"But that's exactly the point, my dear Ruby," Mictain said, smirking. "My mere existence annoys them to no end, and because of that, they ignore me. Whatever else I could do wouldn't annoy them as much, because they would just ignore it. Claiming Uriel's child as mine, however, would very probably force them to acknowledge my existence. And as far as protecting Uriel goes," he continued, "actually it would get her in a worse situation, if you think about it. As I already said, Pestilence is mostly regarded as neutral, but I'm the one the Host hates most at the moment. If anything, it would only make her more detested among her kind. She just might accept my offer, though, just to protect Pestilence. I guess we'll now see just how far her love for him goes, or whether she truly loved him at all."

At her statement about the Horsepeople's loyalty to each other, he just nodded. "That rules out the Horsepeople, then," he said. "So, if there is a third party involved, it's either Odin or somebody we don't know about. So, it now looks rather likely that one of the two, either Uriel or Pestilence, was the reason to their break-up." He smirked. "Of course, there is still the distant possibility that the child is actually not Pestilence's, but given Uriel's lying skills, I sincerely doubt that."