“If I came down tomorrow night and went to another house where two souls were coupling in this way, would I find you there as well?”

“Would you like to find me there?”

Egdod now felt the craving strongly and understood that it, as well as the cravings for food and warmth, would be of great import in the future of the Town as it continued to fill up with other souls. And not only the Town but the whole of the Land; for Longregard had let him know that many more souls had been coming in of late. And finding that Town had no room left in its houses, they had been venturing out beyond it as their forms became robust enough to afford them freedom of movement.

“I would like you to dwell in the Palace,” Egdod said. And he resolved that he would make for Warm Wings an abode there that was far from the parts of it he frequented, for her beauty and her manner of speaking about pleasure, though far from disagreeable, were troubling in a certain way. “If you make it your habit to fly to Town on your beautiful white wings and know more about such things”—and he nodded at the window where the two souls were continuing to pleasure each other—“then I should be glad of it if you would sit at the table with the other souls of the Palace and discourse of it, since I believe it to be a thing of some importance.”

Warm Wings was in no way displeased to have been given such an invitation, yet it was not in her nature to grasp at it. “Who are those souls, and what is that table?” she inquired. “It is the topic of much conjecture in Town.”

It had not occurred to Egdod that the souls of Town would concern themselves with such questions. Now he understood that it must inevitably be so, for it was in the nature of souls not just to want food and to crave other sorts of pleasures, but to be curious.