He stood for a moment, as if stunned. Then he knelt at her feet, and kissed one of her hands.

From his knees, he smiled. “Am I really unkillable?” he asked.

She grinned. Breath flowed out of her, and her shoulders relaxed.

“Don’t press your luck,” she said.

After that, they spoke for almost an hour—easily, talking. Mostly, he told her what he had learned in Liviapolis, and from the Wyrm. She was reticent about the secrets of Lissen Carak, but she grunted at some of his theories.

“What did Father Arnaud think of your Wyrm?” she asked, when it was clearly time for them to go.

“The Wyrm restored his powers to heal,” Gabriel said.

Instead of responding, she went and put a hand into the waterfall. She drank—the water chilled her hand almost instantly.

“Before we go back to the world,” she said. “Tell me why you are coming to peace with God.”

“Is this confession?” he asked. “Bless me, Mother, for it is roughly ten years since my last confession. Shall I start with the murders or the lechery?”

“Blasphemy comes so easily to you,” she said.

“My mother has always seen herself as God’s peer.” He shrugged.

“I like your mother,” Amicia said. “I think you need to stop hiding from her, and behind her. We all have mothers.” She took his hands. “God?”

He nodded. “Oh, I think I have allowed myself to fall into the same trap that every highly-strung boy and girl since Adam and Eve has fallen into. That I was specially cursed by God.”

“Rotten theology,” she said.

“Mmm.” His non-committal grunt was almost lost in the water sounds. “I’m not yet entirely convinced. And then, instead of miraculous conversion, my dear Sister, you will find me merely a tiresome agnostic. Asking all the usual questions—why so there so much suffering? Why is the world run by a handful of malicious super-entities with special powers? Where is the proof of God’s love?” He looked down at her hands. “I confess that when you hold my hands, I have a frisson of belief in God’s love.”

“Is there a better line of patter in all the spheres?” she said, eyes wide. “Love me, and I’ll come to God?”

They laughed together. It was a good laugh.

“You will find another,” she said.

“Never,” he said.

“Yes, love. Now be easy.” She reached out to touch him, and felt a frisson of power—merely an echo of power. But she knew the taste, and she smiled, because Ghause had put a love-spell on her, and it made her laugh. “Like to like,” she murmured.

“What’s that?” Gabriel said.

“Thanks,” Amicia said. “This was—beautiful.”

Gabriel bowed. “We should go back.”

Two hours later, they re-joined the column south of the bluffs, and crossed Sixth Bridge at its head. Perhaps there were ribald comments, but Sister Amicia’s demeanour laughed them to scorn. She rode with the captain, and her sisters, too, and by the time the column halted for a midday meal, their light-heartedness had spread down the column.