There's a lot of truth in what Elsa says and they're things Marcus has tried to convince himself of over the years, but the truth is, no matter how headstrong Mouse has always been, he can't help but feel like he's still the reason she ended up possessed. Without him, she would have been assigned elsewhere, she wouldn't have loved him, wanted to prove herself to him, and she would have been somewhere else.

Safe.

"No," he agrees. "Her choices weren't mind. But isn't it sometimes hard not to feel as if... if you were somewhere else, if you'd been something else, maybe they'd have made different choices, too."