He entered the foyer, using his key, walked to the elevator, and took it up to the sixth floor. The feeders did not follow. He imagined them scaling the outside wall, climbing steadily, relentlessly closer to the windows of his apartment. He envisioned an enormous tidal wave washing toward a sleeping town.

He exited the elevator and moved to his apartment door, used his key again, and entered.

The apartment was shadowy and silent, with only a single lamp burning at one end of the old couch. Stefanie sat reading in the halo of its light, her exquisite face lifting to greet him, her strange, smoky eyes filling with shock as he closed the door and came into the light.

“John, what happened?” she whispered, rising quickly.

He put out his hand, a defensive gesture, and shook his head. “Don’t get up, Stef. Just stay where you are, please.” He leaned heavily on his staff, studying her perplexed face, the way she brushed back her dark hair, cool and reserved, watchful. “Simon Lawrence isn’t dead,” he said quietly.

He saw a flicker of something dark in her eyes, but her face never changed. “What do you mean? Why would he be dead? What are you talking about, John?”

He shrugged. “It’s simple. I went to the museum to speak with him. He was waiting for me. He admitted everything—firing me without giving me a hearing, stealing the money himself, working to destroy Fresh Start, all of it. Then he attacked me. He overpowered me, threw me down, and walked away. When he left, I went after him. I wanted to kill him I would have, too, except for Nest Freemark. She came back from the airport to warn me. It wasn’t Simon Lawrence I was looking for at all, she said.” He paused, watching her carefully. “It was you.”

She shook her head slowly, a strange little smile playing over her lips. “I have no idea what you are talking about.”

He nodded indulgently. She was so beautiful, but everything about her was a lie. “The fact of the matter is, I was ready to believe everything you wanted me to believe. That Simon Lawrence was the demon. That he was responsible for all the bad things happening. That he was intent on ruining my life, on using me, on breaking me down. I had convinced myself. Then, when you tricked me into coming upstairs at the museum, when you disguised yourself as Simon and attacked me, humiliated me, taunted me, and cast me aside as if I were worthless, I was primed and ready to kill him the moment I found him again. And I would have killed him, too, if not for Nest.”

“John—”

“She told me it was you, Stef, and after I got past the initial shock that such a thing could possibly be, that I could have been fooled so completely, that I could have been so stupid, I began to realize what had happened. You were so clever, Stef. You used me right from the beginning. You let me approach you in Boston, played me like a fish on a line, and then reeled me in. I was hooked. I loved you. You made yourself so desirable and so accessible I couldn’t help myself. I wanted to believe you were the beginning, the cornerstone, of a new life. I was through being a Knight of the Word; I wanted something else. You understood what that something was better than I did, and you gave it to me. You gave me the promise of a life with you.