time, and though they didn’t speak, their answer was abundantly clear. 

That nudge in the back of Quinn’s mind, that gentle suggestion that she was safe, faded. Not for danger, not for despair, but perhaps for the hope that she would feel it all on her own.