I think they're probably quite good. [The cakes. She doesn't think Iggy could possibly understand the rest of it; no one could. Even John, perhaps, doesn't fully understand her or her love, or the great hugeness that she is, or what Alecto has always hungered for since being made flesh. She has made peace with that, for the most part, except for when it sometimes makes her so angry.

She wants to ask about John, too, as much as she doesn't want to keep talking about him at all. Instead, she says:] I was told Prince Ianthe Naberius is here. Is she in the body of that very pretty boy with the wonderful hair? Or her own? [She can't feel Paul, or Crown, or Pyrrha, and everyone else feels like muted blips under her skin. Nothing tangible she can hold onto. She is not whole, here, and she hates it.]