[That day might turn out to be today, he's getting sorely tempted. But he makes one more effort to make Ivar understand, to see that it's not something he's doing out of some perverse wish to abandon him.]

I'm hard to kill.

[That's just the truth.]

But I'd be a hell of a lot easier to kill if I stuck around after dropping you someplace safe, it's hard to hide in a situation like that.