After, Gideon presses kisses to Harrow's flushed face and wraps her arms around her adept again to just hold her safe and close.

"Harrow," she says, quiet, reverent, but she doesn't have any other words; she just holds on, arms firm, eyes closed, her face pressed against Harrow's fresh-shaved scalp.

She's not much for quotation, but Ruth keeps floating in and out of her head: where you go I will go; where you stay I will stay. It's as good as anything else she knows for defining this determination that never leaves or sways.