"I have a friend who likes to say that nothing worth doing is ever easy," she said. "And he's been fighting against that kind of evil since he was four years old, so it must be true."

Poor, poor Aden. He was the author of so many of his own misfortunes. But he never stopped trying, he never stopped fighting. Ariadne longed to emulate him in that regard, even if his tactics were occasionally...

...questionable.

Well, no. Not questionable. But so entirely motivated by emotion that they sometimes didn't make sense.

"I do wonder, though, if there are other ways of fighting which haven't been considered."