"...Actually, my only problem is that."
After hearing Iver's story, Sherlock's first reaction was to frown deeply. "How could you give Ms. Meg an unverified ritual to use? What if something happened to her..."
"If she failed to change Paths, the difference wouldn't be much anyway."
Iver cut him off. "Even if you counted every day, she wouldn't have lived for another three months. What else could you have done? We had no choice but to try treating a dead horse as if it were alive."
Sherlock fell silent.
Of course, he knew Iver was right. With just a little reasoning, he understood the price of Ms. Meg's failed class change.
If she couldn't successfully extend her life, then all they had done was bring her death forward by a few months. It wouldn't change anything.
Rather, it was precisely because he couldn't bear the cost of Ms. Meg's death, yet couldn't think of any solution... that he felt tormented by his own helplessness.
"...But you could have experimented on me first."
Sherlock answered quietly, "My life is cheaper than Ms. Meg's."
He knew his words were pale and powerless, and could even be called childish. That was why he couldn't say them loudly.
The lack of logic in those words made him feel uncomfortable even as he spoke them.
But he had no choice. If he said nothing, he would feel even worse.
Sherlock hated this sense of helplessness with all his heart.
It was just like when he was young, when his father had been imprisoned after being falsely accused of attempting to assassinate the royal family—back when the "evidence was conclusive."
Sherlock had easily been able to think of countless arguments to refute that evidence. Every piece of evidence seemed reasonable at first glance, but fell apart