POV: Lyra
She asks the question no one else will.
I find Aphrodite in the part of the court that used to be the eastern gallery, the long corridor that runs parallel to the throne room and that the evacuation moved through on the way out. The bound courtiers are gone. The oath-compelled guards are gone. The broken Alphas and the hollow-eyed inhabitants who told me this place was a cage and not a kingdom are gone, dispersed into whatever comes after centuries of oath-magic holding you in place finally lets go.
What's left is the architecture. Stone and ley-lines and the honest light of them running through the cracks, and Aphrodite standing at the far end of the gallery staring at the ruined court with the specific quality of someone who has been standing there long enough that they've stopped seeing it and have moved on to whatever is inside instead.
