For his own part, Wrench has grappled with none of the moral or visceral quandaries related to the buffet spread. His upbringing has given the man the advantage of being well versed in organ meat, and a willful eye towards ignorance is just enough to allow him to assume the animals these were harvested from were natural prey. It is, of course, an extreme leap of logic for a man who has seen Deerington serve up its horrors on offered plates tucked with festive napkins time and time again, but today he can't seem to resist. Something draws him to eat that goes beyond hunger. The desperate need nags at his mind and pulls him along until he's greedily shuffling bits of the spread onto his own plate.

Brains are a true delicacy. Liver is a more common offering in the circles he's traveled, but no less delicious. Wrench even scoops some slices of heart and a tract of intestine. His plate is nearly heaping by the time he reaches the end of the buffet. It looks like a generous helping for a man of his stature, but for a guy who's hardly eaten anything since his arrival the food might easily weigh against every bite he's taken thus far.

He's already forked a bit of the heart even as he's turning away from the buffet table, too ravenous to wait to find a place to sit. But it's a familiar face that stops him in his tracks, and stalls the utensil halfway to his lips. Wrench feels drenched in ice, and as if by instinct he reaches into his pocket for his knife.