Let no one say she isn't merciful—or that she is so fully ignorant to his distemper that she doesn't recognize the responsibility to keep the conversation dashing along at a clip lest he otherwise be permitted to think too hard on any particular point.

"I need a spare set of hands. To, ah,"—she waggles her fingers at the end of the arm to which he's been so firmly linked, tendons flexing under his fingertips. "Make a spare hand, I suppose. I've ambitions for some adjustments in my future which first require the making of a cast. It will be very rough draft, of course. Eventually I'll have to find someone whose left hand I like enough to take for myself—oh how macabre that sounds—but for the time being, two right ones will do while I sort out exactly what I wish to do with it. And it will take some time for the cast to set, and I think I will be bored without company."