[The word "failure" weighs heavily on Stephen's mind, too, even though he is not the one to utter it. The sorcerer reaches out to scoot the book closer to him, eyes scanning the page, his mind whirring, whirring-]

The usual when it comes to susceptibility, then.

[The young, old, those already weakened. This doesn't surprise him, and his vision rakes across the book, committing what he reads to memory to go over later.]

If the cure's not in Thorne, then we look elsewhere. [Just as one focuses their attention away from a general practitioner to a specialist, should need be.] Ikorr... Don't they wheel and deal in blood?

[Insofar as the news has recently spread.]

Do you think they'd have some insight into this problem? The opportunity to ask might not come again for a while.