Yes, it can. It definitely can.

We reached the cage. A man looked at me through the bars with feverish eyes. Not that old. It was hard to tell with all the dirt, but possibly twenties. Filthy dark blond hair. Scarce beard. His cheekbones stood out, sharp like blades on his gaunt face. Unless he was naturally emaciated, they were starving him.

“Please,” he whispered.

English. Fantastic.

“Beautiful lady, please, water.”

I pulled a canteen off my belt and passed it to him. He grabbed it and drank greedily, gulping the water.

“Easy. If you drink too much too fast, you’ll vomit.”

The man kept drinking. His hands shook. He barely looked human.

“How long has he been in the cage?”

“Two months,” Hibla said.

Dear God. “And the last time he had water?”

“He gets a cup of water and a cup of gruel every morning.”

This was torture. Hugh gave him just enough to keep him alive but not enough to end thirst and hunger. I’d done without water before. When you don’t have it, that’s all you can think about. I didn’t care what the man had stolen; putting him in a cage and letting him rot in his own filth was inhuman. “How can you follow a man who does this?”

Hibla squared her shoulders. “My father was a dispatcher at the Gagra railroad station. When the Shift happened, he turned into a jackal in the middle of the station. Once the magic wave was over, the railroad guards cornered him and shot him, and when he wouldn’t die, they threw him under the incoming train. And then they hunted down our family. Me, my mother, and my two brothers, we had to run into the mountains with nothing but the clothes on our backs. When I walk through the town now, people bow to me. You want to know why I follow Lord Megobari? I do it because I am not the one in the cage. You can be outraged all you want. It bothers me not at all.”

The prisoner clutched his stomach and vomited water onto himself.

Hibla sneered. “Abzamuk.”

The man shook his head, drank another desperate swallow, and hugged the canteen to him. “Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“Christopher. Christopher. I am.”

“Why did they put you into the cage?” Derek asked.

“I stole. Very bad, very, very bad. Wrong. It was a book. I wanted the knowledge.” His gaze fixed on me. “Beautiful lady, kind lady. Thank you.”

Derek glanced at me. “He isn’t all there.”

No, he definitely wasn’t. Either he was nuts to begin with or sitting in the cage shook a few screws loose. Crazy or not, the desperation in his face was real. Hugh could let him die in this cage and it wouldn’t bother him at all. It bothered the hell out of me.