Devin wonders, distantly beyond the tangle of emotion knotting up his throat, if the Fool understands exactly how much of an impact that statement has. How powerful it is. He had long accepted - or more precisely, absorbed what he'd been told - that he could not belong anywhere. Perhaps it had been as much abuse as a defense mechanism for Devin to fold that into every aspect of his life.

Words would be helpful again, if he could spur his tongue to movement. For a moment or five he can only be there, somewhere between basking and pure terror at the depth of feeling he wasn't sure he was capable of.

"I don't know," he says softly, in answer to the (probably rhetorical question). "Traditional romance?" This is dry. "There's only so much one can get out of books."