She Turned On the Lights

I would have simply run, and left her behind, and become one more good person who looked away.

It took both of us.

It took a woman inside the cage who was brave enough to reach through the bars, and a woman outside it who was willing to reach back instead of walking on.

That is the whole thing, really.

That is how these houses full of darkness finally get their lights turned on — not by a hero arriving from outside, and not by a victim saving herself alone, but by the two of them finding each other, and refusing, together, to look away.

I held Yvaine while she cried, and I was not thinking about Percival at all.