Relius finds the book of poems waiting for him on his desk, beautifully bound and copied in a hand he knows as well as his own and has never seen turned to such soft sweetness as the verses within.

Footsteps pause at his threshold before advancing, throwing a shadow across his desk and Relius marks his place with a finger, slow to look up, quick to see the look of intertwined hope and fear on his visitor’s face.

“You have excellent taste in poetry my friend,” Relius says, and stands, and watches the way Teleus’s eyes flick between his face and his gift before he offers his hand and says, “Come, shall we write our own verses between my sheets?”