Her look softened, and by degrees a wan smile touched her lips. "My love, I know that you fear for me as much or more than you fear for our child. There, I have said it and saved you the trouble! You, too, have harboured your secret doubts, and have councelled yourself to an equally stubborn silence!
"Well, will you speak now?"
Her wan smile was returned by his own, though something troubling lurked behind his eyes, some secret knowledge, some other-ness of vision.
He sighed deeply before speaking. "I'm so proud of you! I can not say it enough. And how lucky that two such unlikely beings as ourselves should find one another, in all the wide lands, and in this life!
"Yes, I do fear, because risk to yourself is risk also to our child. But know this, too: were I to die, and you to lose the Summoning Stone, you would live on, but bound forever to our child as you are now bound to myself."
His look turned inward, and Lily knew then that he looked full upon some hidden knowledge. As though seeing some remote point far beyond her, he said, "She is very precious, is our child, Lily. Very precious, and utterly unique in this world. Yes, I know her gender, just as you yourself do.