“That's why we get on,” Anthony quips. For all his jokes, he doesn’t actually like the word ‘treason,’ or the idea of blasphemy. Both require a sense of betrayal that he has never felt.

He lightly runs his fingers through Gabriel’s hair. Some of the tension has gone out of the young man’s body, thank goodness. Anthony knows that all is not well, but Gabriel has been able to pull himself back together, and Anthony is glad about that.