His face went even hotter and redder, and Mildmay started to answer, but even Corbie wouldn'ta been able to understand. So he made himself slow the fuck down, push the words out past his scar and his shame. "Couldn't stomach what she wanted me to do no more."

It wasn't a lie. Not really. He didn't wanna be that guy at all, who he'd let Keeper turn him into. But he'd count it a favor from all the powers and saints if Corbie heard it only about the killing, and not the other things Keeper'd made him do. Or how it wasn't the killing, or the rest that got him to stop, it was realizing, no matter what he did, what he made himself into to please Keeper, to make her love him. Not none of it was gonna work. He was just her clockwork bear, her knife, and you didn't love no knife. Kethe, he didn't think Keeper could love at all.

But it was why he'd done all the shit he'd done for her.