It makes no sense. What could Hunter possibly have to hide, that she would endure this, if not for ever, at least for just long enough? Surely no one is so wretchedly ornery as to die out of spite? She had a good life, a nice place to live. For social contact she had her neighbours, bartering and making trades off the grid, upcycling and retooling. She had her school for miniature refuseniks, the local kids to whom she read moderately inappropriate stories. Neith, indeed, remembers some of them from her own childhood: harmlessly wicked value-inversion jokes about kindly monsters and nasty knights. Diana Hunter was angry and formerly successful and where she was not loved she was mostly left alone. Why would she bother to hold out?