“You’re so cruel to deny a dying man his one joy,” Elmer said dramatically with a smile. He was going to die, so he wanted to be kind during his final moments. Forgive everyone. Even Crouch, who had sent the arrows.

He tried to grab onto Valerians arm as he worked, for dramatic purposes: “You're a good man.” He said, because that sounded like something a dying character from a novel might say. “Don’t tell my mother that I suffered much.”

In truth, some of the pain had already started to go away by some potion Macnair had given him, which was making it harder to act the dying man.