Stone Circle Woulda been gone like a wayward wind

It was a mark of his reverence to her that he didn't interrupt - that he waited until all her thoughts were on the floor before letting out what he'd swallowed back from the start. "I said we'd have to wait," he reminded her. "This was why. And I said I'd never go where you couldn't follow - and I won't, Adeline. I'm not gonna run off and tell you that you can't come with. I'm standing here, asking you."

Grayday meant what he'd said - that he wanted to be around her, that he wanted her to come with. He meant it, but already, there was a part of him that cried out in desperate, agonized sanity: Maybe this is for the best. Maybe it's better this way. Maybe I can get over her. Maybe I don't have to feel like this anymore.

But a larger, more dominant part of his psyche rejoined: I love her. I need her to be with me. I love her, and this is the only way.

"Come with me, greeneyes," he wheedled, edging closer to the red girl, the forbidden girl. (Somewhere near the back of his mind, he thought of Phiipa and finding her in the meadow that day, and how - for an instant - he'd thought it was Adeline.) "Please? I can't be here anymore." But what he really meant was, I can't be with you here. Not where Steady hung like a white veil over Adeline's face.