Robena slows and stops. She feels the whisper of something ethereal passing by, and in its passage it leaves questions like winter ghosts. The answers touch points of deep hope and despair, a whole range of possibilities - but there is one thing that is confirmed by Constance's lack of response.

[i]She is not forgiven in the face of inevitable death[/i]. If Constance had thought to take pity on a girl about to meet her death by giving her one last happy memory to carry to the reaper she could have faced Pellinore's axe without fear. Now she knew that she was not forgiven, or far more terrifyingly, perhaps her death was not inevitable. The questions coiled around her, snakes of hope and despair, and she could not tell which whispers were more terrible. Should she embrace a dark fatalism or a frantic clinging? Her heart could not settle between the feelings and so she drifted for a moment upon the twin torments.

[i]Enough[/i]! She had crossed all of Rome's ancient lands and not found time or space enough to think through as basic a concept as virtue, and she'd freeze to ice before she solved the faerie riddle of this castle. Whatever was to come, it would not come as any result of her wit. So she swallowed hard and tried to pack away her clamoring mind and its temptations, and returned to stand before Constance. In silence this time, and stillness.