A butt-touched nun. A necrophiliac whose blasphemy destroyed her family. An autocrat who ruled the Ninth through grisly puppetry. A spiteful slave-master who teased her with hope and then shattered it.

She swallows; her throat feels thick. "A stranger, she said. She said I treated her more like a stranger than Magnus Quinn did." (She does not seem to recognize that those aren't the same thing.)

"I told her I wanted to earn her trust and she... became uncomfortable. Naturally. She's sleeping now."