"I'm afraid old habits die hard," Joscelin remarks, by way of...well, not apology, exactly. Explanation. "I'm a product of my time. There were still Crusades happening in my day, though they'd shifted away from Palestine to the Turks. I remember my father talking about it once."

That was strange. He didn't think about his father very often. Maybe he was becoming sentimental in his dotage.

He laughs, holding the door to McDonald's open for her.

"But it wasn't much of a city, was it? Ozymandias guarded a ruin."