“The
Reaper?” Fiona asks.
“Yeah,
the Reaper,” the sandman replies, “The Grim Reaper, Angel of
Death, you know.”
“You
mean the skinny guy in the black hood,” Fiona asks, “Has that big
sheath thing.”
“He's
skeletal,” the sandman insists, “And it's a scythe.”
“What
did they do to him then?”
“Took
advantage of a short-term trend to steal his power and share it among
themselves.”
“How
did they do that?”
“Through
the dreamers. They turned him into a caricature, a laughing stock, a
joke. You've got to have some respect, especially for someone so
old. They used us!”
“I've
sort of got the impression that that stuff goes on all the time.”
“Among
their lordships, sure, of course, but you don't expect to see the
Embodiments behaving like that.”
It's
at that moment that Strauss returns.
