He's smoking. It's a nice day — nicer than it's been lately — and other people are doing the hard bits; and von Skraedder's quiet. He prefers that.

But there's a look on her face that isn't a look at all, thunderstruck to some absence, and if this is how an apoplexy takes her he'll get no end of shit. Warden Isaac (conscript, the dream suggests, murderer) draws near. Thunks himself into the grass, just near enough to be annoying.

"You've been at that a while," He wasn't wholly convinced she could read. "Anything good?"