There's other worries in his heart, less about the death than it might be, though that's there too. He sits in a stew of them as the Signless speaks, imparting more wisdom and reassurance. Everyone is worth something, he says, like it's so easy. It runs baldly in the face of what Alternia told him.

"I'm shit at that," he protests but quietly. "I didn't save anyone in my first real arena, and in the last one all the help I gave Nill went to waste because she just died right after me." There's another thing that's bugged him: that feeling of being useless, of all his effort gone to waste. "Dave is still there, but that has nothing to do with me, and now I can't do anything for him at all." And he has other friends, names he checked before, whom he didn't even run into this time.

"You say it's hard to remember, but you talk like this stuff is easy to begin with."