Ness has been a bit distracted of late, too preoccupied with her own plans and machinations to notice quite as much of the goings-on around the Gallows as she might usually... but she's free of distractions now, and Barrow's hesitation is hard to overlook. The cause is easy to deduce—his care had taken Stephen's attention for a considerable time, and Ness had had to adjust her own plans to account for it. That he might hold Stephen at fault for his failure to come off lyrium needles at her, conflicting with her inclination to sympathy. She looks away from Barrow to wrestle between the two, picks a loose thread from her linens and chews her lip.

"It's funny," she says, apologetic in a way that suggests that when she says funny she means sad, "despite the obvious, of the two of us I might say I've been left in a better situation."