Several things Vale has done over the course of the novel will go down in history as the dumbest thing anybody could do in the given scenario, but hanging out with Cephas when Cephas is surely infected and Vale surely isn’t just because he looks sad takes the cake.

okay google what to do if youre a creator but your mental illness stops you from creating and youre also jealous of other people who can create even with mental illnesses and you know the only thing you can do is to push through and create but you cant and that makes you so jealous of people who can that it double paralyses you and makes you seethe with rage and disappointment in yourself but then you remember that your creations werent getting attention back when you did create so you decide its got no point anyway WHAT THEN GOOGLE?!?!? WHAT THEN!?!?!?!