She looked at him with the abject fear of a child who knew she'd done a bad thing. At first, anyway. Paloma remembered where and who she was and that she'd tried her best to not leave anybody lying dead this time.

"I tried to make them listen to me," she rasped, holding onto his arm and leaning like he was a raft and she stuck spinning in rapids. So much of her hair had been fried, burned away, and in more than a couple disgusting spots visible above the remnants of her cloak, melted flesh. The hand on the Brucolac was unrecognizable as the slender, only faintly scarred one he would have seen her twist anxiously into skirts and sleeves. "I only set down on the mountain for a minute. I was gonna find a goat to feed on. Snack for the road."

The giggles started, bubbling, hysterical, interspersed with the blood-tears crawling down her hideous cheeks. "They used arrows first. Hooked me on ropes. Those--" She scrabbled for the quiver over her shoulder, whimpering.