Hah, well. I was there for the end of it! Those kids probably could have killed him without my help, but not without cost, and they wouldn't have been able, or probably even willing, to save his host. He'd decayed so much by then that the last soul was suppressed, not destroyed. Miserable existence for that poor boy.

[Need looks at Frieda sidelong a moment, wondering how much she should admit to. Hm, well, this King of the Walls stuff certainly is dramatic enough that she might be believed. And Frieda seems like she knows what 'discretion' means.]

And for the beginning, too. I was advising a professor at a medical college in Predain when the Black Flames was coming to power. He went and became Prime Minister and I knew the kinds of things he'd promised.