Of course Flint remembers. It's perfect and vivid in his mind. His lashes flicker in the firelight as his eyes dip down. The social instinct is to say I'm sorry, as on hearing of the death of a loved one, but he interrogates the urge: is he sorry? Only partly. Is he surprised? Not at all.

To some extent, it's what John deserves. Madi wasn't made to forgive such violations "I see," he says, and takes a drink to give him more time to put the words together.

When he knows what he wants to say, he laughs: very quiet, surprised, just a breath. "I feel some pride in her. I'm glad that of the three of us, one of us...is as constant in that war as ever. It would be her, of course. Her commitment was always the purest." He doesn't say it, but it plays out in his voice: he misses her. For all that life without a cause is safer and more peaceful, he misses the company of crusaders.