Truman explained about the sigil, and Ash sat cross-legged beside him.

“Wow, I can’t believe that all the times I came here as a teenager, I was seeing something from the same author you were reading thousands of miles away.”

Truman felt a tear tickle his cheek before he was aware he was crying.

“Oh, hey,” Ash said. He looked stricken.

“I’m just overwhelmed,” Truman assured him. “You don’t know what this means to me.”

“I’d like to,” Ash said gently.

At first, Truman wasn’t sure how to put it in words. Then he just started talking.

“When I first read the series, it was like a whole world opened up to me that I’d never known could exist. I don’t mean because it was fantasy. I mean because it was these people living in ways and having thoughts and feelings that I’d never experienced. And even though it was fantasy, the things they went through and did felt more real to me than my own life. I was twelve when I read them, and it opened up all these new thoughts, I guess. Like it was a lens I saw the whole world through.”

Ash nodded.

“So I started to apply everything in my real life to the books. Or, no. I brought the lens of the books to bear on everything in my real life? Anyway, it was a kind of…I mean, I’m not religious at all, but it was kind of like a bible for me. I admired the characters so much, so I used their strengths and ethics as a guide for who I wanted to be. I asked myself if Clarion would be proud of me for a certain behavior. If yes, I felt good. If no, I knew I should’ve done something different.”

Truman trailed off, contemplating what Clarion would think about his recent relationship with Guy and realizing she would be horrified. She had stepped away from her lover when he made choices she couldn’t endorse because she had only been interested in a love that was a true partnership. She would never have allowed herself to be treated the way Truman had. She would never have settled for a love that was strangled and conditional and all on someone else’s terms.

She would be ashamed of him.

It walloped him. Here he sat, in a place that felt sacred with Agatha Tark’s presence, and his role model would be ashamed of how he had behaved. How little he had valued his needs. His ethics.

He felt slightly sick.

“Truman?”

Truman tried to swallow with a totally dry mouth and choked a little.

“Are you all right?” Ash put a hand on his arm.