He rested his chin dreamily in his right hand, stirring his herbal tonic with the left.

"When I die, I want to be torn apart by wild animals. If you come from the earth, you should return to it," he said.

Kat noticed that he watched his reflection as he spoke, a desperate mime in the window.

She longed for silence: the gaps between his sinewy little breaths, the eerie quiet before the storm.

She hoped for a soundless death, too: to wilt without evidence, curling like a leaf beneath the royal oak, between the tiny new blades of grass.

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