Oh wow I can just imagine Cearball hitting on Sophie and then later learning about her husband. Shivers!

But, knowing Sophie, and depending on how much reconstructive surgery Stein has managed to do on her psyche lately, it would not be impossible that Sophie herself would rebuff Cearball by casually mentioning that she murdered the last man who made unwanted advances toward her. And of course he would totally fail to take her seriously, and then later find out she was telling the truth. Mega-creepy-shivers!

I am not yet sure Egelric is going to go after Cearball, but that's where my ideas are heading. Especially since I can see Maire manipulating Egelric into doing it. She definitely seemed to be setting Cearball up for something.

Maybe this will be the thing that destroys Egelric -- maybe he'll "slip" as he once said and kill Cearball. Or kill Maire maybe. The way he was thinking about how dangerous his fists were in the proximity of Irene's face, and that last thing he did with the knife there, it seems like he is really skirting close to the edge of outright murderous violence. How close was he to killing Irene in his desperation to prove to her how bad he is? (And how messed up is that?)

OK that is getting off-topic. But you see why I don't think Egelric is the best candidate for the serves-him-right, meets-his-match chapter right now.