[Sleight of hand. She can do sleight of hand, she can do stage theatrics. She knows how to disorient, and more importantly she knows how to make everyone look where she wants them to look, so that they won't see what she's really doing with her other hand all along.

She scratches her nails lightly along his scalp, seeking to comfort, desperate to offer some small measure of sanctuary to him before this night properly begins.]

...I am, though.

[She corrects him softly, as her hand stills.]

Because you are being used, too, aren't you? We both are. By this — all of this. The spectacle. The hierarchy. We are being fed to it, the both of us.