The woman’s face had grown tense. Her eyes shone with a light that Nicodemus had once mistaken for simple excitement.

She took the greatsword from her back and set it on the ground. “From time to time, Dralish druids sneak into the Highlands to fight for our independence. Kyran came to me two years ago. His nephew was a famous Highland brigand who ceaselessly attacked the Lornish. The Highlanders called him the White Fox. The Lowlanders had worse names for him and marked his wife and sons for death. So Kyran came across the border to smuggle his nephew’s family into Dral. My goddess, hating Lornish rule, was more than happy to help.”

Deirdre looked at the steps again. “But the Paladin of Garwyn attacked during our crossing into Dral. I managed to save Kyran and his nephew, but not the rest of the family. The paladin slaughtered them.”

She shook her head. “I took Kyran and the Fox back to one of my clan’s secret holdings. I managed to sneak the brigand back into Dral, but Kyran was too badly wounded. He stayed with us for a year. Boann knew but…” She swallowed. “Boann had forbidden me to take a lover, and…”

Nicodemus made a soft sound.

“She discovered my infidelity. Some part of me must have known she would. She withdrew much of her soul from me. For an agonizing season, I was mortal again. And though Kyran and I ceased to be lovers, Boann stayed away. He and I dedicated ourselves to winning her forgiveness.”

Nicodemus touched her knee. “But he didn’t love Boann; he loved you.”

She laughed humorlessly. “Was it so obvious? Yes, he dedicated himself to helping me recover Boann’s affection even though it meant helping me forget my love for him. It was a selfless, stupid thing to do. In a way, I was unfaithful to him as well. I tried to explain that the love he and I shared was flawed, human.”

The avatar wiped her eyes with a sleeve. “How we used to argue. Tortured circles, around and around. He claimed that he-unlike Boann-would never punish me or withhold his love. The poor fool. Likely, he was right. It was frightening how wildly he loved me. But… he couldn’t understand that perfect love does exist.”

Nicodemus withdrew his hand as he remembered Kyran’s death. The man’s eyes had burned with agony. Nicodemus had thought the pain was born of the stomach wound. Now he saw what had truly tortured the druid. “Don’t be like me, boy,” Kyran had growled. “Be anything; be wild, be saintly, be wicked. Love all or love none, but don’t be like me.”

Deirdre was still talking. “After Kyran and I prayed and fasted, Boann called me back to her ark and invested nearly all of her soul into me. But it has never again been like it once was. Now she no longer trusts me. Now when our wills diverge she… sends me into seizures and takes control of my body.”

The woman wiped her eyes again. “I should be grateful. Back in Starhaven, Fellwroth’s golem trapped me. The monster would have killed me if Boann hadn’t controlled my body through a seizure. And I am grateful… but sometimes I don’t know who I am. Sometimes I feel as if my heart is not my own, as if I am only a vessel for the desires of others.”

Nicodemus leaned toward her. “And you believe that if you bring me to Boann’s ark, she will trust you again?”

The lines around Deirdre’s eyes smoothed. “Yes.”

In her gaze Nicodemus saw a desire so strong that it had become emptiness. She had lost part of herself. She was disabled in love. Just as he would be incomplete until he regained his ability to spell, she would be incomplete until she regained her perfect love.

“And so Kyran and I came to Starhaven to atone,” she said. “Last spring, Boann ordered us to join the druidic delegation that was passing through the Highlands. We brought many of Boann’s devotees and her ark. The other druids, the ones we couldn’t go to when fleeing Starhaven, are the true diplomats who came with concerns about the Silent Blight. They do not trust us; they tolerated us only because they could not refuse a goddess’s request.”

The woman’s fingers clenched into fists. “We must go to Boann as soon as possible.”

Nicodemus frowned. “But I have questions for the Chthonics. I might learn something more of Language Prime. Besides, Fellwroth must be watching Gray’s Crossing. We have to wait-”

“No!” Deirdre’s sharp retort made Simple John stir in his sleep.

“No,” she continued in a lowered voice. “If you don’t come, Boann may send me into another seizure. She may force me to do things I don’t want to.” She was looking at him now with eyes wide with fear.

Nicodemus felt his hands go cold. “You haven’t abducted me yet, Deirdre. You could have easily done so. Your goddess must know it would be foolish. Fellwroth would find us.”

Deirdre pressed a trembling hand to her chin. “Before I met Kyran, I was sure of everything. ‘Deirdre wry-smile’ they called me. You must have seen it sometime. I used to wear that smile like armor. My love for Boann was so true that I found mortals-with their dithering uncertainties-somehow amusing. But now the half-smile runs off my face like water.”

“You wore that smile when I met you.”

“I have embraced every sacrifice Boann required,” she continued, “leaving my husband, my sons, the society of other mortals. I did not miss them so long as I basked in her love. But now… now that Kyran has died because I…”

She squeezed her eyes shut. “And such horrible dreams I have-dreams of standing on a riverbank and being stabbed somehow by a wolf with a man’s head and glowing red eyes.”

Nicodemus’s head bobbed back. “In a Highland river?”

She nodded.

Nicodemus spoke excitedly. “Fellwroth killed Typhon in a Highland river, cut the demon into fragments with some kind of disspelling wand. I saw it happen when the golem touched me. And on the road, Fellwroth said Typhon was trying to infect a minor deity. Perhaps it was your goddess.”

Deirdre looked at him. “Then that must be how my goddess knew of you. She is the sovereign of Highland rivers; she must have seen Fellwroth betray his master. Somehow she must have extracted knowledge of you from the dead demon. That must be why she sends the visions to me. She has invested so much of her soul in me that she cannot express herself outside of her ark. She has no direct way of communicating with me, except by controlling”-she looked down at her lap-“this body.”

Again Nicodemus thought about how she had been disabled by love. He thought about John who, out of love, had sought to protect Nicodemus and who now suffered unimaginably because he had loved Devin. He thought also about what Deirdre had done to Kyran and what Kyran had done to himself.

Gently, he placed a hand on Deirdre’s shoulder. “What you did, you did out of love.”

She laughed cruelly. “Don’t be a romantic fool. There’s no force more savage. My love for Boann destroyed my love for Kyran, then destroyed the man himself.”

“He chose his path.”

Again, the hard laugh. “In that, then, he and I were alike; we loved too well. We all love too well.” She closed her eyes. “Will you read me Kyran’s last message now?”

He looked down at the dim green sentence in his left hand. It was so simple that even his cacographic mind had not misspelled the translation: “I loved you always; I love you still.”

He read it aloud.

Deirdre bent forward, her chin on her chest. Again she wore the half-smile, but it no longer held wry amusement. It pulled her face down into a gruesome mask. She shook silently.

When Nicodemus squeezed her hand, she pulled him into an embrace.

HOURS LATER NICODEMUS woke to find the sunbeam gone from the steps. Only the fading light of dusk came down the stairs.

They were-all three of them-sleeping against the far wall. The Index lay beside Nicodemus, and John was looking at him with frightened eyes.