[ as he has always done, he finds a way to lift her into his arms, carried over the threshold from his office to his private room like the bride she will always be to him, then set down on his bed. he slides on after her, and there is nothing insistent at her thigh other than the lump of the sending crystal tangled under the sheets like a bothersome pea. he holds her, only, there and substantial and real. ]

You mustn’t let them take me—this is a private thing, Gwenaëlle, and I think them less likely to trust me if it comes to light. [ he babbles—if someone like him can ever babble, a flow of words into her hair. he speaks, though, like there will still be an after (casimir, with the letter) and that is something. he has stared re-embodiment in the face in arda, heard mandos’ offer, but this is different. he cannot leave her behind. ]

You understand, [ he says. ] They cannot know.