"The deepest cuts are not to the body, nor even to the heart," Aeriel tells Erin as Oceanus glimmers blue and green over the crystal carapace of the Ancients' cloud-weaving machine they have come to fix, tiny drops of water splintering the watery light to impossible shards of violet, gold, and red. "They are the ones that sever futures, that turn a person's feet irrevocably down one path and not another. And yet, for all the pain of the wounds that led us here, I cannot find it in my heart to wish the gap stitched shut and time unspooled."