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Ulrich gasped for a moment at the stinging pain. He looked past Hokushin to Drulović, who was by now sitting weakly up on the bed, then back at Hokushin again. "I've had no life, no friends, no peace," he said, shaking his head, "not since she took them from me." He spoke in a low tone, finger of his free hand jabbed out at the old woman, knife in the other hand still and steady. "How can she live? How the Taiyou royals care so much about her life when she's taken so many? Why stop me?"

Drulović watched, dark eyes expressionless, careful to catalogue how Hokushin moved, what Ulrich revealed in his eyes and his hands. "I've died a thousand times over already, Mr. Shumaker," she said softly. "Rest assured, I'll meet my final end one day, and I'll meet you thereafter in hell." She'd dreamt of it. She knew it was waiting for her. She could see it in Ulrich's eyes, had seen it the first time he'd come for her. Her existence here had been tolerable if not comfortable, marked primarily by monotony and neglect, but Ulrich had disrupted that equilibrium, had upset the balance of things. He'd laid eyes on her the moment she'd arrived from Wrentham. He hadn't had to say a word, but the threat had hung between them, unspoken, from across the room during intake. More than a threat, he'd made it a promise. Khayyam meant for her to die here. Ulrich meant to be the instrument.