“Perhaps,” I said, “what the community needed was a return to the feminine threshold. A force that cannot be explained. That holds boundaries. That brings darkness without branding.”

Diogenes nearly choked on his mug.

Socrates turned slowly toward me.

“Did you just tell a woman who entered the room that you invited her to function as a feminine threshold?”

“Not exactly like that.”

“Exactly like that.”

Ares said, “Give me two minutes and he will call rain strategic moisture.”