Mara peers through the tints cast by the shattered stained glass windows that reach up to the vast, vaulted ceiling. A million sparkling motes of dust drift like minuscule floating lanterns. Even amid the noisy games and quarrels of the urchins there’s a sense of peace, pure and deep, distilled by centuries of stone. Now she sees Wing. He’s perched close to the feet of one of the statues that shelter in alcoves all around the cathedral. The man’s gentle stone face smiles down at him from under a crown of thorns, beatifically oblivious to the pain of the thorns and to the rabble of hundreds of naked, dirt-caked urchins. Wing has strewn gifts of colored glass chips all around the feet of the statue and smiles up as if he believes the stone man is real. Mara thinks back to the stories that belonged to the old religion on Wing. This man, with his crown of thorns, was supposed to be the son of God, yet somehow he could not, or did not, save himself from a torturous death on a cross. Mara could never understand that story—why would anyone who was able to save themselves choose not to?
