Now, Kieran whispered those names in the darkness of the night as if they were prayers, when sleep was a sluggish yet heavy pull on his eyelids, when his thoughts would start to slowly evaporate in tandem, when he was lonesome for his Angels.

Silences like these were never uncomfortable for them, never an awkward space squabbling for meaningless words to fill it. It was acceptance, of a sort, an understanding. These were the people who had lived long and fitfully enough to discover that they were not alone, that there were people out there who would love and fight with them.

Nobody said that that admission, that truth, settled something within them—not a reassurance of purpose, but a profound, faraway recognition, something so deeply buried inside them that the only thing they felt was that tiny fragment of themselves, calmly and easily, open up.

Now that he had caught a glimpse of the world, he could no longer bear to be away from it.

All my life my heart has sought a thing I cannot name,' the silver boy said, eyes dancing over the horizon. 'But now that I have found it, I am not so sure I can handle knowing it.