Would that Eve had been so cunning! Had she simply been armed with such a bullet, then perhaps all of her children would have been born in grace. The serpent would have slunk away in shame. Constance, however, rises up in a flickering fury. The candlelight doesn’t quite meet her face, but the offense is clear.

“Are you a [i]child,[/i] Sir Coilleghille?” Her voice is something like the creaking of ice on the river, but the warmth of her humanity spreads through the cracks. It is difficult enough not to be angry at the sudden sting, the shock of unexpected coldness, when you are not brooding and anxious and miserable in the waiting all at once.

“Would you rather I left you to what’s coming, then? Do you think miracles grow on bushes ripe for the picking?” Snow trickles down her delicate dress, white lost in the dark, and she writhes like a snake to dislodge it. “You [i]wilful[/i] creature!”