He has to glance up at that; there's no avoiding it. And, having looked -

I'm dreaming, he thinks, and What kind of sick sense of humor--? and I look like hell. Chaos in his head, a shuddering sensation deep in his chest: disbelief and rage and a kind of atavistic horror and something else, something worse, that might even be sympathy.

Only one of those is useful.

The third heartbeat passes, finally. Cassian shoves everything else down, and looks the other in the eye. In a voice as cold and even as fallen snow, he says, "What is this?"