Love and hate had their own secret languages, and Mark and Kieran were speaking in them now.

Kieran's hands came up to cup Mark's face. His touch was gentle. "I am not doing it for you," he said. "This will be what I do for Emma and the others. Then that debt will be paid. You and I, our debts are paid already." He leaned forward and brushed his lips against Mark's. Mark wanted to chase the kiss, the warmth of it, the familiarity. He felt Kieran's hand come down to splay itself over his chest-over the elf-bolt that hung there, below his collarbone. "We will be done with each other".

"No," Mark whispered.

The stars will go out before I forget you, Mark Blackthorn.

Kieran glanced at her with shimmering eyes. Neither looked quite human: The black eye was too dark, the silver too metallic. And yet the overall effect was haunting, inhumanly beautiful.

I am saying the choices we make in captivity are not always the choices we make in freedom. And thus we question them. We cannot help it.

He bumped into a pay phone and said, 'Excuse me, miss,' on our way in," said Julian.

"It's polite to apologize," said Mark with the same small voice.

"Not to inanimate objects.