The gem is cut absolutely perfectly, glittering even in the dim light, and the intricate gold cage wound around it shines with an unnatural brightness even after forty years. There's magic pulsing through it, a faint hum against the skin. It's also uh quite large, a horrifically gaudy little bauble if he was to wear it outside his shirt ever.

Beside him, Gyre pauses the second he moves to pick it up, an instinctive wariness rising up in him. He watches him carefully, keeping his hands busy with another leather knot so he doesn't get too anxious. He trusts this man. He trusts him a lot, but this is not a conversation he normally has to have. And it's always strange to have another person's hands on his soul. He can feel the princess' fingers shifting across it and his skin prickles.

"No, it was made for me," he answers with the kind of finality that says he's not going to answer the first question. He wouldn't, in different circumstances, but these feelings are really making his usual secrecy difficult.

"It's me," he offers after a beat. There's another pause here, another knot undone, and he takes a deep breath. "It was made by the same person who made this. This body."