This cracks some fresh frustration open in him. He picks her lingering cells out of his body in ugly little gobbets of flesh and slivers of bone shrapnel, and scrubs them off his skin with the heel of his hand, through his stained and punctured shirt. Every wound fizzles miserably with Vileblood even as it closes, the hurt lingering like nettle stings.

He brings his hand up to his collar, and curves a palm over the butterfly as though to shield her. John, intent on draining the boil, presses his worst angle. He'd rather have her shouting than gone distant and unreal.

He says: "If you won't listen to me, at least listen to Cristabel."