"What do you mean?" Bernadette frowned slightly, puzzled by Lorne's remark, which had come out of nowhere.
Lorne shook his head without explaining. He could not make sense of that strange feeling himself, much less put it into words.
"I'll find a way to help you with Roselle's Diary. But that will have to wait until I get out of here."
"All right."
Bernadette nodded. The sudden backlash earlier seemed to have frightened her. She was remarkably "well-behaved" now, neither insisting nor probing any further.
"Does the 'Monster' pathway have any adjacent pathways?" Lorne asked, as if something had suddenly occurred to him.
"No," Bernadette answered without hesitation. "Of the twenty-two known Paths of the Divine, 'Monster' is the most unusual. It has no adjacent pathways."
"None? Not necessarily..." Lorne muttered, his brow twitching almost imperceptibly.
An inexplicable intuition told him that perhaps... he still had other options.
"Speaking of pathways, I wanted to ask something else. Are 'Bard,' 'Sailor,' and 'Reader' adjacent to one another?" Lorne asked, remembering another question.
Bernadette did not answer immediately. She merely watched him quietly with an amused look.
"I can pay for the information."
"No need."
Bernadette shook her head gently, declining his offer. She paused briefly, apparently weighing something, then said, "Since you were something of a 'gentleman' earlier... I don't mind telling you. They are indeed adjacent pathways."
She paused, then revealed something even more important. "Besides those, they are also adjacent to 'Secrets Suppliant' and... 'Spectator.'"
Five mutually adjacent pathways... Understanding flashed in Lorne's eyes. "What a luxury," he murmured.
Her answer cleared up many of his doubts. Chief among them was why the Three Great Churches-Storms, the Sun, and Knowledge and Wisdom-had remained enemies for so many years.
In each church's eyes, the others were all "materials" that could