She yanked out the tooth. Stared at it, and the decayed flesh. Dalius saw her toss it away. But still—her eyes glittered, but she refused to break down.

“I’m stronger than this. I have to be.”

“If you need privacy—”

“I need to be tough. I’ve lived through worse!”

She snapped at him. Half-screamed. The [Singer] caught her breath. She closed her eyes.

“…No. I haven’t. I’ve been…attacked. But not by that. That—that was a monster.”

“Yes.”

The [Knight] knelt there, filled with shame. He looked up at her.

“Monsters which plague our world. Just one of many. Have you no undead?”

“None. The dead stay dead.”

The Human from Earth whispered. The [Knight] shook his head.

“One thing your world has better. And no—no monsters? Trolls? Chimeras? Griffins?”

“Legends. In my world—monsters are people. They look like you and me. But they rape and kill and murder. Monsters are Humans. Humans are monsters. I thought the worst thing I’d ever meet was a…another Human. We do terrible things to each other.”

Ser Dalius shuddered.

“I am no stranger to that. But other species…even without them, Humans still fight?”

“Did you expect something else?”

The ghost bowed his head.

“…If you were to have asked me rationally, I would not. But part of me would have hoped, Miss Cara.

Please. This failure—”

“What did you do wrong? You killed the mice. You killed the—the Bone Horrors. And the giant. You just forgot to stab a corpse. No one did anything wrong. Bad things happened. Bad things always happen. At least I had a [Knight] this—this time. And I’m fine. Look, see?”

She smiled. But it was a bad act. She wasn’t fooling her audience. He watched her, so overcome by guilt that Cara began to put on a performance. For him.

She stretched out, checked her breathing. Put on a rueful smile. Yes, pretend. Pretend you were with it and maybe—maybe it would become truth.

“You know, I’ve survived worse. Really. This isn’t the first time I’ve been attacked. Zombies? Not as bad as sharks. I was swimming one time and got torn up by a shark. You know what they are? Vicious buggers.”

The guilty [Knight]’s head was bowed. But it rose, a tad suspiciously.

“…In my experience, sharks do not attack Humans.”

Cara blinked, improvised. She pointed at one arm, sighing.

“Well—this was a special case. I’d cut myself. Blood in the water. And it laid into me. Got my arm, leg—

I’d show you the scars, but with all these cuts—”

“I see them.”

Dalius stared at Cara’s arm. The [Singer] paused.

“You what?”

She glanced at her arm. Then gasped. Across her arm, mixed with the cuts from the zombie’s claws were—scars. Healed tissue, showing large bites. She stared, bug-eyed. Dalius looked at her.