Julia's known from the moment she met him that he's an old soul, and then he admitted to his age, and it seemed so obvious. It's the way he holds himself, like there's heaviness to his shoulders, even as he smiles and brightens and runs around. He's an inspiration for her already, to be a thousand years old and still going. She knows he's talking from experience, that he does understand loss to a scale she can't yet. If he can be him, she can be her, she has to believe that's possible.

"It was for something. It was for this, me. Being a goddess." So it's not that she is unaware of where these paths all converged. If Julia didn't help them summon Reynard, if he hadn't broken her, if she hadn't spared him, she wouldn't be her. "Their deaths led here." So it was her mistake, and in a way, her lesson. It's so wrong, that their wonderful hearts and lives and the times they had together were leading in one direction. They died because of her.

Sometimes she really thinks that's what destroyed her even more than what he did to her. What he did to them. She would give up all her power in exchange, she truly would. But she can't unring the bell.

"I saw them afterward, in the underworld. None of them blamed me. They were so happy to see me." And it seemed wrong that they would, that they'd embrace her like nothing had changed. She didn't have her Shade at the time so it couldn't fully hit her, the feelings she had, she was so empty at the time, but it still did get to her. They bowled together. Quentin got the first strike of his life.

She breathes in deeply and out, closing her eyes for a moment, before opening them again more resolved than grieving. "Silver, Menolly, Bender, and ... and Richard." Richard more pronounced because of his meaning to her. "Whatever I do from now, it's for them. Right?"