He heads off to go talk to her.

She's still holding her baby. Still pretty fragile but back to breathing deeply and not crying.

"Hey.

I asked Imrainai what I was missing."

" - oh. Did it, uh, help?"

"I think so? It made me - 

- she explained that humans when they love other humans stop sleeping with other people usually and everyone knows that so you don't need to explain it."

- nod.

"And so you - when you learned that you thought it meant I didn't love you."

" - yes. And it's - okay, if you don't, you never said you did, just - "

"I think I do. That's just - not how fairies show it, so I didn't think of it."

"Oh," she says, very quietly.

"I don't - I don't know how people know for sure. But Imrainai said that you had loved me, and I wanted - more than I've wanted anything - I didn't want to have a Cecelia who used to love me and stopped -"

Nodnodnodnod. 

"  - I do. Still. I don't - I don't think I know how to stop, maybe if I tried very hard - "

He shakes his head wordlessly. "I think - the thing I was trying to say earlier that they wouldn't believe me about - I think the thing I was trying to say was that I love you so I wouldn't hurt you, except it didn't work out like that, so -"

Nodnodnod. "It's - not your fault. Could you. - could you hold me and tell me again - "

He can pull her onto his lap. "I think I probably love you and I really don't want to do things that make you wish you did not love me. But I'm not gonna guess what those are because I think the fairy ones are different."

She nods and clings to him. "Okay. I love you. I need to - think, about everything that means, later, but - "

"I love you. We can - figure everything else out later. As long as we're not - as long as you're not - Imrainai also said that of course you couldn't say anything about anything you wanted because if you made me mad I wouldn't go get your children and I wasn't - I didn't mean to be holding that over your head -"

Nod. Cling.

"I will go get them for you. Even if you don't love me."

Cling. 

"Thank you."

"Well they seem to have worked things out."

"Are you reading their minds? Because, like -"

"No, I can just hear them."

"What... are you, exactly?"

"We call ourselves Quendi."