Still cold and very weary, you laid your sword at your feet and sat yourself down in a high-backed armchair with a frill around the bottom, done up in citrine stripes. Ianthe’s rooms were undoubtedly more luxurious than yours, and more interestingly appointed, having belonged for centuries to a long-dead Lyctor with time enough to come back every so often and furnish them to taste: but that long-dead Lyctor still seemed to sit in all the chairs and lie in the bed and shave by the water-pump sink, and you were relieved that your rooms contained no ghosts but your own.

You said, “There’s nothing wrong with the arm.”

“It’s not mine,” Ianthe said vehemently.

“Then cut it off.”

“So typically Ninth—”

“Let your vaunted Lyctoral abilities kick in,” you said. “See if it regrows.”

“It won’t,” she said, taking you quite seriously. “Teacher said Lyctors don’t survive decapitation, and that a lost limb would heal as a stump. And I know that if I try to make myself a new arm I’ll leave something out. If it’s not perfect it won’t work, and I won’t want it.”

The once-Princess of Ida did not say this petulantly, but used the resigned, rather furrowed tones of someone mildly aggrieved by self-understanding. You suggested, “So get the Saint of Joy to do it. She can be relied upon for physiological perfection.”

“Oh, you crack-up,” said Ianthe, not lifting her eyes from her soup.

“I personally would not let our eldest sister regrow any of my limbs,” you said, “but if perfection is what you desire—”

“Boo to that,” said Ianthe.

You grew bored. “Teacher, then.”

“He’d tell me how wonderful it would be to do it myself. We’re not all Teacher’s sweet little darlings for whom he would do anything,” she remarked. “I have never been good at attracting indulgent fathers.”

You bristled, but had no adequate comeback. You were busy massaging your itching fingertips, which were still red and sore: the cellular degradation was subtle enough that you were healing one layer at a time, to ensure you’d got everything. Not for you the smooth stump of a regenerated Lyctor: you had to do everything yourself. Yet you also would not turn to God, who might heal you in one blinding, soul-nauseating instant, flensing you utterly from the bones upward, and who might also awkwardly pat you on the shoulder, or look at you with that solemn, half-troubled smile that you both craved and hated.

“Then I do not know what to tell you,” you remarked, “except that if you persist in asking for my opinion, at least pretend that you want it.”