What she saw there horrified her. Mihai lay alone in a large room with a single bed, surrounded by machines and pulleys. He was lying flat on his back in a bed that resembled more a torture device than a place of rest. A metal ring. fitted with sharp-tipped screws, was fastened to his skull. It looked like a kind of crown. placed over his black hair, with metal spokes converging at the center into a point through which a steel cable passed. The cable was drawn tight by a pulley system with weights, mounted behind the head of the bed. Another set of weights, connected to a second pulley. pulled at his legs in the opposite direction. Mihai was pale, unshaven, and motionless as a mummy, able only to move his eyes and lips. A faint. barely-formed smile betrayed the joy of seeing Sanda again, a familiar, beloved presence he would have embraced in a heartbeat under any other circumstances. Now, he could only watch as she leaned over him at the edge of the bed, her eyes brimming with tears. "Mihai, my love, this terrible thing happened because of me. How could I have done such a thing?"