Our spirit is mightier than the filth of our memories.

I don't despise you for what you allowed to happen to me. I despise you because when I was released, you refused to be found and I needed you more than anything in my life. Not to mend my broken bones, Arjuro. I needed my brother to mend my broken spirit.

Maybe memories should be left the way they are.

From the stage Ben catches my eye. "This is for them, Taylor," he calls out as they begin to play. It's a song by the Waterboys and, like each time I hear the music played by the boy in the tree in my dreams, I experience a bittersweet sense of nostalgia I have no right to own. When it's time for Ben to play his solo–his eyes closed, his mind anywhere but here, his fingers so taut and precise that it almost looks painful–my eyes well with tears. Because you know from the look on Ben's face that he's somewhere you want to be. Somewhere the five would be each time they were together.

Play me something that makes me feel;
This soul inside me is made of steel.
Brain is breathing, but heart’s not beating
And, babe, I need you to make things real.
Walk inside me without silence,
Kill the past and change the tense.
Empty gnawing and the ache is soaring;
Take me places that make more sense.

Finnikin had learned over the years not to think of anything beyond the practicalities of getting from one point to another. To focus on the achievable.