No. No, I'm not that. I'm a... ( But then, the smile wanes like snow before the first spring breeze, and he is... ambivalent. Pensive, lost. Entirely uncertain. It strikes him, finally: ) I wouldn't be able to tell you what I was, towards the end. A scientist. A magician. Both of them. None of these things. They say you're nothing before you come to Ellethia. I'm not sure what you become when you've arrived. Really, mostly I was a paper pusher. There. That's the word. A bureaucrat.

( Silence, to follow: weighty, expectant. He seems to shiver, as she searches, eyes so intensely fixated on Kamala's efforts that he looks as if he might be preparing to swallow her whole. The doll emerges, and —

He does not weep. He appears, fleetingly, unable to move, even to gasp. Mouth partway open, bright of his eyes blinding. He holds out his hand — looks down to see it trembling — and joins it with the other, distrusting his own grasp. )

It is her. Please. ( Put it in his hands, as his voice breaks, thickened. ) If I... it's been so long.