Katurian's eyes scanned over the riddles. Words and words and words. They made him feel uncomfortably small in that room. Alpha, he had remembered, had covered the walls of his apartment with Katurian's stories. Katurian had sat there, drugged, shuddering so hard his legs clicked against their bounds.

"There are a lot of them," he said, grasping for stability in the obvious, in its simplicity. His eyes snagged on one in particular. BIRTHED INTO ONESELF. It sounded like as much nonsense as the dead birds.

"How long have you been at it?"