The past is what it is, even when people wash up from it, even if knowledge affects one's understanding of it. What happened hasn't changed. It stands there, mostly unknown the way they are only a tiny speck of the universe (of the universes) in this moment too. What they choose to do with it, about it, that's there. The wounds are there. Duty stands there, at home and comfortable, in the shape of his dead husband, his necromancer, his partner. They carry the past with them.

That's what he sees, not a curse but a wound scabbed over. Not quite a scar. "Those people don't matter," he agrees, "Your well being or lack thereof does."

Though they mostly interact while hunting, partners in a professional sense but not more, Duty doesn't know more than he can read here from her. He might not have said anything another month, but cost of stabilizing his blood is what it is.