Gratuitous Epilogue : Touchstone Extras by Andrea Höst

of dusted
sugar which were apparently luck-wishes – wealth, joy, fame,
family, all that kind of thing – and there's a great deal of
interest in which pattern you get on your piece of cake when it's
shared out. Alay wore a gorgeous filmy dress in shades of violet
and gold instead of the more traditional robe (somewhat Grecian
with a kind of laced bodice) and simply looked fantastic.
Completely radiant. Maze was so at peace, and didn't seem able to
take his eyes off her the entire time.
    The after-wedding party
was fun – Maze's mother is a musician, and played nice music with a
couple of friends, and there was some light-hearted dancing – Zee
and Nils did an aerial slow dance and then everyone who could
manage to get themselves in the air followed suit and that was
pretty awesome to watch. Kaoren and I didn't dance because Sen had
been playing with Ketzaren's hair – she loves trying to do
everyone's hair – and Deal had run up and pushed her over and she'd
jammed her elbow. Deal used to get on quite well with Sen, but as
he's grown attached to his new parents, he's become very jealous of
them. And Sen's tendency to treat all the Senior Setari as adored
favourites, clambering all over them, makes him particularly
upset.
    Sen was mainly just
shocked to start with, but then found that her arm really hurt when
she moved it and burst into tears. And Ys zoomed down from the top
patio – literally: she levitated – and snatched her up and I (a
little too far away to have done any snatching) fully expected her
to turn a total basilisk glare on Deal, but instead she just said
sternly: "They're not going to stop wanting you, no matter what
anyone else does. Stop being so afraid," and lifted herself and Sen
over to me and Kaoren.
    We did some hugging and
found a numbing salve to put on Sen's elbow, and then we had an
interesting talk with Ys about the fact that her levitation talent
isn't strong enough for her to lift herself, let alone herself and
Sen. Seems Ys worked out how to expand her connection to the Ena
shortly after touching me when I had my senses fully extended, but
decided not to mention it in case we expected her to spend more
time training her talents – or trying to train other people to
expand their connections – which would cut down on her reading
time. She'd tried teaching Rye, and since he hadn't managed it, had
kept quiet about it. "Rye is too interested in bits and pieces of
what's nearby," she said, shrugging. "It stops him from looking at
it all at once."
    This was a very
interesting development from the Setari's point of view, because Ys
is the only person without a strong Sight talent who has managed to
make the expansion, and she can also obviously do it very quickly,
which is what the Taren and Kolaren Setari who have achieved it
have been working on. We held off on interrogating her too much
during the party, but she got to have a long conversation with
Kaoren, Tsur Selkie and Maze a few days later. I was actually more
interested in what she'd said to Deal and told her quietly, after
Ketz had brought Deal to apologise, and Kaoren had taken Sen off to
fly up to the very tops of the trees, that she had reminded me of
Isten Notra. This is a huge compliment to Ys, so of course she
didn't believe me, but I explained that while she'd said it a lot
more bluntly than Isten Notra might have, it was the same sort of
clear-sighted response. Then I threw her further off-balance by
telling her how much I envied her for being able to
levitate.
    Maze and Alay's house
wasn't quite ready in time for the wedding, but they'll be moving
in soon. It's on the top of one of the small hills on Siriath, and
Maze has endless plans for a kind of rock garden and lawn and all
sorts of trees and things made of stone. I showed him some pictures
of Mount Tomah, back near Sydney, and he was very pleased and
inspired by that, and has stolen some idea from it for The Wedding
Garden as well.
    It feels strange not
working while the