“Don’t worry,” Mr. Rose croaked. “I will not try to kill you. I couldn’t if I tried. You’ve grown much too powerful, and the years have ruined me. But you must know, I was doing the right thing. I saw a vision of things to come. Patricia, you will be at the center of so much pain. You will betray and you will destroy. If you had even any conscience, you would end your own life right now.”

For so long, she’d imagined this moment. When she was out until dawn night after night, she’d been rehearsing for this. Facing this bloody sadist, showing him she could not be terrorized. But she hadn’t expected him to be so helpless, literally showing his belly. She couldn’t help feeling sorry for him. She didn’t take in what he was saying at first, about how she should kill herself—and then she had to spit on the pavement.

“Nice try,” she said. But her arms and face burned like the worst poison ivy. “Everything you ever said to me was a lie,” she told the huddled old man on the sidewalk. “That’s all you do.”

“I had assumed a witch with your power levels could tell if I was lying. Please. Please listen.” He looked up, and Patricia was startled to see tears all over his filthy cheeks. “I killed so many people, but I still couldn’t stand to look upon what you and your friends are going to bring about. Have they told you about the Unraveling yet?”

“The what?” Patricia pulled back. “Forget it. I’m not listening to you anymore.”

“You have to listen! Patricia Delfine, I know you better than anyone.” She backed up until she was up against the parking meters, and he rose from his cardboard mat, waving a bandaged finger. He breathed foulness at her. “I spied on you for months when you were a child. I parked outside your house. I listened to all your conversations, night and day. I know everything. I even know about the Tree!”

“What tree?” Patricia swallowed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Ask them about the Unraveling. Ask them! See what they tell you.”

“Oh, fuck me.” Kawashima was approaching from the nearby hardware store, plastic bag swinging from one hand. “You have got to be joking. This asshole, again?”

“Theodolphus,” Dorothea said from behind him, looking at the grimy man. She managed to make just his name into the worst insult.

“You know this guy?” Patricia said.

Kawashima ignored her and said to Theodolphus, “You are just the worst, man. You’re like a bad rash. I thought we killed you a long time ago.”