Cane23

Max with deep, shaking thrusts, each one accompanied by a sound that came from the unlocked room inside him, the room Philip had described and Malik had found and Max had furnished with laughter and paint and stubborn, reckless conviction. Daniel laughed. The laugh was short and warm and arrived from the room that had been growing inside him for a year, the room that Max had opened and Alec had furnished and Nora had given permission to exist. The room was bigger now. It held more people. Alec and Max are furnishing different dimensions of the same space. Max furnishes: eros + joy + artistic perception. The fusion of language and body; the feeling of being seen as a whole, alive being. With Max, the room becomes alive, expressive, expansive...he brings color, movement, laughter and intensity that doesn’t destroy. Alec furnishes: stability + presence + emotional safety. The ability to stay - the quiet, non-performative intimacy. With Alec, the room becomes grounded, livable, sustainable...he brings weight, stillness, continuity and care without spectacle. What we see is the difference between construction and residence. Malik breaks the wall; Max opens the door and fills the space with life; Alec makes it stable enough to stay; Nora says, “you’re allowed to live here”. But ultimately - the room is Daniel’s, the others are architects, catalysts and co-inhabitants (temporarily or differently). There's one thing with Max that, on a first glance, looks inconsistent...Daniel says “I love you” to Nora, he says it to Alec...he doesn’t say it to Max. So, the question becomes - why is he most verbally silent with the person he seems most aligned with? Not all “I love you" mean the same thing. Daniel’s “I love you” to Nora is mature, grateful...recognizing a shared life. But it is not a claim of romantic future - it’s a release wrapped in love; it’s the kind of “I love you” you can say because the stakes are resolved. With Alec, the “I love you” is rooted in safety and presence; tied to care, intimacy, and grounding and... almost… discovering a new emotional language. It’s easier because Alec doesn’t destabilize Daniel - he holds him! With Max, everything is intensified - Max sees him completely, he names love openly (“ti amo”) ...Max is tied to Daniel’s truest, most unfiltered self. So, why doesn’t Daniel say it back? Because with Max, saying “I love you” is not expression, it’s commitment to a self he is still becoming. Max doesn’t collapse when Daniel doesn’t say it back; instead, he says “either you didn’t hear me, or you did”. Max knows - Daniel heard, Daniel felt but, Daniel just isn’t ready to verbalize at the same speed. The fact that Daniel doesn’t say “I love you” to Max makes that relationship more real, not less...because it’s not rehearsed, inherited or safe. It’s still forming in real time!

Oh, my dear friend, I actually wanted to respond to your previous comment - but @CasualWanderer82 outpaced us with a new chapter. Even though I didn’t agree with you then, I have to admit I was completely taken by your passion. That’s exactly the spell @CasualWanderer82 casts on all of us - we get enchanted by the moment, just as Daniel did. We fall in love with the illusion, and we start aching for that illusion to become reality. But our author is kinder to his characters than that. He doesn’t give them what they want - he gives them what they need. If we look closely at the last two chapters, there’s a very deliberate shift. Daniel is changing, fundamentally. And if you pay attention, Malik is mentioned only once in the previous chapter - and even then, almost as part of the narrative background, placed alongside Nora and Max. In this chapter, he isn’t mentioned at all. And yet - he appears. Not as memory, longing...fantasy. He appears as truth. And that changes everything. Because what we are forced to confront here is something we’ve known from the very beginning, but, like Daniel, we resisted fully accepting - Malik is, in a sense, an actor. A performer. But not just any performer, not even just a good one. He is exquisite. After all, Daniel didn’t pay for something artificial, he paid for an experience. And what makes it so powerful is that nothing in that experience was fake. The desire, the emotion, the intensity, the distortion, the rapture - everything was real in the moment. That’s what made it extraordinary (@FanLit has captured that moment magnificently). It was an award-winning performance not because Malik was “playing” a role, but because he became it. But when the curtain falls, the lights go out. And the actor goes home. To his life. To his wife. To his children. What remains is Daniel - shattered, yes - but also left with the task of gathering those pieces and rebuilding himself, this time on something real. That’s why this moment feels so devastating. The myth collapses...completely. And two chapters ago, I would have been afraid for him - that he might regress or even fall apart entirely. But now… I don’t think so. Daniel has already changed too much. He has opened too many doors, stepped into too many truths. This won’t destroy him. It will hurt - of course it will. It’s a disillusionment. But it feels less like a fall…and more like the final step in his transformation.

Thank you very much for this comment...because I was wondering...am I wrong for thinking the same:

Byzantines were not simply Greeks - they were the Eastern Roman Empire, and they saw themselves as “Romans” (Rhomaioi). Diplomacy was one of their greatest strengths, often paired with a notably flexible approach to loyalty and alliances. Nicaea, a Byzantine city of major importance to Christianity, hosted key Ecumenical Councils where the Nicene Creed was established. Given this legacy, it’s understandable that they would seek to reclaim the entire city intact, rather than reduce it to ruins soaked in blood. However, the strategy they’re playing, trying to sit on two chairs at once, may ultimately leave them without either.

Magnificent and terrifying!

Few rather dark chapters. If it weren’t for Jack’s fun spirit and quick wit, the shift in mood and tone might lead us into an entirely different genre - something closer to horror. Amazing play with styles, @Laura S. Fox, the tension is incredible.

If you drink much from a bottle marked 'poison' it is certain to disagree with you sooner or later. Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Wow... hehe, too bad Tyler isn’t Matt! 😁 So, what’s Charlie’s favorite dish - fried brain, cooked brain... fresh brain?!

Didn't know if the book was a gift or a trap or something in between That’s the question - was the book a gift or a curse? Is the spy a double agent, perhaps? Why is he helping Wylan… or did he intend to expose him before even reaching the Holy Land?

Sounds like wine tasting! 😂

Is the book written in some form of ancient Arabic Braille, or is it in symbols that only Wylan, as a mage, can recognize?

And here I thought Ellis’s job was to torture only the characters, not the readers too! What a frustrating melodrama... At this point, I think Charlie should just go live in that bungalow - at least he wouldn’t have to share a room and bathroom with Taine!

Sigmund Freud wrote about mourning and melancholia, suggesting that melancholy can emerge when we experience loss that is not always fully conscious or easily defined (Freud, 1917). We may not only grieve people, but also lost versions of ourselves, lost futures, lost identities, and lost possibilities. This is why melancholy often appears at certain life stages, turning thirty, forty, fifty; changing careers; becoming a parent; leaving home; losing someone; ending a relationship; or even achieving something we worked for and realising it did not complete us in the way we expected. Melancholy asks questions that busyness allows us to avoid: · Is this the life I thought I would live? · Who am I becoming? · What have I lost along the way? · What really matters to me? · How do I want to live, knowing life is finite? These are not small questions; they are developmental questions. Carl Jung believed that the second half of life in particular often brings a more reflective and melancholic tone, as individuals begin to turn inward and ask deeper questions about meaning, purpose and identity (Jung, 1933). Rather than focusing purely on achievement and external success, the task becomes integration, making sense of one’s life, one’s choices, and oneself. Melancholy can therefore be understood not simply as sadness, but as a psychological signal that we are encountering depth, depth of time, depth of meaning, depth of self. Sean Kelly

A farewell doesn’t have to be long if it comes from the heart and carries the essence of emotion and honesty. May he rest in peace.

Thoroughly and absolutely well deserved! Bravo!

Who's with the baby - Charlie, Taine or Tylor? And who's the blondie?

Oh, wow... I hadn’t expected this... I mean, we know Taine is immortal, but I wasn’t aware he was unkillable! 😮 So, basically, over long distances... Charlie and Taine stay together?! Only if Tyler doesn’t become immortal somewhere along the way.

Hehehe, paradoxically, it’s basically the same God. 😂

"You think our gods care?" The man's smile returned. "Read the book." Gods’? That Saracen might want to reread his own book before saying that out loud.

And then there’s Max... I’m actually convinced he is in love with Daniel - but not in a possessive or declarative way. It’s there in those small, almost hidden moments... when he looks at himself in the mirror and says 'Mi sono innamorato' (Melancholia III), or when he nearly says something in the recent chapter and lets it dissolve instead of repeating it. Even structurally, the story treats “love” like something that slips out unintentionally (like with Alec’s “in love with paradox”), not something cleanly confessed. But even without those moments, his actions make it clear. The patience, the emotional labor, the way he stays present day after day - that’s not curiosity or charm or even generosity. That’s love. Story, actually, gives us the framework for understanding that, through Max’s own words. When he says the Romans understood that love isn’t a number but a meal - a table where different dishes coexist, some working together, some not...it reframes everything. Love doesn’t require choosing one center or creating a perfect harmony. It allows for plurality, even contradiction. Which is why, on Daniel’s “table,” there seems to be room for all of them. Nora, Alec, Max… each occupying a different place, a different function, not necessarily compatible, but still real. And maybe even Malik - but no longer as the central meal (force). More like a rare spice - something you can’t quite have again, not something that sustains you, but something whose trace still lingers and shapes the taste of everything else. So, from that perspective, Max isn’t competing - he’s simply one of the few characters who already understands the kind of emotional structure Daniel is living inside. Maybe we should expect a bit of a Roman Holiday next 😁

I don’t see Nora as being sidelined - she’s the one initiating all of this. Her shift actually begins earlier, when she’s reading Three Women. That feels like her first rupture - the moment she becomes aware that she wants something outside the script of their life. So, when she later suggests the threesome for her birthday, she’s already moving. She’s opening the door and even choosing the form that disruption will take. This also means Malik isn’t the origin of change, but something Nora selects. For Daniel, the encounter becomes this singular, almost mythic event - something that destabilizes him completely. But for Nora, it’s part of a longer, more conscious process. Though I understand @FanLit's 'wanting more for Nora' - I don’t read the current dynamic with Alec as Nora “losing out.” If anything, she’s still the architect. She invites Daniel back in, continues the “renovation,” and now, after many moments of being observational, he’s finally starting to participate. That feels less like collapse and more like integration. Which is also why I'm not sure that “GameChanger” (Malik) is still necessary. Necessary for what? If Malik represented rupture, something singular, then bringing him back risks diminishing that rather than completing it. Maybe his only remaining role would be to demystify himself - to show Daniel he’s not an irreplaceable axis, but something that can become a memory instead of a burden. So, what’s happening with Nora and Alec doesn’t feel like a substitute for Malik. It’s something different...not rupture, but incorporation - not obsession, but movement.

I’m wondering - is King Radoslav aware of the whole game... the plot to humiliate him and Wylan’s plan to thwart them?

Sounds like some digestive problem 😂

I have a feeling Charlie’s punishment is still ongoing - through suffering to redemption. It made him my favourite character… Hmm, who would’ve said that at the beginning?!