[This is new to her, to share the intimacy of a real friendship with someone. Seeing the other girl sitting and mirroring her snake's hisses, there's no calculation and no curiosity about destruction. There is only goodwill, and that surprises Esther more than the strange girl in the memory or even the memory itself.

When she feels Lua's grip slip she withdraws her hand, astonishment still plain on her face.] No. [It answers both questions equally well, although it's plain she knows Lua a bit better now.] I've never seen her.

[There's something wrong with Lua's memory, she now presumes. Perhaps shock? She's familiar with it. When the initial animal thrill of her first kills had passed she'd done similar, walking into the room with the intention of talking to her father. The details of that first murder seemed too extreme, too macabre, to be real and for some time she had convinced herself they weren't.

Her delusion had quickly faded into the knowledge that she'd finished him, and could now cast him aside as easily as he had her.

And who knew it would be so easy, really? The hardest part had been pulling his bitch wife's body over to his, then it was simply a matter of lighting the funeral pyre and all the evidence went up in smoke. At least, such was the idea.

Yes, perhaps shock is what Lua's suffering from, in addition to the flood. And at the idea that she might still be sharing Esther suddenly feels naked, vulnerable, and tries to keep her sudden surge of fear in check.]

In any other situation I would have been pleased to meet you, Lua. This may not be the best day.