"...An assistant is valuable, but at times is a hindrance. If they slip, they can injure something important that needs to stay intact until later. Calipers cutting the aorta. You hold it together with your own grip, because they can't die just yet. The dissection isn't complete. It's annoying to have to unwind the intestines with one hand, but you've done it before."

She says it evenly, the images in her head coming back from where she'd boxed them away. They at least had a reason. A stranger's life for their own. She only had her whims and her trophies, and every scrap of knowledge of how the body works must have been harvested from another face.

"May I ask you a question, Jean?"