"I do not take blame in this, either, and know you mean none," Teja says. "Javert will not allow any debt, charity, mercy - he would pay or work for any thing, rather than owe gratitude for a mere bowl of stew. He paid for the door that Vlad Draculea broke, as I said. How much worse if that which was owed is his life: - it is easy to infer that he would rather throw it away than owe it to a law-breaker that is also a good man. That realisation alone must have confounded him utterly -- and then that debt added to it, when you freed him instead of killing him! Now it does make sense!"

Teja shakes his head.

"But I do not think he attempted suicide-by-vampire. I know not why he went with Vlad Draculea; he seems to have promised help, but I know not what for, exactly, and neither will speak of it. Vlad mopes spectacularly, or did, for he has left now; Javert is so worried that his injuries may be seen that he refuses to roll up his sleeves for work, which in any other forge would mean grave danger of setting himself alight while he works; there is a reason why we have leather aprons and bare arms! They appear to have spoken of many things while there; but whatever good that might have done seems to have been utterly erased by what Vlad did --- which he regrets bitterly, but cannot ever un-do."