Lilith,

Dr. Birch has come to talk to me, several times in fact. I can’t believe that you made a human, a ‘mere mortal’, do your dirty work. But I suppose commanding your lessers comes naturally to you.

I want to be perfectly clear here. I am not killing you for Uncle Vance, though his death does ache my soul. I am killing you because I rebuke your sinlessness. In all my research, I’ve never found any evidence that God has sanctioned your millennia-long murder spree. You’ve never questioned it though, have you? That’s your sinlessness, never having to worry that you might be wrong.

Well, I worry. I worry about everything now. I don’t care if you check your numbers twice before a man gets trampled to death. I worry about you, what you’ve done, and what you’ll do remorselessly long after I’m dead.

If you love me so much, here are my terms. Surrender yourself unto me by tomorrow midnight, in Rodge’s cellar, or I’ll cut my own throat, and my death will be on your hands just like my uncle’s. And if your new lover tries to interfere, well, I respect the good Doctor Birch a great deal for someone of his background and I want no harm to come to him, but if pointing a knife at his chest is what it takes for a trickster to stay to hell away, I’ll do it.