So.

Myr brushes the beginnings of the glyph from the book in a shower of verdant sparks before laying it aside. "A man doesn't do something like that to himself without meaning to, Vandelin," he says quietly. "Same way a fennec won't chew off a limb but that it's caught in a trap."

It's an oblique answer, laying out his reasoning on exactly how he'd known his cousin wasn't all right; the catch in Van's voice only confirms it. Myr takes a breath--makes a decision--and leans over the little ways that's required to loop an arm around Van's shoulders. Not quite the embrace he wants to pull his cousin into, but he's been afraid from the moment he'd set foot in the tent he'd fuck something up again, he'd break something again.

(The timing was too neat.)

"Whatever you reason was, it's not--it doesn't matter why; but you ought to know you're not alone."