There's a fascinating spot on the cave floor that Paul fixes his attention to as Lance asks his question. It's a scuff mark from something long past, some scraping damage left by a force strong enough to blemish stone. He wonders what it might have been.

"Fear," Paul says, finally, like a weight dropping from his mouth into a dark pool. "Fear of losing things that are important to me. It's as if it wants to...devour them. Consume them so completely there's nothing left. That took - trial and error."

A scorched jacket, a burned angel. Paul's handprint in the bark of a hundred year old tree. When he wades into the ocean it boils around him.