Didst know there would be loss, he tells himself sternly. Didst know that thy story was a tragedy. But there's a white-hot horror in him at hearing it spoken--in knowing what none have been willing to say, that his life is not the only one forfeit. He wants to hear the name spoken aloud. He wants never to know.

He wants to be sick.

"It must eat thee up, to be here and unable to answer it," he says thickly. "Even after a year--it must be a howling void in thee."