"...If all of your [vitality] has been stripped away from you, then you were in far more danger, attempting that, than I had begun to suspect.  And your exosuit more protective, if you survived."

"[Negative levels] can partially strip away [vitality] temporarily and revocably.  [Status] might detect them, [Death Ward] would suppress them for [minutes].  But I already-seem-to-know-and-predict-in-my-heart that those [spells] will detect nothing and suppress nothing.  If the [Outer God] simply -- stripped away your [vitality], in the process of rewriting you -- that is terrifying even by [Dark Tapestry] standards."

He files away the point that alter-Mariona expects him to be 'overprotective' to try to fit into some kind of coherent sense later.

"...If all of your [vitality] has been stripped away from you, then you were in far more danger, attempting that, than I had begun to suspect.  And your exosuit more protective, if you survived."

"[Negative levels] can partially strip away [vitality] temporarily and revocably.  [Status] might detect them, [Death Ward] would suppress them for [minutes].  But I already-seem-to-know-and-predict-in-my-heart that those [spells] will detect nothing and suppress nothing.  If the [Outer God] simply -- stripped away your [vitality], in the process of rewriting you -- that is terrifying even by [Dark Tapestry] standards."