"Oh, I don't know," he says thoughtfully, putting the sugar and rosewater and almonds away as the chicken boils, and taking out the spinach. "The right poison at the right dosage can be entirely merciful, combined with enough of an opiate, although always distressing for observers, of course. Now, a garotte," his eyes gleam, "I don't think I could call that merciful at all. A garotte is terror-in-the-night, pure thanotic lust. Its kindness is to the killer; who needn't see the eyes bulge or the face darken, or do laundry after, or fear the tracing of his fingerprints. The dying one only has the comfort of someone to lean on, and I can't imagine that it's terribly welcome," he laughs, "under the circumstance."
"Gloves," he repeats longingly. "I miss gloves." Not that he needs them anymore, now his claws are gone. He misses them, too, the slide of bronze wickedness out from his fingertips. But he quirks a smile. "One must wonder who it was Borgia-kun was angry with, and why the lady was so insistent on the deaths of Borgia-kun and his family."
"There's illness to be passed through blood," he says matter-of-factly, "a most direct method. And beings, too, who can pass for human, and the passage of what serves them for blood, in a human's veins, winds through the system and becomes a corruption, according to the different natures of these beings."