[ quentin holds koby a little tighter, feeling the sea rise up like a storm in him and he sighs, pressing his lips to koby's forehead. he's afraid, too. afraid that he will wake up and koby will be gone. that he won't be able to protect him if something happens. and maybe defending alia wasn't the right thing to do - maybe voting baela wasn't the right thing - but he couldn't let that woman go into captivity thinking she's alone. ]

It's never easy and there's never a right path. You have to do what you feel is right in the moment, and use all the facts you have. This place is simply evil - turning us against one another, using us for its entertainment. I know the Balfours act and play shocked but I don't see how they're not involved in this somehow. How they don't have the power to stop it.

[ quentin sighs, looking up at koby and he dips to press a kiss to the bridge of his nose, then the tear-stained cheeks he loves so well. ] I love you. And whatever happens in all this you have to remember that I love you so well as the sea. That I would spend an eternity land-locked if you're here with me.

[ there's something in his eyes when he says it - fierce, intense, a flicker of light that could be something from the window, if it weren't brilliantly gold fading out of the doe brown. ]