Hansi's mouth purses slightly in dissatisfaction when the Piper laughs. He's not being cruel, or even unkind, but even the most worldweary child remains a child underneath all of their grief, their sudden maturity acting both as shield and succor to small, still-beating heart beneath. Girlish insecurity makes Hansi's posture temporarily tense (she will not wilt, she tells herself, and so she stiffens instead) and for a brief moment Hansi seems to be more her actual age (an orphan, a bitter one, asking a stranger to make bad men get gone).

She's stil half-frowning when she goes rummaging through her satchel. What else she has in there is anyone's guess but it's the entirety of her life, bundled up and carried on her back. The loss of family makes other things — material things — seem insignificant and small in their loss. And so Hansi had taught herself how to make do with very little — though arguably she has nothing, nothing except her vengeance. After a good dig she finally withdraws a little notebook, its pages tattered and worn, some threatening to fall out from where they've come loose from the binding. Inside is page after page of drawing, the first primitive and frightening (the drawings of a child), the later developed and more mature but menacing nevertheless. If the Piper flips through the pages, he'll find five faces altogether, the fifth little more than silhouette and shadow (the most terrible of the lot, with a kerchief drawn over his face; the leader of this menacing gang).

"No names yet," she tells him, her eyes darting between her own work and the Piper's eyes in an attempt to gage his reaction. "Some people don't like talking death and dark deeds with girls. But you, they'll talk to. The names won't be hard."