That was quick, she thought. She rose and looked down at him, at the way his eyes rolled frantically from side to side as he tried to understand what was happening to him. She eased a pillow under his head, then reached for his legs and lifted them onto the bed so that he was lying stretched out along its length.

“Comfortable, Gerand? Much better to rest while this is happening.” Knowing he could no longer reach for her, could no longer move at all for that matter, she bent over him. His lungs and his heart still worked, but not very efficiently. He barely had the strength of a baby.

“I’ve given you a drug,” she explained, sitting next to him. “It saps the strength from your muscles and leaves you paralyzed. It only lasts a little while. There is no trace of its presence afterwards. Unlike poison, for example, which I considered using but decided against. After all, I can’t afford to be seen as a murderess.”

She leaned close. “You see what is to happen, I expect. Your eyes tell me you know. So now you no longer love me. Now, you despise me. Love is like that. It only lasts for as long as both parties require it, and then it becomes a burden, which is one reason I do not permit myself to love anyone too much. You should have learned that lesson a long time ago. I am surprised you didn’t. Now you must learn it the hard way.”

He was staring fixedly at her, and she read the hatred in his eyes. In contrast, his face was empty of expression, and it seemed as if the eyes must belong to someone else. Yet the eyes were really all that was left of him. Everything else had been stripped away by the drug.

She leaned down and kissed him lightly on the forehead. “Try not to think too harshly of me, Gerand. You would have done the same, if you had paid closer attention to how I looked at you.”

Then she took the pillow from under his head, placed it firmly over his face, and pressed down on it with all of her considerable strength until he stopped breathing.