Constance makes the penitent knight wait. Perhaps not as long as she could have, for fear of losing her, but now that she has control of the moment again, she is loath to lose it carelessly. Her pale fingers drift in the ice-cold water.

“I do not play with the dead,” she intones, looking deep into the lights flickering on the water, pinpricks in the shadow. “And you are dead already, Sir Coilleghille. When you meet that axe, you will not get back up and gayly offer to meet it again in a year.”

She pauses. Her fingers break the surface of the water, and she lets them lie invitingly on the brim, instead. “If you meet that axe.”

She turns, and in that wan light her dress is a thing of scales ready to be shed. “You never asked for my help, Sir Coilleghille. Would you do so now? The dead can be cheated of their due, after all.”