"We've never had a normal life, Vex and I." He blinked his bleary eyes open at Joanna, accepting her touches. "But we managed to be happy together."

He parted his lips as if to say something more, but then pressed them back into a line again. He decided it would be cruel, rather than kind, to suggest that she reminded him a bit of his memory of their mother.

"I like tending the herbs with you," he told her instead.