She could not allow herself to believe the obvious answer — for in that she would sense in herself a rebellion against the mercy of the Invisible Twins made manifest in Opaz.
Her thoughts jibed with the words of the hymn that moment being caroled out to the raftered ceiling of the Lesser Hall. “In the Light of Opaz we see our beacon guide through the darkness of the world.” Trite words, perhaps, but words always fervently sung and believed. Delia could not quite imagine breaking away from these beliefs, except and only in circumstances arising from her marriage.
In the course of the evening as the songs and hymns were sung, she contrived a few quiet words with people she wished to gauge. Sounding out their minds, as her old tutor, Rose Mandeling, would have said. She said with a trifle i
