Mm.

[ Right. For Bastien, it would have been - what - thirteen and knobby-kneed? By feels a strange little pang at the thought. The teenaged years weren't good, certainly, but they were necessary in many ways. By had started to figure out who he was in those years. It couldn't possibly be easy, to spend them pretending to be a series of others. ]

I think that's true. If it had been a combination of different people, or even of strangers, I think I'd have found it quite funny, actually.