"And then what, Meesei?" Janius virtually interrupted. He held out a hand. "You covet that book as if it will be stolen away. If you're still around to even help us by the time you find the cure -- which is not likely with how little you have even been here with us lately -- what's to stop you getting one more piece of knowledge? Or one more after that?" He shook his head and lowered his hand. "You [i]are[/i] acting just like them. You are making up excuses just to go in one more time."

"Janius, please." Sabine quietly stopped him before he could continue. She looked to Meesei with a slightly parted mouth and a worried brow. "Meesei, when you started using that book, you promised me that you would not let it consume you," she said. Her eyes flicked down to Meesei's visible ribs and back up to her eyes. "It is consuming you. It has changed you. This is too much. If we lose you, none of us will get a way to counteract the gas. And...we will lose you. It hurts me. What you are doing is hurting me. I cannot stand you disappearing like this."

Throughout, Sabine was completely frozen apart from her face. She was evidently making as much of an effort as she could to be stoic.