Ossie and Giles had had the buffer of familiarity; perhaps more powerfully, Dimitri's own terror and self-loathing, and his desperate need to keep their friendship in light of it. With a stranger -- a pulse of sheer hate wracks Dimitri's chest. He shuts his eyes again, this time against a stab of pain through his skull, keeping a strangling grip on reason.

"Then we are both damned, and I have no right to judge you," he says. When he opens his eyes, his smile is bitter and dry as deep winter. "I wasn't its Favorite in my time there, but I was a novelty, one it enjoyed. It liked the color red, and I am very good at shedding blood."

Dimitri's expression breaks. His gaze drops. "I never harmed a Servant. That is all I can say in my defense. By the time I escaped that place, I was more grieved by what my friends had seen of me than the other way around. I'll say to you what I said to them -- all that matters to me is the person you are now. I'll ask nothing that you don't volunteer."