He relaxed a beat. "I don't expect you to break the confidences of the dead." Not entirely. "But... did she understand what was happening? Why I... why I killed her?"
He remembered Susan begging him to do it. To use the ritual. She might have done it herself, but with the Change on her, she couldn't feel her own hands. She'd wanted to protect their daughter.
But it could have been desperation. It could have been a trick of the vampires, wanting to inflict one final, devastating blow against the wizard that had bested them. The guilt was riding him hard, and sometimes it was difficult to breathe.
His eyes fell back to the headstone, wondering if it shouldn't be him in there after all.