There was just a moment of utter silence, and then a loud peal of laughter.
Gabriel's color came and went.

His heart winced, but not his eye.

Young hearts are tender, and a joke like this cuts deeply.

But just as he was about to yield, and drop the tell-tale tear of a sensitive, mortified boy, he caught the eye of Abel Newt.

It was calmly studying him as a Roman surgeon may have watched the gladiator in the arena, while his life-blood ebbed away.