I don't know I would call that an equal sort of freedom—well. It's hardly an argument that makes much sense, is it? You and I, we see it differently, from our different cages. We see one another's as being open and our own as being shut tight. What matters now is only that, if it's truly what you wish, perhaps both of us can leave our cages entirely and meet out in the open, between them. . . . Oh, that was poetic, wasn't it? And here I haven't had a drop to drink to loosen my lips like that.

[He gives Winter a smile, both sardonic and fond, his arms looped around Winter's thin body in a way that strikes him, too, as terribly comfortable.]