Ruthven nods. "If it helps at all, she knows it was a....desperate thing, and not a good one, and she was very miserable indeed about it. But there's a great deal she's miserable over, and this was just one more of a great many unpleasant and soul-tarnishing things she's had to do, and dislike herself for."

He reaches out to the counter. "These are my Dunhills, aren't they?" And lights one.

"The other thing she told me about that situation was that....the man she killed was part of the Shop, was involved with the experimental torture that lost Augustus an eye. It doesn't make things any better, but a trifle more balanced."