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There's no answer to that, and you both know it. There's no reason for him to say anything right now, except for him liking the sound of his own voice. You wish he'd get on with it. But he won't, until you answer, which means he's leaving the severity up to you: do you make him mad or <span class="mu-i">royally</span> mad?
If you just woke up, if you were feeling particularly vivacious or feisty or plain spiteful, 'royally mad' might sound good. But you are tired. It has been a long day. You just want this over, so you can cry and lick your wounds in private and sleep. "Yeah," you say neutrally.
He strides over, footsteps booming on the tile, while you inspect yourself— eye contact might also tip the scale into 'royally.' Someone has moved you onto a smooth white table; someone has removed your coat; there is something in where your good eye was; there is an odd rough line, like scar tissue, running from the point of your chin down past your collarbone. And that is as far as you get before you are swung with great force off the table.
Richard holds you by the collar of your shirt a foot off the ground, at arm's length— and his arms are longer than yours, so all you can do is grapple his pale wrist and kick at air. He slings you around like a sack of feathers into a waiting column, which— you ought to clarify. To <span class="mu-i">him</span> you're a sack of feathers. To you, you're still a sack of heavy flesh, which goes some length to explain why your vision blackens a little when your skull smacks into the marble, and why your organs jangle against each other, and why you emit an inadvisable "Ow."
>[-1 ID: 3/(9)]
He regards you impassively, or with the appearance of impassiveness: an impassive person does not shove other people into columns, you think. Though you're not stupid enough to press the point, not when he's leaning into your face. "Charlotte," he says. "I think that, somewhere along the line, you have been <span class="mu-i"><span class="mu-s">misapprehended.</span></span> Don't you?"
You flick your eyes, enough to serve as an acknowledgement, also to stop looking at his bared teeth. Which are sharper than you remembered.
"I think you do," he continues. "I think you have been made to develop a <span class="mu-i">grossly</span> inaccurate picture of the world and your place in it. About the power you do or do not have, and the permissions you do or do not have, and the <span class="mu-i">role</span> you are to play, as opposed to the ones you've conjured up— excuse me, been made to conjure up— inside that vacuous head of yours. But of course I'm not <span class="mu-i">blaming</span> you, Charlie." He shoves you again against the column to emphasize how much he isn't blaming you. "You being an ignorant little brat, I'm sure it's all too easy to fill you up with stupid ideas. Yes?"
(2/4?)
