Since that night, my hand of glory has no further need for disguise but manifests itself for all to see in its true character. The sight is too much for them; they can’t stand even the least reminder of their own blindness, although they would never admit it to themselves, let alone me—least of all me. Me, the one who knows them better than they know themselves! So, they compel me to keep it out of sight, wrapped in bandages, as if I were disfigured. They would see it that way. They speak to me deferentially, or with a false amiability tinged with fear, as is only right. They know what I said to them that night. Their agents, no doubt, were well-paid to relay it to them, word for word, as I knew they would. I spoke calmly, in a controlled voice, but the power of the hand was so great that my voice returned to me from the walls of my little room with such power they sounded like screams. I got a long look at them in the light that only I can see, hidden, not in a darkness that could only make it more conspicuous, but concealed in plain view, within the gold and orange of the fire. That’s what the candle was always for, by the way, to hide the real light! To throw the shadows that confuse the sleepers and keep them sleeping while I watch them sleep, hovering over them. I study sleep and sleepers. I can see their souls bundled up in sleep. A dormitory—a spider’s larder, victims drugged, bound, waiting. My hand aches in these wrappings. They’re always too tight. They want to keep me bound up tight, like these others. Perhaps they hoped that one of them might take the hand from me. My hand, though... do they understand that my hand was never cut off from anyone but me? This is my hand! I took my birthright back when I pressed it to my wrist. How else can they account for the easy way I got rid of the false one—that’s a point that’s never even been raised. No one ever found it, did they? This hand chose me, came to me, was always mine, and so it can never be taken away, even if they cut it off. Is it any less mine if it’s cut off?