Things are a little better now -- or at least a little more stable. Clar has gone home, as abruptly as she arrived, and the scent of herbs and smoke has gradually faded out of the apartment. It's easier to maintain his defenses this way, easier to slip back into the habit of being Mike Morgan, who worries about small things, and looks ahead no ( Read more... )

Well.

After that, he needs a little while to unwind -- the state of his nerves, he's liable to pinpoint himself to Mars by mistake, and in any case he's not ready to face Clar just yet. So he walks, mostly aimless, back through the lobbies and thoroughfares and arcades and plazas until he's out in one of those unexpected greenswards that the ( Read more... )

The nexus is growing on him; it has, like him, no business existing at all, and it's somewhere to go when he can't think what else to do with himself. He's there now, wandering idly through some corner of it that looks like the offspring of the Cloisters and a BBC costume drama set. It's dark and breezy and dramatic, and Mordred is, quietly and ( Read more... )

Normally he doesn't have these problems. The past is past; he only dwells on it when he's alone. He gets by from day to day like anyone else, being like anyone else -- he's built up so many personae over time that it's easy by now ( Read more... )

Presumably there's such a thing as a Convenient Nexus Motel Room -- if there isn't, there ought to be -- and in a little while Mordred shuts the door behind Sagramore and leans on it, looking up at him.