"The angels have helped me," she says. "They gave me the staff, and Death gave me the cloak I'm wearing, and both of them help me feel safe, and stable. I don't think I could control it so well otherwise. When I first got here I was afraid I'd kill the grass just walking on it."

Something about Adia reminds Deet of Brea, actually. She seems a little gentler and less impulsive than Brea, but she can picture her in a library. "I thought, at first, I could just take it on and even if it killed me, at least I'd have helped others? But I can't act like that. I have too many people who'd miss me."

She frowns at the question, thinking back to the story skekGra and urGoh told her. "A skeksis hit it and broke off a shard. I don't know if that can be reversed...but if it could, if the shard could be replaced in the Crystal, the way to the Crystal itself would have to be cleared. The skeksis have it now, in their palace, and any gelfling that comes too close...I'm sure they'd take their essence."