The night before they left, nobody slept properly.
Aelara knew this because she lay in the dark between her children's mats listening to the particular quality of their breathing and she could hear the difference Caelum awake and still in the way he was still when he was thinking rather than sleeping, Lyra turning twice with the restlessness of someone whose internal weather was working through something. She lay there and listened to both of them not sleeping and did not pretend to sleep herself.
Eventually Caelum said, to the ceiling: "Are you scared."
"Yes," Aelara said.
"Me too," he said. Then: "Lyra's more scared than us."
From the other mat, Lyra said: "I know. I can feel it. It's like a lot of everything all at once."
"The outside," Caelum said.
"Yes."
