"I know I shouldn't... beat her up with skeletons any more," she says.

"I am... I am trying. I went to the poor doomed Fifth's ghastly dinner party because she wanted to. But I'm afraid I have very little practice being..."

"You know, on Drearburh, I was beloved," she says fretfully. "I filled the honeycombs of their decrepit bones and I blessed them for keeping our lonely vigil. That's all they needed from me. To be... the Reverend Daughter." To be cold, and alone, and righteous, and tell them that was all anyone needed.

But Gideon hates all that.