The smile that lifts Byerly's lips when he hears that bitterness isn't mocking or cruel. Rather, there's a wry sort of fondness to it. Octavius likely won't see it, sullen as he is, because the smile flits away as quickly as it came. But hatred of one's father is something that Byerly, evidently, approves of.

"You shouldn't have," he agrees cheerily. "But, on the bright side, none of the rest of us should have, either. We're all a bunch of ineffectual idiots who are doing nothing but prolonging the inevitable disaster that will destroy Thedas and all good-hearted people within it."

The ferryman, who is the second ferryman to serve the Gallows in Byerly's tenure, his predecessor having been slain not so very long ago, spits in the water. The gesture seems to signal some sort of agreement.

Then Byerly takes in a breath, and stretches languidly, and says, "If I untie your hands, will you set me on fire?"