Colin’s thousand questions over the last weeks had certainly honed her awareness of how each choice had a personal ramification and, more likely than not, had a ripple that could affect dozens or hundreds of others. Everyone truly was connected, but Colin saw it in such clear, linear, measurable patterns. Everything could be quantified in his world, but life didn’t work that way. Whenever she tried to explain that, all she did was confuse the entire conversation into collapse. The monk lived in a world that was measured with a ruler, millimeter by millimeter, and none of it measured by the heart.
The governor led them past a large dining room, set formally for two, and pushed through a swinging door. A loud squeak of hinges announced their arrival into a cozy kitchen. A short woman with a
