"No," she says. She sounds sure. She wishes she was as sure she sounds. But it has to be true. The people who know told her it was. It has to be.

"There are--I did the research. There are different ways it could go. But they died. It happened. I saw the bodies. It can't be undone. I'm not the Emperor, Griddle."

"It happened once because of me," she says, her voice wavering. "I thought... I thought it was a blind tunnel and nothing would happen. So if Septimus made her move you would be safe." She's pleading, almost. "The Ninth is deep in the blood-debt of the Fourth... and then I did it again. I had to do it again."

She wipes furiously at her eyes.