"It's the tricky kind. Alright. I wish..."

A wish for their continued health and safety would be a joke. And it sounded like a wish someone made before pouring poison into his enemy's glass. Something as simple as no more burn wounds would be nice. He looked beyond Calder at his relatively small but plush dorm room, thought about the many rich and fine things he enjoyed on his parents' bank roll, thought about Siddie, and why breaking off an engagement with her at graduation would prove easy- about his own plans, and how much he relied on Christof to see them through. About the device he was studying to cleanly divide Fear, and although Calder had asked him not to, he thought about the weaponization process, and the two images he increasingly could not separate. Calder wrapped around him in the dark. Calder tired and weak, thrown into the chamber.

"...for the good fortune of another excellent meal from you next year," Barth said finally, "and that dessert will prove as good as dinner."