[ ( Besides Alina, there stands a young man. Boring, short-lived. A skilled tracker, her childhood beloved but oh, he'd die long before she did, and yet he fashioned himself her weapon. A good little knight. ) -- the words stir up a shred of tedium, surrounding this able-bodied tracker that Alina prefers, but it doesn't seem that the Darkling weighs Bellamy against him. ALIE's words aside, there is another he knows that begs consideration, when he reminisces on what Bellamy Blake is made of.

Why, he wants to know. He wants to know so many things, and what he wants to know most is - complex. There is no appropriate place to begin, to best convey the answer Bellamy seeks. To begin with what he is? To begin at the most recent trial and work backwards? To begin before even his birth, when Illya Morozova was penning his madness onto paper? It's heavy conversation, perhaps best left for a time when Bellamy is not so ill and tired.

Yet, even here - a foundation could be laid for that inevitable future: ] How old do you think I am?