The thief would mumble on occasion, in a dialect he didn’t immediately recognize. Some of the words he would catch, yes, on such occasions when he stopped to listen. It seemed harmless, so he filtered it out. Prayer, or whatever it took to keep a body going, wasn’t much of his concern.

Except what he heard, over and over, made him wary. He hadn’t realized at first, for the pronunciation was older and softer, but he couldn’t have been mistaken.

No one called aloud that name… No one who didn’t want a personal visit from the God of Death, himself.