Status Updates From The Shadow of the Torturer ...

It's a little disjointed, dancing between the present and Severian's memories of his past, but I think that's intentional. What I like is how detached and blase he is about a torture description that is pretty horrible. Like, 'hey, it's my job, no big deal.' And a brief mention of how they obtain potential torturers from their pregnant mothers is just kind of dropped in there as if, again, NBD. A bit chilling.