They really don’t fill you in on the deep lore when you saunter in as a rifter, brand-new and bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Benedict had been an easy enough thing to overlook, just another figure in the backdrop of Riftwatch, not knowing the full scope of it. It was a scab that Strange picked at sometimes out of curiosity, wondering how do the Tevenes feel over on this side of the war, but he’d never truly had to reckon with the damage done.

Made herself clearer feels like a euphemism, feels like skipping over the pertinent ugly details. Strange should know; he tends to do the same, with big glaring omissions of the things he doesn’t want to discuss. So he doesn’t press on that part.

“And then?”