Busy as construction is, Duty waits patiently with seemingly all the time in the world. He watches Falco without enough understanding to make sharing easier. The longer it takes, however, the surer he gets that it's not simply bad it's unduly horrifying. More difficult to judge is whether there is anything he can do about it. So many different universes and rules intersecting so that the rules they are all bound by fluctuate and are not fully known. Three necromancers and a corpse indeed.

He wants a cigarette after those five words. For a moment, they seem to be all the words he will get, and Duty wants to inhale nicotine that cannot harm his lungs for more than the time it takes for one smoke free breath. It's the simplest, easiest, safest way to burn the feeling he cannot do more. It won't last, and Duty knows he cannot leave a boy bleeding after a single morning's work doomed to a horrible fate. It would only be to clear his head.

"I am glad I can trust you to stop," Duty says evenly, no sign of duress, no twitchy fingers, no reaching for a lighter, not a single thing amiss.

The last five words are a tragedy. He closes his eyes and takes a few more breaths. They're an invitation, those five words, and Duty accepts it. "Who is 'us'?" Duty asks. And, "How long does it take?" The Seventh House has nearly perfected dying. Every generation or two has its masterpiece of human suffering for incredible necromantic ability—harvesting their own deaths to whatever ends they and their House permits them. He remembers Cytherea when she first came to Canaan House and Cytherea when she last returned from it in a coffin and all the long years in between.

Not here, Duty decides, not under his watch. He opens his eyes and looks intensely at the boy before him.