Howl watches the exchange with a furrowed brow. The scene is dense with detail and the implications that come with it. Your Radiance. Your son's chambers. The sun rise. I'm sorry. And that unfinished statement from when the healer first entered. As Howl looks to Emet-Selch to anxiously gauge his reaction to all this, an unsettling suspicion begins to take shape.

"The great equalizer," Howl says aloud as his gaze drifts to the floor. His grip on the door handle loosens, and for a moment his arm hangs horizontally by nothing but his curled fingers. Then he finally lets go, and his hand swings limply to his side, and the door creaks shut.

"Nobody can escape it. And... neither ancients nor kings nor mages of eld can stop it."

Howl is mostly talking to himself, but he does not keep his voice down and means for Emet-Selch and the shade of the imagined servant to hear him. The look on Emet-Selch's face... the emotion seeping out of his mind and into the walls and floor and air... it is just too heartbreaking to look for long. Howl glances away again and sighs.

What will they do now? Shall they be off to the 'chambers' next? He doesn't like this. He doesn't feel good about it. Emet-Selch has given Howl a path to saving him, but he does not like what he suspects he'll have to do.