“I’d have figured it out. I will not do this.”

“Look, it’s not as if I’m going to die.”

“Aren’t you?” she said, and there was such a look in her eyes that I stepped back a pace. I realized suddenly that she didn’t have to change my mind. She could replace it. She could walk out of here in my body, with hers under my/her arm. If I’d realized it, surely she had, too.

She had. I saw it in her face. Then her eyes closed tight; she steepled her fingers over her nose and mouth, turned, and walked into the shadows near the front of the store.

“That would be a Tom sort of trick, wouldn’t it?” she said pleasantly. “I could just bludgeon you into doing what I want.”

“Neither of us would get out of town.”

“That’s probably true. I suppose this way or the other yields up the same thing. Including the bludgeon. But do you know,” she said, and she dropped her hands and looked at me, her self-possession in tatters, “I’d forgotten exactly what Tom was like? That sucking evil that pulls you into it, that bends light, that declares itself the center of the universe and you an impurity, there on sufferance — no, that’s not right. That makes it sound exclusive to Tom. I didn’t know I’d changed, Sparrow, because I didn’t have my own kind to measure myself against.” She stopped. I couldn’t tell if she’d forced herself to, or if she couldn’t force herself to go on.

I had to make three tries at saying anything before I succeeded. “Then maybe you won’t throw it away after all.”

The silence was four heartbeats long. I counted.

“Ah. I didn’t think you’d figure it out.”

“Anybody who was paying attention would have noticed that you were snuffing every Horseman who helped push the Button. You’ve been dropping artistic hints all night.”

She sighed unevenly, which might have been laughter. “And you were there when I told China Black I’d have to leave one alive, after all.”

“Yeah. But I think you picked the wrong one.”

She walked back into the light, and stopped within arm’s reach of me. I stayed where I was. “Is this,” she said, “your way of making me reconsider my choice?”

The conversation was too intense to bear, had been for a long time; and I was tired. “Yes. No. I don’t know.”

Beano opened the door at the back of the shop. “They like it,” he said. “It’s a deal.”

I’d known they were going to like it. I’d known Beano would talk them into it. “Fine,” I told him. “As soon as I know she’s clear, you get paid.”

Beano frowned at that, but I glared back, and he finally shrugged. It was only time.

Frances’s hand lifted, then dropped. “This is a hard thing you want me to live with,” she said, doubt in her voice again.

“You’ve had a lot of practice,” I reminded her. “You’ll manage.” And I walked away, to the farthest back room, to wait.