"Annabel, love...the gods don't live in their temples. Mortals do. Mortanne is just outside my door, in the snow fresh-fallen and trampled both; in the iron-grey clouds and in the lashing wind, walking between the headstones of the graveyard, in a heart full of grief and in tears. You're not aligned against her. How can you align against winter?" River closes her eyes, and just. Breathes. "People talk about meeting gods like it's a great and shattering revelation, but how can it be? They make us. What art is unlike its artist?"