It was like Nils had said, about the little lake on the mountain that had been turned into marsh and the large one that had remained a lake. A being was either strong enough to hold their ground or they became small and bottomless and started feeding on themselves. They turned into something they never saw coming. Something they never intended.

She wasn't sad. Not sad, more like... empty.

Sometimes when you had a thought, it refused to leave. You rejected it, disowned it, sent it away, to find, moments later, that you were still spending time with it. It might have a different shape or use different words, but there was no mistaking: it was the same one.

The circular wind is life. What was yesterday comes again tomorrow. It runs from place to place and returns. But in the midst of disorder is reason. And if you can hold to reason, you shall be safe.

Wolf Winter,’ she said, her voice small. ‘I wanted to ask about it. You know, what it is.’He was silent for a long time. ‘It's the kind of winter that will remind us we are mortal,’ he said. ‘Mortal and alone.