. . .

Lucy scowls.

“Well,” she says, “that’s all very good, and you probably expect me to go away and let you have kids and raise them and name them after my sister, but I’ll hardly —”

“No,” says Tom.

There is something awful in his voice. It stops her.

“They’re all already dead and gone.”

“What?”

“So just kill me,” he says. “It’s OK. The humans will throng and live, or you’ll kill them, or whatever, and it’s all gone, and even stupid Bertram Gulley and his golden face”

— and Tom here kicks it —

“Just kill me,” he says.

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