I don’t get the chance. She hurries on, vanishing a moment later and reappearing down the line. I hear her offer the same salutation to a senator, a cowhand and a scribe, and they in turn respond to her just as they do to every other spirit who comes close enough. The susurrus builds on itself, the same words over and over until they mean less than nothing and then until they are a single word spoken by a single mouth: the mad, dead mouth of Erebus.