Mereavus waved a hand negligently at the question. "I won't stab you," she answered. "I put myself in this state because she is, or was, whichever, my best friend. She has been for fifteen years. That doesn't just go away because she's gone, and it doesn't comfort me any to know there's nothing more I can do."<br/><br/>Half-true. She'd done it, it wasn't as though she could comfort herself that the Empress might just be all right. She knew she was wrapped in reeds at the bottom of a lake, she knew perfectly well she wasn't coming home alive.<br/><br/>He didn't understand, and she was sure he didn't have the capacity to, either.