Is that what you tell yourself because that's what we said, or because it's easier to believe it to justify your sulking?

[She lifts her head, studies him for a moment, then drops it back down again.]

...It already exists, you know. That world you wanted, that timeline in which the Eighth Rejoining happens.

[Because the Exarch came from it, she thinks wryly. Irhya wonders what he might say in this situation, from someone who knew his life had a deadline to someone despairing about his own life's ending.]