“It gets worse every year,” he insisted.

Which might have actually been true, but mostly he was just being dramatic.

Blissfully unaware of how much of his own horror he’d neatly dropped onto Uriel’s lap in his stead, Zechariah instead contemplated the baby. Could he be in the same room as one without leading to its death? It had been … Zechariah checked his pocket watch. He had no idea how long it had been, but it had been three seconds longer yet!

“Noah is his farmhand,” Zechariah answered, lackadaisical.

That was who he was referring to, was it not? Even the barely-washed doctor (who had just repeatedly washed) could not be so daft!