Strange indeed are the ways of the dead. For his near rape I died, torn from life and family and polished love; for my death Orpheus, true husband, sang my name unending into the waxen ear of the deathgod and his deathwife and died for his failure, for his happy impatience. So. But these are the things that happen — the accidents that shape and mar a life.

But for him! For Aristaeus! The rules that govern our pale rage are strange, strange and indirect. What could we do? The living have weight, substance; too much for our insubstantial hands to shift. We move always on a slant. So we took his bees, opened their eyes and their six-sided doors; we do not kill.

A small thing, the loss of livelihood. With such tiny spurs we drive our revenge on.