“I haven’t given you enough?” he asked with mock shock. “No. That’s not all. They seem to have fallen from a great height. Maybe from the walls of a desert fortress. I have to file a report today.”

Do I sound crazy?

“What other clues?” Rathven asked.

Suddenly irritable: “Jumbled memories. Including a conversation with the dead man. Must have imagined that.”

“What?”

“Just what I said! Are you deaf?” The man laughed again. Blindingly, unbelievably bright, a light like the sun shot through the window. The night sky torn apart by it.

Realized he’d shouted at her. “Sorry.”

Rath gave him a look he could not interpret. “You’re not the same today,” she said.

“Do you think I can do what I do and not be changed?” Spitting out the words. “Take memory bulbs? Work in the station?”

“I don’t care,” Rathven said. “If you change too much, I won’t let you back in here.” An intensity behind her gaze. Seeing someone or something other than Finch. Couldn’t even imagine …

“Sorry,” Finch said. The words took an effort. Gritted his teeth. Said it again. Fuck!

Rathven looked down. Took a sip of tea. Said, “So the dead man was talking to you?”

Fair enough. Move on. Realized that he needed to take more care with her. She’s not one of the detectives at the station.

“It must have been,” he said. “Imaginary, I mean.”

“What else?”

“Nothing else. Just the piece of paper that symbol was on the back of. Some words. Never Lost. And then bellum omnium contra omnes. Ever heard those words before?”

“No,” she said. Still, Finch sensed interest.

“You don’t know what it means?”

“How would I know what it means if I’ve never heard it before?”

Couldn’t bring himself to say “sorry” again, so he said nothing. “Maybe you’re asking the wrong question. Bellum omnium contra omnes.” Rathven said it like an echo from another world. As if it had no meaning at all.

“How do you mean?”

“I mean, does it matter what it means? Why did he have words on a scrap of paper when he died? Pretend for a second that it’s any word. Any word you know: city, cow, apartment, saucepan, book, paragraph.”

“A code? A password?” Felt foolish for not seeing it before. “Might not mean anything at all.”

She pointed at him. “And that’s what makes it valuable.”

“But why? Why have part of it in gibberish?”

She shrugged, gave him an impish look. “I’m not the detective.”

I’m not a detective either.

“We should be detectives together.” Relaxing into their time-worn call and response.