You have many talents, Daud, and they’ve served you. Delilah’s talents are quite different. She creates images, but she does more. She captures spirit, she insinuates her will into her subject, whatever it is. We’re witnessing her masterpiece, and perhaps yours as well.
Now you understand what you were doing all along. Emily’s life hangs in the balance, and so does yours. You’ve taken a bloody road here, and no one has enjoyed it more than I, but there are still a few choices left to make. I give my Mark sparingly, Daud. I’ve seen it used for power, for love, for money. For strange obsessions that drove the wearer mad. But very, very rarely, for redemption.