Remembering another journey, long ago. When he rode up here with Galehaut, and Gwenhwyfar, fleeing from Arthur’s rage. Looking for sanctuary. Sanctuary that Kay wasn’t willing to give them. He’s never forgiven Kay for that. If Kay had just opened his hall to them, it could have prevented everything that came afterwards. But Kay had lain down his sw

Isn’t that love’s highest aim? Not the interchange of two free minds, but a single, fused identity? I remembered seeing them on the beach the night I’d followed Patroclus down to the sea. This was what I’d glimpsed then.

Then the darkness parted, and he came. Huge he was, white and gray, burned onto the depths like an afterimage of the sun. His silent wings rippled, rills of current flowing off their tips. His eyes were thin and slitted like a cat’s, his mouth a bloodless slash. I stared. When I had stepped into the water, I had told myself that this would be only