Finn smiled ruefully. "I'm a Prisoner, old man. Just like you.

All my life I have dreamed of you.

I always was going to be a writer. The other jobs were just to keep me in food. Though I enjoyed the archaeology.

Shadow turned. Her eyes were wet; she smiled at him wanley. "I'll be she loved you.

Even across the dark, even across the loss, even across the emptiness, soul will speak to soul

Where are the leaders?' Sapphique asked. 'In the fortresses,' the swan replied. 'And the poets?' 'Lost in dreams of other worlds.' 'And the craftsmen?' 'Forging machines to challenge the darkness.' 'And the Wise, who made the world?' The swan lowered its black neck sadly. 'Dwindled to crones and sorcerers in towers.

The Stars. Jared slept beneath them, uneasy in the rustling leaves. From the battlements Finn gazed up at them, seeing the impossible distances between galaxies and nebulae, and thinking they were not as wide as the distances between people. In the study Claudia sensed them, in the sparks and crackles on the screen. In the prison, Attia dreamt of them, She sat curled on the hard chair, Rix repacking his hidden pockets obsessively with coins and glass discs and hidden handkerchiefs. A single spark flickered deep in the coin Keiro spun and caught, spun and caught.