There's a long pause, somewhere between dead air and a dial tone. Long enough she might be tempted to consider the call abruptly terminated, and then -

“... third time is the charm, is that not the phrase?” Another sensation like a laugh, though this one is cold, hard, weighs the chest down rather than fills it with light. He had nursed the same... yes, it's definitely a hope, that the breath she'd seen leave would indeed would be his last. “And yet here we still are. No, as tempting as it might be to charge full-pelt at the nearest foe, were there any worth the name save yourself,” - again, he's definitely fishing, trying to stir the pride he knows she must have in her companions, to get a clearer image than that quick flash - “I am content, for now, to abide.”