"No, she's always been like that," Harrow says, still far away.

"I really have been terrible to her," she says, sounding more present. "Not just lately. For years and years. When I tell her everything..."

She draws her knees up to her chest and loops her arms around them. "I guess we'll see." She doesn't sound scared; more fatalistic. Almost glad to have reached this point.

To whom can the Reverend Daughter give confession? Only her cavalier. And if her penance is to be drowned in salt water by Gideon Nav, so be it.