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Hector could hardly imagine it, seeing someone again after seventy years and feeling as if that was normal.

‘There’s also the fact that it’s very difficult to stay in touch with other reapers, just in general,’ Garovel went on. ‘We tend to wander, especially when we don’t have servants keeping us in one place. When you don’t make plans to meet up again, it becomes very difficult to do so. And since Chergoa and I parted on less than amiable terms, we never made those plans. And from there, we just lost track of each other.’

‘So... it’s not that you’ve been avoiding each other for four hundred years. You just haven’t crossed paths.’

‘Yeah. I’m sure she’s forgiven me by now. Or at least stopped caring.’

‘...You still haven’t told me what you did wrong.’

Garovel paused a moment. ‘She and her servant at the time had just opened an orphanage in this really isolated place. I felt that she should move everyone to a city where the kids could be better taken care of--or in other words, where someone else could look after them. She did not agree. She believed--quite correctly, as I would later find out--that the nearby towns were too dangerous; and moreover, she wanted to raise the children personally. I thought that was a job best left to normal people.’

‘Hmm. That doesn’t sound too bad, though. I mean... er, I can kinda see your point.’

‘Yeah, but the problem was, I had an overabundance of moral certainty about it. I specifically remember saying to her, “You’re wasting your time. Rather than taking care of these kids, you should be trying to make sure that this war doesn’t make orphans of any others.”’

Hector’s brow receded a little. ‘Geez...’

‘I know, right?’

‘That doesn’t seem like something you’d ever say. Usually, you’re more... uh... kind of, er... I’m not sure “cynical” is the right word...’

‘Practical?’

‘Yeah. You’re practical. And that seemed like a pretty naive thing to say.’

‘Wow. Getting called naive by a teenager. That stings.’

‘Am I wrong?’

‘No, you’re right. It was stupid to think that Chergoa’s servant could impact the war in such a way as to prevent any more children from being affected by it. But at the time, I really wanted to believe that.’

‘Why?’

Garovel hesitated again. ‘Well, that’s another story. But I suppose it’s one I should tell you.’

Hector waited.

‘I had just recently released my servant of the previous sixty years. And not because my servant wanted me to.’

He blinked. ‘What do you mean?’