Paddy had heard many confessions in his time. Some were required of the person confessing, and therefore not taken seriously - or Paddy had to do most of the talking. Some were conversations that lasted hours. Some didn't start out as confessions, but turned that way when realisations were made. Paddy had learned long ago that while specific techniques and methods and words differed from person to person, the one tried and true way of helping someone was just letting them talk.

It wasn't quite the answer to his question, but it was something Solomon needed to talk about. So Paddy let him talk until he was silent again.

"He sounds like a good man." A little misguided, maybe, but Paddy had met many faithfully religious men who were a tad misguided. Their hearts were usually in the right place. "Brave, as well. You remember more of him than one would think."

Sorcerers lived for eight hundred years. Those born from sorcerers wouldn't have a problem, but Solomon couldn't be the only one who had non-magical parents. That was one of the saddest things Paddy could think of, living so long that your memories of your parents faded. If Sean ever did become a sorcerer, how long would it take for him to forget Erin? To start remembering her as a parent, as his mother, rather than Erin? She'd be dying of old age while Sean barely looked older than twenty-five.